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player ready...Fire service will continue for Calumet Township residents while Lake Ridge firefighters negotiate a 2018 contract with the Lake Ridge Fire Territory.
Lake Ridge Fire Chief Mike Redd confirmed Monday night at a contentious Fire District meeting that the current contract has allows firefighters to work as negotiations continue. At one point, the Lake County Police were called and many residents were under the assumption the fire department would be disbanded if the contract negotiations failed.
Until Monday night, fire department attorney Kevin Werner said the future was unclear.
“There was initial concern, but tonight, I’m a lot more confident than I was a week ago,” that there will be a signed contract, Werner said.
Werner said the department started negotiating with the district during the summer, shortly after the new fire station was completed. An offer wasn’t presented to the fire department until Nov. 15, which he said the firefighters rejected.
Points over which the department and district disagree include the department’s right to name its own chief and whether fire equipment should be in the department’s or district’s name. The department also asked for a lease agreement with the district before it moved into the building, said Angela Jones, the district’s new attorney.
“(The firefighters) didn’t want to move into a new building without the security of a new contract, which we get,” Jones said.
The department’s funding was also a sticking point, Redd said. The department initially asked for $255,000, but was turned down, so it came back with a budget of $196,000 “with the understanding that the district would pay utilities and maintnenance, while the department would run operations.”
“We asked for that in writing,” Redd said. “We didn’t ask for changes (to the contract).”
The Lake Ridge Fire Protection District’s 2017 certified budget, according to Indiana Gateway, is $603,225.
Werner said it was his understanding that the district conceded to the department the naming of its own chief. With that, he said he expects negotiations to run more smoothly.
“We hope the contract will be ready for January,” district member Louise Neese said. “But until there’s another contract, the current one rolls over.”
Michelle L. Quinn is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.