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Liability questions may keep the town
board from having anything but
non-voting representation on the board
of directors for the Wake Forest Fire
Department.
“Any control is all the
liability,” Commissioner Frank Drake,
who represents the town on the fire
board as an ex officio member, summed it
up during Friday’s retreat.
The fire department, an
independent corporation that contracts
with the town and Wake County for fire
protection, has flirted with the idea of
relinquishing its independence and
becoming part of the town government.
The town commissioners have decided to
wait until there is a real need.
Drake said the fire board’s
reaction is “if you don’t want it, fine,
but you ought to consider placing voting
members on our board.” The town provides
more than half the fire department’s
annual budget.
That has been done, Town
Manager Mark Williams said. “At one time
[the town board] appointed two voting
members on the board.”
The practice was stopped
when attorneys with the League of
Municipalities advised the town the
voting representation on the fire board
left the town open to liability if there
were workers’ compensation, OSHA or
other problems.
Since the fire service is
handled as a contract, Williams said,
“we needed to treat them just like any
other contractor.” The town does not
have representatives, for instance, on
the board of Republic, the company which
picks up the town’s garbage and
recycling.
Williams said the town gave
the fire department all the equipment
that was in the town’s name, did away
with the voting memberships and instead
appoints a non-voting representative.
All that occurred at least
20 years ago, Drake noted. Williams said
he would contact the League to see if
there has been any change in the earlier
advice or liability issue.
The town organized a fire
department in the 1920s, and in 1956 the
Wake Forest Rural Fire Department was
formed as an independent corporation to
serve farms and homes in the area around
the town. By the 1970s, the two
departments operated from matching
concrete block buildings on South White
Street. Their rosters were identical.
By the 1980s, the rural
department could see that it would lose
its tax base as the town grew and
expanded. Its board of directors
approached the town, offering to
incorporate both departments into one
and contract with the town and county.
The merger took place in 1983, and the
newly incorporated department built its
first station on Elm Avenue in 1986. The
second station was built on Ligon Mill
Road in 2001, and the department plans a
third station on Kearney Road to open in
2007.
The two concrete block
buildings have been renovated. The
town’s former station house is now
headquarters for the Wake Forest Chamber
of Commerce, and the rural department’s
station is the Williams-Walters
Building. |
