Every volunteer with the Pinehurst Fire Department resigned after meeting together Monday evening. Fire Chief Shon Branham said he and all eight of the other volunteers in the department resigned effective immediately because of a disagreement with the Pinehurst City Administrator Jerry Hood on the dispatcher calls they would be allowed to respond.
The City of Pinehurst changed dispatcher services at the end of June going from Emergency Services District #1 to Emergency Services District #2 for its calls. The change resulted in an increased cost to the city of $1,100 annually raising the fee to $14,100 for the next 12 months.
Hood wanted to limit the emergency calls the Pinehurst Volunteers respond to only those involving cardiac arrest where CPR is being administered. Branham wanted to allow his volunteers to continue to respond to any medical emergency they receive from the dispatcher service.
Previously, a petition was started to present to the Pinehurst City Council to show how many of the citizens in Pinehurst want to allow the volunteers to answer all emergency type calls in addition to the calls for fires that were allowed under Hood’s requirements. Several citizens called in during July’s teleconference for the City Council requesting the fire department be allowed to respond to medical emergencies.
Branham expressed the close ties he has with all the volunteers of the fire department. “We work together, we are a team, we don’t make decisions as individuals, we make them as a team, we discuss things and we talk about things, and our family works good together, we have a fine-tuned machine over here and they’re trying to break it,” Branham declared. “Well, guess what, they can break somebody else, they’re not breaking us.”
Hood said the firefighters may have quit on the citizens but the city has not. “The Orange Fire Department and Acadian will respond to 911 calls in Pinehurst. There will not be an interruption in service.” Hood and Mayor Dan Mohon plan to meet on Tuesday to discuss the resignation of the volunteers with the Pinehurst Volunteer Fire Department.
-Dan Perrine, KOGT-
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