The Statesboro-Bulloch Chamber of Commerce hosted city and county staff and elected officials Monday morning for a one-hour discussion – and possible renewal of negotiations – regarding the Bulloch County Fire Department’s approaching July 1 takeover of service to the five-mile district previously served by the Statesboro Fire Department outside the city limits.

As previously reported, Chamber President and CEO Jennifer Davis had written to the chamber membership reporting that city and county leaders agreed to meet again at the chamber’s request. They had revealed that the meeting would be held Monday but were intentionally not announcing it as a public meeting of either the City Council or Board of Commissioners. It was held in the Chamber of Commerce headquarters, and the Statesboro Herald did not have a reporter present.

But the Herald heard about it afterward from Statesboro City Manager Charles Penny and also interviewed Bulloch County Public Safety Director Randy Tillman, who will begin serving this week as also the interim county manager. The reporter also skimmed through a video from the meeting posted on the Facebook page of the Bulloch Action Coalition after Penny noted that the BAC’s co-founder, Lawton Sack, had been at the meeting making a video.

Tillman and county Fire Chief Ben Tapley, commission Chairman David Bennett and Commissioner Timmy Rushing attended for the county. The city government had Mayor Jonathan McCollar and Councilmembers Shari Barr and John Riggs there, was well as Penny, Assistant City Manager Jason Boyles, city Fire Chief Tim Grams and Finance Director Cindy West. City Attorney Cain Smith was briefly visible in the video.

Davis and Chamber Board member John Roach started the meeting with some explanation of why the business organization’s board had wanted it to occur.

Nothing new was decided, except that Fire Chiefs Grams and Tapley, City Manager Penny and interim County Manager Tillman will meet again for negotiation. This seems likely to start from a central question: whether the automatic aid agreement that has existed between the city and county fire departments will end effective July 1 along with the intergovernmental agreement on the five-mile Statesboro Fire Tax District. Rather than have the city accept a reduction to half of the fire district’s revenue and service area for one year as the county proposed in a Jan. 30 joint meeting, Penny had previously advised City Council not only to let that agreement expire June 30 as the county had initiated, but also to end the automatic aid agreement.

“The fire chief (Tapley) said, we wish y’all would enter into an agreement on automatic aid, and I said, well, we’re not going to make that decision here,” Penny said on the phone after Monday’s meeting. “There would need to be a discussion, and the interim county manager, myself and the fire chiefs can meet and have that discussion, and if we can work something out, we’ll make a recommendation to our respective boards. If we can’t, on July 1st it goes away.”

Officials on both sides have always said that mutual aid will continue between the Bulloch County Fire Department and the Statesboro Fire Department. But mutual aid is different from automatic aid. In mutual aid, fire departments send available trucks and firefighters to help other departments when requested, such as for major fires or for multiple fires occurring at the same time.

But no request was needed under the automatic aid agreement. The SFD dispatches one fire engine and crew for confirmed structure fires anywhere in the county, not only in the five-mile district, but throughout the rural areas or in Brooklet, Portal and Register. In return, the BCFD automatically dispatches an apparatus such as a tanker truck to assist the SFD for structure fires in Statesboro and the five-mile district. Penny had previously said that, if the city no longer receives any county-collected fire tax revenue for service to a district outside the city limits, for the Statesboro department to provide automatic aid countywide would amount to having city taxpayers subsidize a countywide service.

But he had also said that automatic aid could be a subject for further negotiations.

County’s priority

In comments during Monday’s meeting, Mayor McCollar and Commissioner Rushing both suggested that the further negotiations between the key staff members did not have to be limited to automatic aid. Rushing noted that there are still areas “at the end of the county” more than five miles from any BCFD station that still have an ISO (Insurance Services Office) fire protection rating of “10” for no recognized public fire protection, despite paying the county millage for fire service. Reaching those areas, he said, is really the county’s priority.

“Whatever we come up with, the city and the county, is going to have to be beneficial to them people to some amount,” Rushing could be heard saying at one point in the video.

‘All on the table’

“And so they said everything was on the table,” Penny said on the phone afterward. “And I told Timmy Rushing, there’s a way to do what y’all want to do, but we never had any discussions to see how we could help you get there, and so I said but there’s a way to do everything you want to do and not hurt each other financially, but again, we never had those discussions.”

The four staff members will try to meet again before the week is out, Penny said. But he also said he wanted to “manage expectations” about suggestions that they have something to report to the boards by next week, and instead hopes there will be progress to report soon but would aim for a conclusion in May.

Tillman’s perspective

“We had a very good meeting with those city officials and we thanked the chamber for bringing us together. …,” Tillman said in a later phone interview.

“I think that both entities want what’s best for the citizens as well as both of the fire departments,” he continued. “I think that Bulloch County and Statesboro are blessed to have two professional fire departments within the county, and I have the utmost respect for Statesboro Fire, and we will continue to work side-by-side with them to provide fire coverage as needed. So I don’t want this to reflect negatively against either of the fire departments who serve every day and, as you know, put their lives on the line.”

He agreed with Penny that a meeting of the four staff members should occur this week.

Automatic aid, Tillman said, “is certainly going to be one of the topics, and I don’t know if it would be just that.”