County to cut station
By Steve Herring
Published in News on November 17, 2014 1:46 PM
Wayne County commissioners could approve a dissolution agreement Tuesday with the Pinewood Fire Department, which plans to close its doors Dec. 1.
The county has known since last December that the 55-year-old fire department was planing to dissolve and to cease operations.
Rural volunteer fire departments are independent, nonprofit corporations that the county contracts with for fire protection service. Pinewood was incorporated in April 1959.
Tuesday's meeting will start with an agenda briefing at 8 a.m. followed by the formal session at 9 a.m. Both will be held in the commissioners' meeting room on the fourth floor of the county courthouse annex.
A 2013 study of the county's fire departments conducted by Pennsylvania-based Volunteer Fire Insurance Services noted that Pinewood's service area had shrunk because of annexation by Goldsboro. That in turn drastically reduced tax revenues going to the department, thereby creating financial difficulties.
The study also suggested contracting areas surrounded by Goldsboro to the Goldsboro Fire Department and merging Pinewood with Saulston.
The county earlier this month dropped its efforts to work out an arrangement with the city after an apparent misunderstanding had City Council members raising an alarm about tax rates.
The county sets the tax rate for each fire district. County Manager George Wood said current property tax rates will not be affected for the rest of this fiscal year by the Pinewood dissolution.
Those tax rates are less than what City Council members said city residents currently pay for fire service. It would not be fair for city residents to pay a higher rate than people in the Pinewood area that the county had asked the city to cover, they said.
City Council members also appeared confused over what the county was asking when officials started talking about merging some of the rural departments with the city fire department.
That was not what the county had suggested.
Commissioners have decided instead that the Pinewood Fire District will be divided among the Belfast, Elroy, New Hope, Patetown and Saulston fire departments.
The proposal has been discussed with the departments, and all have agreed to the arrangement, Wood said.
The county will take on all of the assets and debts of the Pinewood department. It will sell off the equipment, but will continue to use the building to stage an EMS unit.
In other business Tuesday, county employee Jeff Sparrow will presented with the N.C. Solid Waste Enforcement Officer of the Year Award.
Items on the consent agenda are:
* A petition to add Crosswinds Drive and Windyfield Drive to the state highway maintenance system
* Applications for 2014 property tax exclusion
* Applications for 2014 elderly or disabled exclusion
* Applications for 2014 disabled veteran exclusion
* Establishing a public hearing on Dec. 2 at 9:15 a.m. for public comments on the proposed emergency services cost recovery ordinance
* Establishing a public hearing on Dec. 2 at 9:15 a.m. for public comments on rezoning property for the Eastern Carolina State Veterans Cemetery
* Establishing a public hearing on Dec. 16 at 9:15 a.m. for public comments on rezoning property bounded by N.C. 111 South and Old Highway 111 from residential agriculture 20 and inner horizontal to community.
Public comments will be taken at 10 a.m. People will have four minutes to speak on their topic of choice.