Talk About Growing Pains!

We mentioned yesterday the editorial in support of the volunteers in their recent dust up in Ocean City. I won’t begin to tell you I know much about the politics in OC. But I just can’t imagine that the relationship between the volunteers, the City Manager, the Emergency Services Director and the career firefighter/paramedics will be getting any better after they all read this article.

It is from Friday’s Maryland Coast Dispatch and it is under this headline:

City Manager Shoots From Hip On Fire Service’s Future
Dare: It’s Not My Intent To “Throw Them Off Island”

City Manager Dennis Dare appears to bare it all in his somewhat rambling interview about the state of the OCVFC, and who did what to whom in this recent dispute. Here are a few excerpts:

“I can’t emphasize enough that I do support the volunteer fire company. We need a viable volunteer fire company, but we are in transition. My goal is to make them as viable as possible. We do not want to be an all-paid fire company. We want a good combination department and my vision would be that the paid guys are going to show up at the alarm bells at the Plim Plaza … If there’s a serious fire in the laundry room, then the volunteers will come in. The volunteers want to fight fires, they don’t want to be doing paperwork and responding to false alarms.”

“Their membership is in decline. It used to be they had 125 members and there was a waiting list. When you need firefighters to fight a fire, there’s a limited number of firefighters who can do that anymore. There’s probably 20 people in the fire company that can really fight fires and there’s probably only seven of them that live north of 40th Street. In fact, any fire call north of Route 90 is a dual response with the Bethany Beach Volunteer Fire Company because the Ocean City Volunteer Fire Company can’t handle it. They acknowledge that.

“Their membership is going down and they’re moving out of Ocean City and now they’re moving out of West Ocean City, the ‘first do’ area, because of rising property values. The people that really fight fires live in Berlin, Salisbury, Bishopville, Showell … how can they respond to a fire in Ocean City in a timely manner? It’s tough. Some of them may work in town, and they can respond then, but 40 percent of the company lives outside the ‘first do’ area. I am not telling you these numbers because I want to bash the volunteer fire company. They are the reality and they know this. They would tell you the same thing.”

“Don’t you think the volunteers ought to be the first responders in West Ocean City? Why should the taxpayers pay somebody to go out there? That’s all I am saying. It’s the volunteers’ responsibility and they are staying in bed, and the taxpayers are sending paid people out to Superfresh.”

If you have an interest in fire and EMS at the beach, make sure you read the whole article. At the very least you should have plenty of local news to talk about if you are heading to the convention in 2 weeks.