The Town of Vermilion will not be extending a fire services agreement with the County of Vermilion River, citing the reason being negotiations hitting a wall.
“I feel at this time an extension’s not going to bring us any closer to getting to an agreement. We have gone several times with fair non-biased changes that we felt would best serve our firefighters, the men and women that are actually out there doing the job. We’ve gotten a continuous brick wall of not working with us,” said Coun. Robert Snow.
Snow, along with Deputy Mayor Joshua Rayment and Coun. Kevin Martin, have been part of the team negotiating the agreement.
Rayment says negotiations have been ongoing for roughly three months.
“A little bit difficult to navigate through, coming to impasses on some of the topics, unable to come to a resolution on the agreement at this time,” he said.
There’s issues Rayment believes shouldn’t involve council.
“I think it’s more fire protocol and things of that nature, things that essentially, for the council of Town of Vermilion, think we shouldn’t be involved in,” he said.
Despite the agreement ending, Rayment wants to ensure fire service continues for its neighbour.
“I would like to ensure whether this agreement ends or not, wherever we end with this. That we ensure county residents who consider Vermilion home, that we will not stop providing them protection to the county of Vermilion, at all for any reason, that’s not an option,” Rayment said.
He does believe the town is losing out in this agreement.
“I feel like right now, the current agreement we’re in is putting the community at a loss. There’s things in there that we’re losing monetarily on. We’re concerned about some of the issues,” Rayment said.
Coun. Robert Pulyk believes extending the agreement won’t bring them any closer to a new agreement.
“If you extend it doesn’t make any difference. We can’t do any negotiations with it because it is an election year. It is unfortunate that everyone at the table at ICF committee knew the deadline was coming up in February,” he said. “Within the agreement, it does state when the agreement expires, then the county I believe has to move their vehicles out of the building.”
Administration clarified at the time of the agreement ending, that county vehicles would be turned back over to them, and the county could then decide on their next steps.
The agreement, according to County of Vermilion River CAO Alan Parkin, is an operational framework.
“Primarily it’s fire and emergency response, that would be motor vehicle collisions, those types of things,” he said. “I think it clearly outlines the responsibility of all parties involved.”
When asked about how the fire services functioned previous to the agreement, Parkin said the agreements had been in place so long he couldn’t recall how things were done before it.
Parkin says there are units in the Town of Vermilion fire hall.
“Currently, there are fire units in the Town of Vermilion Fire Hall, this isn’t our only fire station, we have many other fire stations in the county,” he said.
In response to the question regarding ongoing negotiations and the wall they’ve been hit, he indicated it would be a question more suited for the Town of Vermilion.
Council agreed negotiations would not happen during an election year and turned it over to administration to decide how things would be handled moving forward. They ultimately voted against extending the agreement letting it expire in February.
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