York County nixes plans to hire Lake Wylie fire chief, disbands tax board

The Bethel Rural Fire District board is no more.

After almost an hour behind closed doors Thursday afternoon at the Heckle Center in Rock Hill, the York County Council emerged to vote in favor of disbanding the five-member board and leaving financial decisions for the tax district to county administration. The emergency ordinance is effective immediately.

The move comes just days before William “Billy” Thompson, hired by the tax board as the first paid chief to oversee the Bethel Volunteer Fire Department in December, was to start Feb. 1.

“He will not be starting work on Feb. 1,” said Bill Shanahan, county manager.

Instead the county will take 60 days to determine a chain of command, and how both volunteers and paid staff will report to county leadership. Shanahan said the decision to disband the Bethel board resulted from disagreement between volunteers and the fire board on operational control, and a desire to improve public safety. The disbanding doesn’t affect similar departments in the county.

“It’s strictly Bethel,” Shanahan said. “Nobody else in the county is involved in this.”

Bethel is one of seven departments where a community pays a special tax for fire service. The board is made up of residents who set the tax rate and make spending decisions. Volunteer firefighters spurred the effort for the special tax district passed by voters in 2009. The Lake Wylie area was growing but community donations, their primary revenue source at the time, wasn’t.

For years the tax district operated without much incident, paying for new equipment, full- and part-time paid firefighters and a new $2 million fire station.

Then, about a year ago, issues arose putting volunteers and the tax board at odds. The main one was a paid chief, something the tax board said was necessary to professionalize service in the growing area. Volunteers said they could continue electing their own chief and better use the money elsewhere.

Tax board members Ed Lindsey and Tea Hoffmann were surprised and upset by the county’s decision Thursday.

“We weren’t talked to,” Hoffmann said. “No one was asked.”

Hoffmann said the county had no basis for pulling “the rug out from under our community.” In the fall, Council affirmed the tax board’s right to hire a new chief and continue making financial decisions. All parties had been in discussions in recent weeks on an agreement ceding each some level of control.

Lindsey said there was one obvious change from the tone of those recent discussions and the decision coming down Thursday.

“It’s really interesting that the first decision they make with Allison Love on Council is to disband a legally appointed fire board because she didn’t like or agree with a decision that the fire board made,” he said.

Love came on in January. She hasn’t been shy in supporting the volunteers, in December saying she would do anything in her power to undo the tax board’s paid chief decision after taking her seat. She also called for the resignation of all five tax board members. Her predecessor, Bruce Henderson, sided with the tax board’s right by law to make operational decisions.

Details still need to be determined in coming weeks, from chain of command to how the tax rate and other financial decisions will be made when every other district by ordinance must include the citizen tax board. Hoffmann said regardless where the county goes, she hopes not all of her group’s work will be lost. Lake Wylie, she says, still needs a professional firefighting force to serve the area.

“We’ve got to have effective leadership, and it’s got to be full-time leadership,” she said.

This story was originally published January 26, 2017 at 3:03 PM with the headline "York County nixes plans to hire Lake Wylie fire chief, disbands tax board."