PARCHMENT, MI. (WKZO AM/FM) — Parchment city commissioners are expected to decide the fate of that community’s fire department at their weekly meeting.
Commissioners will vote to decide whether to dissolve their own fire department and contract with neighboring Kalamazoo Township’s department for services on Monday, December 2nd. If they approve the proposal, a two-year contract will go into effect starting January 1st, 2020.
The deal would cost the city an estimated $67,000 annually and will not involve the absorption of current fire engines and resources by Kalamazoo Township’s fire department. Instead the current vehicles and facilities will be retained by the city for possible future use,
Parchment currently manages a department of about 7 on-call firefighters who respond to fire incidents and provide emergency medical response.
The department had previously gone without a leader after the retirement of fire chief Jon Bonhomme last year, leading the city to contract fire services for six months with Kalamazoo Township followed by an extension to the end of 2019.
Parchment City Manager Nancy Stoddard says that the reason the commission is considering the dissolvement of their department is the difficulty finding a new fire chief. A special commission set up to review the fire department found that current firefighters expressed enthusiasm joining a larger service with more resources.
Stoddard says that current Parchment firefighters will not be laid-off and will be accepted with Kalamazoo Township’s department if they apply.
The city of Parchment has an initial aid agreement with Kalamazoo Township currently.
The government of Kalamazoo Township has mutual aid agreements with several other communities in broader Kalamazoo County to provide assistance when needed, and those municipalities service the township when requested in return.
Officials in Parchment have been pursuing greater cooperation between the two departments for the past few years. The commissioner’s meeting agenda lays out the final steps for the new contract to be approved.
