Opinion: Heated battle over control of Lake Wylie fire department extinguished

York County’s decision late last month to abruptly reverse course on a plan to have a paid fire chief run the Bethel Volunteer Fire Department and disband the Bethel Rural Fire Tax Board is disturbing.

The decision was made behind closed doors in an executive session of a special-called county council meeting just days before the newly hired chief – William Thompson of Clover and a 29-year career firefighter – was to report for his first day on the job Feb. 1. An emergency ordinance canceling his appointment was approved by unanimous vote following the closed-door session.

For more than a year, volunteer firefighters have battled the five-member volunteer tax board’s decision to hire Lake Wylie’s first paid chief with a salary of about $60,000, plus a vehicle at about the same price. While both parties agreed the department needs a paid, full-time chief, they disagreed the time was now. Since last May, the battle for control raged. The volunteers asked York County Council to decide who should have operational control – the 50-year-old volunteer department, its bylaws and elected officers, including a chief, or the volunteer tax board made up of residents set up as special tax district and approved by voters in 2009. The tax board was supposed to be in charge of overseeing spending, including hiring personnel, according to the county ordinance that created the board.

In the fall, the county gave the tax board its nod to go ahead with the hiring process. On Dec. 5, the tax board named the new chief despite several volunteer firefighters and community members speaking out against the plan. Others, however, including paid firefighters with the department, publicly praised the hiring decision.

Although we understand the county wished for the two parties to come to an agreement themselves – attempts to resolve issues through mediation continued through fall – it took some harsh threats to force the county to step in so late in the game. The bottom line was public safety.

According to the emergency ordinance, in October, a department letter to Council stated if the hiring goes through, the volunteers would no longer provide service as of Feb. 1.

The new emergency ordinance references that, stating, “Over the last few weeks, the situation escalated with threats to call law enforcement should the new, paid chief respond to the scene of the fire, refuse to respond to emergency calls, and to refuse to acknowledge the authority of the new chief.”

County Manager Bill Shanahan said the groups were not working well together, so it was time to end the tax board. The county will take 60 days to determine a chain of command, and how both volunteers and paid staff will report to county leadership operating under the emergency ordinance.

We sympathize with the volunteer firefighters who opposed the change and fervently fought against the tax board’s decision. However, it was bad form for the volunteers to effectively hold their community hostage by threatening to refuse calls for help. That is the antithesis of why people decide to become firefighters, volunteer or otherwise.

We’ll never know if they would have followed through on that threat as well as the one about calling law enforcement if Thompson showed up at a call, but it’s disappointing that residents we look up to as heroes would use such a tactics. But it worked, and now this exhausting year-long battle is over. In its wake is the dismantling of a democratically created tax board, a lot of sore feelings and the bewilderment of a professional fire chief who lost his job before he started it.

As we move forward, some questions remain, including the status of Lake Wylie’s paid firefighters and any impact on a tax district that was supposed to operate under a citizen tax board, not the county. There may be other implications to the decision county council made to disband the board and dismiss the paid chief. We just hope the community doesn’t suffer as a consequence.

This story was originally published February 5, 2017 at 4:45 PM with the headline "Opinion: Heated battle over control of Lake Wylie fire department extinguished."