By David Kilby, Staff Writer
MONROE — Monroe took a step closer to restructuring its fire districts after the Township Council released a professional consultant’s consolidation study Wednesday.
Public Safety Solutions Inc. released its 200-page, six-chapter report on its Monroe fire district consolidation study to the council last Friday, and Leslie Adams, president, gave a succinct presentation of the report at the Monroe Township agenda meeting Wednesday.
Even though it often is referred to as a consolidation study, consolidating the districts was really only one of the options Mr. Adams suggested in his presentation.
”The reason for this study is the discrepancy between the fire districts’ tax rates and boundaries,” Mayor Richard Pucci said.
In his presentation, Mr. Adams gave a brief summary of the structure of each of Monroe’s three fire districts.
The District 1 station is on Harrison Avenue and covers the north portion of the township. It consists of all volunteer staff — 39 total — and has a volunteer fire chief in command. The tax rate for District 1 is 11 cents per $100 of assessed value or $186 per year for the owner of a house assessed at the township average of $169,399.
District 2 serves the southern portion of Monroe and has two stations, one on Applegarth Road and one on Halsey Reed Road. It has 18 paid firefighters, eight to 10 volunteer firefighters and a paid chief in command. Its tax rate is 19 cents or $322 per year for the owner of a house assessed at the township average.
District 3 serves the center of the township and also has two stations, one on Schoolhouse Road and one on Centre Drive. It has 36 paid firefighters and officers and no volunteers, including a paid fire chief. Its tax rate is 29 cents or $491 per year. It was the Central Monroe Fire Company until 2001.
A fire district consolidation study was attempted three years ago, but was not successful due to lack of agreement between the districts, and there was no professional consultant performing the study.
Mr. Adams explained the main difficulty in the study.
”There are substantial differences between some boundaries and the stations responsible for responding,” he said.
He suggested a four-station model and addressed the difficulty in recruiting and retaining volunteers in these times.
To meet this challenge, he recommended funding a volunteer recruitment and retention program, hiring a volunteer coordinator and placing bunkrooms in the stations so firefighters can stay overnight.
He said consolidation would save taxpayers money in the areas of facility, apparatus and service expenses.
As he conducted his study, he noticed the majority of people he spoke with in Monroe supported the idea of one fire agency in Monroe. Some supported maintaining the three but establishing a united fire district. Others supported the idea of a municipal fire service department, and others were not interested in change.
The suggestions he made were in some ways the same and in other ways different from those Monroe residents suggested.
In his presentation, he said there are at least four general options for Monroe. He said Monroe can merge the three districts into one united model, dissolve the three districts and form one municipal fire agency, merge the two districts with paid staff and retain the all-volunteer district or strengthen the three districts by appointing a townshipwide fire chief and strengthening the township fire committee while considering boundary revisions.
He also recommended the township establish a Fire Consolidation Study Advisory Committee to study his report and choose the option it believes is best for Monroe.
Mayor Pucci announced the members of the committee at Wednesday’s meeting.
The chairman will be Wayne Hamilton, township business administrator, and the members will be Councilman Michael Leibowitz, Fire District 3 Board Chairman Doug Martin, Fire District 2 Board Chairman Maurice Mahler, Fire District 1 Board Chairman Charles DiPierro, Monroe Police Chief John Kraivec, Monroe Township Professional Firefighters Association President James Grande, League of Women Voters member Ruth Banks, Monroe Fire Company One Chief Volunteer Lonnie Pipero, Applegarth Volunteer Fire Company Deputy Chief Mark Davis, and Monroe Volunteer Fire Company One’s former Chief Rich Hayes.
In addition to these 11 members, Mr. Adams will sit on the committee as a paid professional consultant.
Mr. Adams was paid $38,000 for conducting the study and will be paid about $60,000 to sit on the committee, which should have a solution for the fire districts by April 2012.
Mayor Pucci said the study was the first step of a two-step process, and the second step is forming the committee to come up with a specific solution.
Michele Arminio, of Nathaniel Street, suggested one resident from each fire district be appointed to the committee, but council members responded Mr. Hamilton and Mr. Leibowitz will be representatives for the taxpayers. Mr. Adams also added at the end of his presentation that the committee must “make sure the customer is the basis of the decision.”
”I didn’t hear one mention of the taxpayers being on the committee,” said John Kuehns, of Fox Run, after the presentation.
”We felt the councilman and the woman league of voters were representatives of the public,” Mr. Adams said. “And unless (the committee members) don’t live in the area, they’re also taxpayers.”
Patrick Hye, of Mounts Mill Road, was concerned the public would have absolutely no knowledge of the committee’s decision.
Mr. Hamilton said one of the things the committee will address in the first meeting is whether all the meetings or just some meetings should be open to the public and added he will release information on the committee’s findings at council meetings as information becomes available.
”I will hold you to that,” Mr. Hye said.

