Health & Fitness
Coventry Fire Task Force Meeting
I attended the Task Force meeting tonight. It got pretty rowdy in there. The Task Force's plan for the Coventry Main Fire District is to have two fire stations, Washington Street and Hill Farm, running two engines. The engines will be leased for $7000 a month. They will have to get all new equipment. There will only be four firefighters on at a time along with the 6 EMT's that will be of no help to fire suppression whatsoever.
They want to contract a private ambulance company to provide EMS who will bill insurance companies. They will have two ambulances in the town and a third designated to backfill. They will not have to maintain the ambulances due to it being a private company. Representative Morgan says there will be a chase car or fly car for the Paramedic Supervisor. There will not be any EMT less than a Cardiac. The Task Force says that three brand new rescues fully staffed around the clock would cost taxpayers $900,000 a year if they were fire run.
The Task Force's plan will offer a tax rate of $1.45 per thousand for residents of Central Coventry. This is a 50% decrease in fire taxes. The savings of $1.05 per thousand would be used to cover any additional debt. The Task Force says this plan will lower fire rescue expenses by $2million annually.
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I had a private conversation with Marie Baker and Pat Morgan. They said that they have sixteen pledges who will volunteer as firefighters, but they could not say who. They did say that that have found somebody to be the chief of the department, but again would not say who. They asked me if I wanted to volunteer...I declined.
In conclusion, tonight's meeting did not bring much additional information to the table. Pat Morgan looked very flustered and it appeared as though they were not prepared. As expected, just a very bad plan operations wise. Coventry citizens: Vote their plan down