{"id":22242,"date":"2014-06-03T08:46:01","date_gmt":"2014-06-03T12:46:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/?p=22242"},"modified":"2014-06-03T09:15:17","modified_gmt":"2014-06-03T13:15:17","slug":"e-marlborough-declines-to-fund-new-longwood-truck","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/?p=22242","title":{"rendered":"E. Marlborough declines to fund new Longwood truck"},"content":{"rendered":"

$300K private grant for vehicle could be lost<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

By Mike McGann<\/strong>, Editor, The Times<\/em><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\"rescue25\"<\/a>

East Marlborough officials declined to fund the purchase of a replacement for Longwood Fire Company’s Rescue 25 Monday night, putting a planned replacement of the vehicle, and a $300,000 private grant, in limbo.<\/p><\/div>\n

EAST MARLBOROUGH \u2014 The township\u2019s Board of Supervisors declined to pay for a share of the replacement cost of a new rescue vehicle for Longwood Fire Company Monday night, after an at times testy exchange between the fire company\u2019s chief and board members about whether the truck needs to be replaced, as well as long-term costs for local fire protection.<\/p>\n

For the second month in a row, Longwood chief A.J. McCarthy made his case before supervisors to help fund the more than $800,000 vehicle. He noted that a private grant would pay for the first $300,000 in costs, with three municipalities, East Marlborough, Pocopson and Pennsbury picking up the rest of the cost over a five-year period. Kennett Township is paying for another vehicle, and would not be included in this purchase plan.<\/p>\n

McCarthy said that Pocopson had agreed to pay the cost and that he was working with Pennsbury officials to support the purchase.<\/p>\n

Township officials balked at the total, especially in light of being asked to fund the department at a cost of $337,000, or about 15% of the entire current township budget (the same figure was quoted for neighboring Pocopson and Pennsbury, and because of smaller annual municipal budgets, would amount to about 30% of the annual municipal budget). All three municipalities fund other fire companies as well \u2014 meaning the local governments would have to massively increase local taxes or drastically cut other services, from paving to snow plowing.<\/p>\n

East Marlborough, despite recent increases and a dedicated fire tax, currently gives Longwood about $144,000 annually, while also supporting the Po-Mar-Lin Fire Company. The township has been the most aggressive in funding local fire companies \u2014 other local municipalities have lagged when it comes to funding fire protection.<\/p>\n

Another issue: the current Longwood Rescue vehicle is a 1998 model with about 40,000 miles on it. Supervisors questioned whether replacement of the vehicle is really a need, or a want \u2014 especially in light of the other needs of the department in the coming years, including plans to build a new firehouse for between $5 to $7 million.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are a lot of fire companies in Chester County who would love to have that truck,\u201d supervisor Bob Weer said of the current vehicle.<\/p>\n

McCarthy countered by saying a delay would impact the long-term vehicle replacement plans for the department.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s just kicking it down the road,\u201d McCarthy said.<\/p>\n

But the long-term vehicle plan is a concern, as well, officials said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really have a problem trading this vehicle in, we\u2019re going to be setting a precedent,\u201d supervisor Eddie Caudill said. \u201cWhose to say you\u2019re not going to be asking for $100,000 (next year) for a new pumper?\u201d<\/p>\n

McCarthy said he was pushing for this because of the opportunity to have some of the vehicle paid for with private funds.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought I was going a good job getting 30% of it paid for a private donor,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Officials suggested that with the quilt of fire companies and municipalities \u2014 as an example, both East Marlborough and Pocopson fund Longwood and Po-Mar-Lin (the latter also funds Good Fellowship EMS), while Kennett and Pennsbury fund Longwood and Kennett fire companies \u2014 a more regional approach to fire coverage needs must be looked at so there can be a rational spending plan in the years ahead.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s the question the region needs to address,\u201d Supervisors chair Cuyler Walker said. \u201cThe municipalities in the region need to get an appreciation of what is going to be necessary going forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

After much discussion, it was clear that no motion was going to come forward to fund the new vehicle.<\/p>\n

A clearly frustrated McCarthy asked if the township was prepared to make up for the likely loss of the $300,000 grant \u2014 much as it has paid Po-Mar-Lin an annual stipend of $18,000 when neighbors furiously objected to a cell phone tower being placed at the fire company, but supervisors did not address the question. McCarthy said he felt that supervisors were willing to compromise on public safety just to keep taxes low.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ve just demonstrated the level of service you want,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

$300K private grant for vehicle could be lost By Mike McGann, Editor, The Times EAST MARLBOROUGH \u2014 The township\u2019s Board of Supervisors declined to pay for a share of the replacement cost of a new rescue vehicle for Longwood Fire Company Monday night, after an at times testy exchange between the fire company\u2019s chief and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22241,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,7],"tags":[38,692,74,73,1520,10],"class_list":["post-22242","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-featured","tag-east-marlborough","tag-fire-protection","tag-longwood-fire-company","tag-pennsbury-2","tag-po-mar-lin-fire-company","tag-pocopson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22242","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22242"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22242\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/22241"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}