Fire talks take a new turn

Calling it a hiccup along the road, Columbia Borough will first look at a consolidation of its three fie companies before pursuing the regionalization of services.
 Mary Barninger, who chairs the council's safety committee, made the announcement at Monday's borough council meeting, upon questioning from resident Ron Fritz.
Barninger said the borough is still looking to regionalize services, bit was told by at least two fire companies, Mountville and West Hempfield, they would consider regionalization, but not until Columbia had a plan to consolidate its three departments into one.
Fritz, a 48-year member of the Susquehanna Fire Company, said he was caught off guard by the consolidation effort after attending last week's safety committee meeting.
He said no letter was ever sent out to neighboring fire companies to gauge their interest and there was only positive verbal contact made concerning the regionalization.
"I don't understand whywe are going back (to consolidation)," Fritz said.
Fritz' comments upset Barninger.
"It amazes me you come here tonight and act like you  don't know what is going on," Barninger said.
She continued by saying consolidation and then regionalization of the fire service is needed for many reasons.
She said the effort to regionalize will still happen but only after Columbia gets its act together and consolidates its three departments and that the current three Columbia companies couldn't agree on how to get to the table on regionalization.
The local consolidation before regionalization, Barninger said, was a recommendation from the state's Department of Community and Economic Development as well as two of the neighboring fire departments interested in a regional effort.
"Mountville and West Hempfield indicated they will not come to the table until Columbia Borough has its act together first," Barninger said. "When potential partners say you don't have a plan, yo get one."
"The borough has no abandoned regionalization because that is where we need to be. We want to get a plan together first on how we will consolidate and this is what we will do," Barninger said.
"It is sad that our mutual aid companies have this opinion of us and we have to get our sandbox together first," Barninger said.
"This is not council's doing, this is just a hiccup in the road," she said.