Board Ends NY Fire Drill Team, Keeps Name
By Julie Abbass
Source Watertown Daily Times, N.Y.
COPENHAGEN, NY—The fire in some village drill team members and advocates burned strong to resuscitate the team despite it having been voted out of commission a year ago and failed attempts to find a way around that vote, but the final firematics breaths seemed to have finally been taken.
Fire Department President Patrick F. Mahar announced at the September village Board of Trustees meeting Thursday evening that after two meetings this week, the Fire Department Board Directors voted to let the team go, except in name.
“The drill team will no longer be active in drilling. They will no longer be active in fundraising after the end of this year. Their moneys will be turned over to the fire department and managed by the fire department,” Mr. Mahar said.
As a compromise, the drill team’s name will be kept active only so that the club’s officials are able to officiate at other firematics events around the state.
“I think this should put this to rest now,” said Mr. Mahar after the meeting.
Now the department hopes to heal some of the division in the community that had surrounded the team and the related high insurance costs that are still being paid by tax payers after a number of accidents.
To that end, the board also voted to “get more active in the school” by conducting fire and home safety courses.
Mr. Mahar said, “We’re trying to reach out to the younger kids and see if we can’t pique their interest to become a firefighter and nurture them along the way and try to draw them in.”
The 14 community members present, many of whom had been outspoken in previous meetings, quietly nodded in reaction.
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