MIKE GROGAN
The Ledger

DAVENPORT - An ordinance passed by city commissioners Monday means the city is at least temporarily without the services of its volunteer firefighters.

The volunteers say they are so angry over passage of the law that requires them to re-apply for their positions that they are unlikely to come back. "I won't put in an application," Melissa McNally, a captain with the volunteer force, said following the 4-1 vote. Six of the city's 17 volunteers attended the meeting including McNally and the city's longtime volunteer fire chief, Don Pelt.

In a letter of resignation Pelt gave to City Manager Amy Arrington on Monday, Pelt said, "I will not be reapplying to the City Department. Instead, I have decided to take this opportunity to announce my retirement from public service."

Pelt pointed to the ordinance's passage for his decision, saying it "effectively ended the 86-year agreement between the City and the Davenport Volunteer Fire Department Inc." The volunteer department is a nonprofit organization.

Arrington, Mayor Pete Rust and the majority of the commissioners have argued that, because of that structure, there are two chains of command for firefighters in the city.One is the command structure within the volunteer department.The other includes the city's six full-time paid firefighters, its newly hired fire administrator, Stuart McCutcheon, and Arrington.

The purpose of the ordinance, they have said, is to give the city full control of the department and a single chain of command with Arrington and McCutcheon at the top.The volunteers, however, have claimed that the ordinance is an attempt by the city to do away with the volunteers, a charge city officials steadfastly deny.

"I hope we can encourage the volunteers to re-apply," Commissioner Tom Fellows said following Monday's meeting and suggested a grace period be given for them to submit their applications.

Commissioner Crystal Williams echoed Fellows in saying she felt the volunteers have been given the option to return under the new structure set up by the ordinance."I hope they take advantage," she said."The volunteers are welcome," Rust said.

H.B. Robinson, III, the lone commissioner to vote against the ordinance, said he did so because he respected the work the volunteers have done for the city."I feel at this time we cannot afford a strictly professional fire department," he said.

The volunteers ran the Fire Department until the city began hiring paid firefighters following the 2004 hurricane season during which the area was struck with three destructive storms.Pelt has often pointed to that time as proof of the effective job the volunteers have done in providing the city with services.

Fred Stuart, a Lakeland firefighter who lives in Davenport and has been a volunteer with his hometown Fire Department for more than 22 years, said he believes the commission's actions are an indication that it wants to turn over all fire services to Polk County even though city residents loudly protested that idea during discussions with the county fire service last year.

Stuart accused the commission of trying to sidestep public opinion to get the county to run the department that is costing the city more than $300,000 a year to operate.

But Arrington said that is not the case. The city's primary concern in passing the ordinance is to change the department's management structure.

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February 24, 2010