Firefighters need working equipment

To the editor:

As a year-round Willow resident I am very concerned about the state of our fire department. Our firefighters can only work 29.5-hours a week so that the borough doesn’t have to pay them benefits. Many of them also work another job. The building that is supposed to house them during their shifts is horrible. There isn’t even a bathroom in the building, so you have to walk down to the bay in order to use the restroom. The borough replaced the lights in the bay to save money, but not in the building because they didn’t want to open up the ceiling due to asbestos and mold. That tells me that the building needs to be replaced. The equipment that we are asking our firefighters to use is antiquated. The tanker is from 1975. Most of the trucks are circa 1985. Our chief has done a phenomenal job at acquiring equipment from other departments that have upgraded, but even those “new to Willow” items don’t have many years of service left. A mill rate increase from 1.34 to 2.75 is a small price to pay for fire service. It’s less than $150 per $100,000 of property value. Every property owner pays for the service, and every property owner benefits from it as well; both in having service available and in lower fire insurance premiums. Having the buildings doesn’t mean anything if we don’t have the equipment and manpower to respond to fires and emergencies. In order to have a functioning fire department, equipment that works and that firefighters can operate, and retain and attract people willing to serve their community in this invaluable way, we need to raise the mill rate in the Willow.

Carrie Smoldon

Willow