Brewer seeking regional fire service partnership

BREWER – Brewer is looking for a partner or partners to apply for a grant to create a regionalized fire service plan.

At a meeting Monday of several area fire chiefs and city representatives, Brewer Fire Chief Rick Bronson said he found “a couple or three” communities that might be interested in being a co-applicant.

“Right now we’re going to apply for a planning grant from the Fund for the Efficient Development of Local and Regional Services,” he said. “We’re going to be applying for the maximum $10,000 grant, and Brewer is going to be the lead agency.”

Holden, which is an automatic-aid partner with Brewer, is one community that has shown interest in applying for the grant. The application will be presented to the Holden Town Council at its Jan. 10 meeting.

The deadline to apply for the state grant is Jan. 14.

“And a couple of the others have said they will sign on as the other agencies as soon as their towns can see the application,” Bronson said. “Right now [Brewer Assistant City Manager] Howard Kroll is writing the application.”

Fire chiefs and representatives from Bangor, Brewer, Orono, Hampden, Holden, Eddington and Veazie and representatives from two firefighters unions held the second of two informal meetings Monday to discuss the potential of a future regionalized fire service agency.

At the meeting, a budget workshop was set for Monday, Jan. 3, for any town interested in comparing fire department budgets to see whether there are ways to save money by merging, Bronson said.

The concept of regionalized service isn’t a new one, but the issue became a hot-button topic during November elections when residents called for municipalities to lower their costs as a way to create property tax relief.

Earlier this year, Gov. John Baldacci initiated new legislation that became law in May, encouraging partnerships and consolidation in both school departments and municipalities.

The new legislation, LD 1930, “An Act to Promote Intergovernmental Cooperation, Costs Savings and Efficiencies,” has additional funds, beyond the planning grant, available to create regionalized plans.

The city of Bangor is not one of the three communities interested in partnering for the grant but will stay involved in the discussion, Fire Chief Jeff Cammack said Tuesday.

“We decided that if we tried to do it as a big group, it would slow the process down,” he said.

He said Bangor is interested in finding out how the communities involved in the planning process would save money by creating a regional department and if being involved in the future potentially could save Bangor money while providing equal or better services.