BUCYRUS—It was standing room only in the Bucyrus City Council chambers Thursday evening during a special meeting called by the council to discuss staffing issues at the fire department.
The community showed strong support for Bucyrus Fire Chief Chad Schwemley and his face-off with Mayor Jeff Reser and Safety Service Director Jeff Wagner. Both Reser and Wagner were absent, to the chagrin of the room.
Council Clerk Susan Zolivick read a lengthy letter from Reser explaining that this decision to cut fire department staff from six to four firefighters and EMS personnel was strictly a budget issue.
In part, Reser explained and made suggested cuts:
“This is a budgetary issue. We are quickly running out of cash, and are on a financial precipice. I alerted this issue to you one year ago, and you did not act on my concerns. Auditor Schifer lamented your lack of action before leaving office. It was made more acute when several of you voted to accept the ruling of the fact-finding decision which caused us to add $300,000 to the fire department budget for 2023,” Reser said.
Citing Fire Department overtime as a significant expense
Reser offered three suggestions to the council. First, to immediately cancel the out-of-town worker’s tax credit. Second, ask the fire department and union to reduce or eliminate some of the time it has received, such as sick time. Then finally, explore the option of hiring part-time paramedics and firefighters at a significant cost reduction.
Councilman Kevin Myers read an equally lengthy statement about the painstaking effort to make EMS a part of the fire department.
He told the council:
“In 2018, Mayor Reser proposed to leave the Central Joint Ambulance Service and take on ambulance service within our fire department.
Dr. William Kramer conducted a $15,000 study to tell us what the staffing levels needed to be to adequately provide fire and EMS service within our fire department. The study maintained that six was the correct staffing number. The study took into account affordability and actual staffing needs. Every year for the past 20+ years, EMS calls within this community have continued to increase. They are projected to continue to do so.”
Myers contends that even though the city lost GE, income tax revenue increased in January. He noted people are still working locally since the plant closed, and people everywhere receive higher wages due to inflation. Myers suggested the city use the remaining $292,000.00 sitting in the ARPA fund for this situation. Those funds can be disbursed legally in this dilemma.
“This city needs and deserves true leaders. I believe that our council, the administration, and the Chiefs could, and should be working together and be leaders instead of pitting themselves against each other,” Myers said.
At the end of his prepared statement, the room erupted into applause.
Citizen after citizen stood up in support of legislation mandating the minimum staffing of the Fire Department to be six employees.
Jeremy Gillam, President of the Local Firefighters 1120, addressed the council: “Thank you, everyone, for coming, but the two that need to hear this are not in attendance. We advocate for the citizens. The mayors decision to cut staffing from 6 to 4 is detrimental to the life-saving services performed by fire and EMS. The administration believes they are hurting the chief and the members of this department by reducing our staffing. Honestly, it’s the citizens they were elected to protect that are affected.”
Gillam accused the Mayor of caring more about his legacy projects (including parks and trees) than the safety of the citizens and visitors to the city.
Roy Hollenbacher, a longtime state representative for the International Association of Firefighters, came to call the absent Mayor out as well: “I think the Mayor is a little critical of council when he gave you hell for passing the fact finders report. But I’ll go back to when we were at the table, and the firefighters made a settlement offer that the city should’ve taken. It would’ve saved them a lot of money, but the Mayor said no. So we went through the impasse procedures. That’s how you got the fact finder’s report. ($15,000). I don’t want to be critical of the council when we could’ve settled that right there at that table. Brian was there.” Hollenbacher said.
Bucyrus Fire Chief Chad Schwemley told the council and audience that emergencies can’t be scheduled. Staff needs to be available. Six employees is the minimum required to provide adequate service to the community. Schwemley said his team is under undue stress, and he couldn’t blame them if they went elsewhere for work.
“Delaware city has posted 30 jobs to fill within the next three years. The starting wage is $28 an hour and that’s only working two days a week. My guys Work way more than that. But they enjoy being here and they enjoy the community they serve. The police department is having a tough time keeping people here. A reduction will cause the fire department to be in the same boat,” Schwemley said.
Kurt Fankhauser said he supports legislation that mandates a minimum staff of six. But he warned that Reser could and probably would veto the legislation. He told the council to be ready for a veto. “Be prepared,” Fankhauser said.
“If you want others to annex into the city and they see you can’t provide minimum staffing, why would anyone even want to annex?” Fankhauser said.
Aaron Sharrock pointed out that several months ago, she suggested that the city hire more firefighters rather than pay costly overtime;
“I was told by a person in the administration that I didn’t know what I was talking about, and it would cost so much more to hire.” Sharrock said.
Sharrock said the Mayor jumped to this option first rather than coming to the council. “That’s hurting our city, we can’t hurt the citizens because of the money. We have to figure out how to make the money work.” Sharrock said.
Councilman Brenton Potter told the group: “I think the absence of our mayor and safety service Director speaks volumes about how they feel about all of the citizens of Bucyrus.” The audience roared with applause.
Michael Zabala has lived in Bucyrus for about two years. He has a good job and works in Columbus. He told the council he was excited about living here and feels he’s part of the demographic Bucyrus wants to attract, but these situations are pushing him away. “I’m thinking about selling my house right now. I want to know everything that has been investigated about the money. It’s about the money. I find it really interesting that last year the Mayor wanted to reduce the amount of the out-of-town workers tax credits in order to fund parks downtown and all of a sudden safety is shorted. Why? that doesn’t make sense to me. Can anyone explain that?” He asked.
Councilman Kevin Myers told the resident that council cannot answer for the administration; “That’s why we’re here tonight.” Myers said.
Zabala suggested increasing permit fees for public events. He inquired about decision-making practices on paving, transportation, and other budget cuts.
Speaker after speaker echoed the same sentiment. They want a minimum staff of six personnel in the fire department. They want the staff decisions taken out of the hands of the administration and mandated by an ordinance.
Bucyrus Police Captain Tom Walker told the council that in his 26 years in the police department and the Fraternal Order of Police, there has never been a time when they had to be more politically active:
“I’ve watched the soccer game going on in the political arena here. Public Safety has always been the damn ball that’s kicked around. We are the professionals and advocates for the citizens. We know what needs to be done, and it seems like we never have a voice. We never even have a seat at the table. And quite frankly, the community deserves better. And if this is a step in the right direction to make it happen, the fraternal order of police will back the independent firefighters fully,” Walker said.
Councilman Dan Wirebaugh told the audience that he supports police and fire but does not believe the council should legislate to the administration.
“If the administration is doing a bad job, we need to take that up with them. If we begin legislating, that’s not going to go smoothly. We budgeted for six firefighters, so I feel the administration is obligated to provide the six firefighters. If we start legislating, it will be war. We’ve got a lame duck administration that’s trying to drag this city down. We’re trying to get the dollars to bolster us through a tough time. It’s his decision not to agree to it. You can’t legislate good behavior,” Wirebaugh said.
Comments and responses became more assertive as the meeting went on.
A comment by Bucyrus Police officer Devin Wireman best exemplified the chilling reality of what Bucyrus is facing. Wireman exchanged gunfire with a shooting suspect last November. He addressed the council:
“I run calls with these guys every single day. In my incident, two squads and a firetruck showed up. If I would’ve been shot that day, I would’ve needed one ambulance and the suspect would’ve needed one and if anyone else in the city would’ve needed the squad at that time there would be nobody to answer the call. We are severely understaffed. They are severely understaffed. We pull guns off of the street every day. People don’t fight with fists anymore. They pull a gun and shoot somebody. They’re going to need a squad for that as well. We are not trying to go to war with the Mayor and the Safety Service Director but there’s been a line drawn in the sand. They keep erasing it and putting it forward to the point that we’re not going to have anybody that wants to work here or live here.” Wireman said.
Brenton Potter shared a personal experience and a declaration: “In 2013 I had a house fire. The Bucyrus fire department saved the lives of me, my wife and daughter. They got us off the roof. So if there’s any time I’m going to war and with anybody it’ll be these guys.” Potter said.
Wirebaugh agreed to vote for the ordinance because it was what was wanted. Interim Law Director Brian Gernert cautioned the council that they could be in for challenges to the action. In the recent contract, the firefighters agreed to give staff management rights to the administration.
“You can legislate, but only within the compounds of what we’ve passed.” Gernert suggested that if the parties can’t abide by an agreement, they return to the table to negotiate.
Acknowledging that negotiations would take too much time, the council voted to amend the original ordinance to stipulate a minimum of six staff be on duty.
Council waived the second and third readings of the legislation, declared an emergency, and passed the legislation. Councilman Terry Spiegel was the lone opposition vote.
Due to the large turnout at Thursday’s special meeting, it is impossible to express every important statement made. Click the link below to view the council session and read Mayor Reser’s full letter; click the link below.
Click HERE to read the Mayor’s letter.
Crawford County Now reached out to Kevin Myers to obtain a copy of his full comment. Crawford County Now received no reply.