My suggestion for a compromise between Borough Council and Fire Company

Since neither mediation nor negotiation happened, I am playing mediator here and making an open suggestion for a compromise.  Item 1: What the Borough Council and Mayor seem to want more than any other result is for the fire chief to be someone else and for regular reports of fire incidents to be reported to them.  Item 2: What the Newfield Volunteer Fire Company seems to want is to be left alone to run the fire company as they always have.  Item 3: What the residents of Newfield want is fire service at the same cost it historically has been.  Item 4: What the town needs if it is to continue to have its own volunteer fire company is a new fire truck.

I can not do anything about the Item 4 as that will raise the tax rate and no one wants that.  I hope a compromise addressing Items 1 and 2 will go along way to making Item 3 happen.

My points for the compromise are:
  For the Newfield Volunteer Fire Company:

1.  Prepare a succession plan for a new and different fire chief of their choosing to be installed in 6 months in order to give the new chief time to learn what procedures are, start what ever additional training is needed, and practice with the company in the role of fire chief.
2.  Provide written reports going forward and back to Dec 31, 2012 that make it easy to file incident reports on the national fire incident reporting system.
3.  Provide a write up of the procedure used to thoroughly vet new volunteers before they can be accepted into the company so it can be treated as public record, with any sensitive material such as passwords deleted.
4. Provide an affidavit signed by all members that they will not seek to nor re-elect the current fire chief for a period of three years.

  For the Borough of Newfield Council and Mayor:

1. Repeal the current ordinance and re-instate the the original ordinance governing a fire department.  This will return to control of the fire company, its membership, officers, and finances to the company as it was before 2013.
2. Amend the original ordinance to include written reports of fire incidents to be provided quarterly in a format and detail that is suitable for reporting on the national fire incident reporting system.
3. Provide the fire company with the contact information for reporting whatever details the insurance company needs on members and drivers directly.  This protects any sensitive information of individuals.
4.  Provide an affidavit signed by all members of Council and the Mayor that they will not seek to nor enact a new ordinance about the fire company for a period of three years.

Compromises require trust and there is little of that currently available so I have included affidavits for both sides that at least gives some time for trust to be restored.

The people of Newfield can still win in this situation but time is running out.