Maryland is being used as an example for Delaware volunteers
I can already tell you this isn’t sitting well with many volunteers in Delaware, but the latest in the series of articles in The News Journal has these pictures by Robert Craig as illustrations. Reporter Mike Chalmers is showing examples of volunteer systems in Maryland that could be a model for Delaware. These include Montgomery and Howard Counties.
Here is an excerpt:
As Delaware’s 60 volunteer fire companies struggle with slow response times, declining volunteerism and increasing demand for emergency services, the model used by Montgomery County and others nationwide could provide a road map for change here.
“They do have the system that works,” said Rick Clark Sr., president of the New Castle County Firefighters Association.
Over the past century, Delaware fire companies have grown from small, community-centered organizations that relied on volunteers to full-time operations with paid firefighters, million-dollar budgets and more than $70 million in combined savings, much of it from government sources.
Yet they remain fiercely independent and resistant to government oversight.
“The sticking point has always been: ‘This is my sandbox, and if you want to play with my toys, it’s my rules,’ ” said Andy Hall, president of Townsend Fire Company. “And that has been and still is and probably will be the way it’s looked at, because nobody wants anybody to tell them what to do.”
