Nasewaupee Forms Fire Committee for New Department

Photo source: SDFD Facebook page.

As part of the process to split from the Southern Door Fire Department (SDFD) and form the town’s own department, the Nasewaupee Town Board has approved an ordinance to create a fire committee to oversee the new Nasewaupee Fire Rescue department when it begins operating this fall.

Nasewaupee town chair Steve Sullivan said the five-member committee will include two town board members – supervisors Tim Smith and Mark Hilsabeck – and three citizen members to replace the ad hoc fire committee, which has been meeting in preparation of splitting from the SDFD.

One of the members of the ad hoc committee who will be on the new fire committee, Bill Krueger, said the ad hoc committee has been looking into getting prices for new gear to equip the Nasewaupee department.

To own the fire station in Nasewaupee and its equipment upon leaving the SDFD, the town is exercising an option in the department’s original operating agreement to pay the Village of Fortestville and the towns of Forestville and Clay Banks, which will remain in the SDFD, “an amount equal to the percentage of the then-fair-market value of the property contributed by the remaining municipalities.”

Sullivan said he expects the town will have to pay 32% of the fair-market value, based on Nasewaupee’s support for the SDFD being more than two-thirds of the total.

The town boards of those three remaining municipalities approved resolutions in late April related to reorganizing the SDFD, which was formed by all four municipalities in 1980. The SDFD is now overseen by an eight-member fire board with two representatives from each of the four municipalities.

Those resolutions call for the board chairs of the SDFD’s three remaining municipalities to work together to negotiate the separation of Nasewaupee from the department and to provide for the continuation of fire protection beyond Sept. 27 – when Nasewaupee’s split would be effective – with a new operating agreement.