By KENNETH HART - The Independent
RACELAND — Members of Raceland’s volunteer fire brigade are unhappy about being told there are certain times when they’re not permitted to be in the fire station, of all places.
Firefighters said they were informed about a week ago that the city council had enacted an 11 p.m. curfew at the fire station. They also said they were told that the city’s police officers had been instructed to take down license numbers and descriptions of vehicles seen parked there after hours.
A number of fire department members showed up at Tuesday night’s city council meeting to express their displeasure about the situation.
“This is doing nothing but hurting the moral of the fire department that protects this city,” Deputy Fire Chief Chuck Burks said.
Lt. Chris Wages asked the council why it had seen fit to impose the curfew in the first place.
Councilman Tom Cumpton replied that it was because the council was concerned there was “too much loafing” taking place at the station during the late-night hours.
He said council members had also received reports of young people hanging around the fire station well past what should have been their bedtimes.
But Wages and Burks both said those reports were based on hearsay and were misleading at best, inaccurate at worst.
Both men also told the council that keeping them out of the station at night was significantly impacting their ability to do their jobs.
Firefighters often come into the station late to do paperwork, submit reports online or do maintenance on the department’s equipment, Wages said. Often, he said, it’s the only time they have to do those tasks since they work full-time jobs during the day.
“There’s a lot of stuff that goes on behind the scenes that you all never see,” he said.
Having firefighters in the station late at night also helps significantly reduce response times, Wages said, and ‘every minute we can save on response times significantly reduces the amounts of loss to our citizens.”
Wages and Burks also said they were unaware of unauthorized youngsters being in the fire station late at night. Wages said he could assure the council that any children who might be there “are not being left unsupervised” to possibly injure themselves or damage the department’s expensive equipment.
The fire department does have a junior firefighter program for ages 14 to 18. However, according to Wages, junior firefighters already had curfews — 9 p.m. on weekdays and 11 p.m. on weekends.
Wages acknowledged that the department had had a situation where junior firefighters were on the roof putting up Christmas decorations when they weren’t supposed to be. However, he said the department took steps to address that matter at its next meeting after that occurred.
The council took no action to lift the curfew. However, Mayor Don McKee told Wages he intended to meet with Fire Chief Pete Cochran about the matter sometime today.
