If the committee approves the consolidation, all four fire houses in Voorhees will remain open, the 16 paid township firefighters will remain on staff and the approximate 60 volunteers will not be forced out of service, said Kresson District Fire Chief Don Maxfield, who is scheduled to become chief of the new district. A fourth fire station, called Voorhees Fire Company, is part of the Kresson district.
At several previous Township Committee meetings, dozens of residents and volunteer firefighters had expressed discontent with the proposed consolidation, stating that merging the districts would shut down stations, deplete manpower and decrease response times to emergencies.
Maxfield said consolidation will allow paid and volunteer staff from the three districts to adopt uniform training and response procedures.
But not everyone is satisfied with the committee's proposal.
Keith Kemery, president of the Camden County Uniformed Fire Fighters Association Local 3249 Union, the bargaining unit for union firefighters, said he wants the township committee to put in writing their commitment to renew the contracts of all paid firefighters if the ordinance passes.
The ordinance states that "all employment contracts currently in effect" at Ashland and Kirkwood "shall terminate on Dec. 31, 1994, so that the salaries will be governed under a uniform contract."
"We're not going to sit back and negotiate contracts in good faith," Kemery said. "All we're asking is to renegotiate a contract."
However, it is the duty of the Board of Fire Commissioners to renegotiate contracts, said committeewoman Peggy Diliberto, who added that the board has not been named since the ordinance has not passed.
The unified district, scheduled to be called the Voorhees Fire District, will also create an across-the-board fire tax rate of 13.4 cents per $100 of assessed property value for the entire township, said Diliberto, who served on an ad hoc committee created to study the consolidation.
That means a taxpayer, who lives in a home assessed at $100,000, will pay $134 in fire taxes for the year.
Currently, residents in the Ashland district pay a fire tax rate of 27.2 cents, while those in the Kirkwood district have been paying 20.5 cents. Residents in the Kresson district won't see a change in their fire tax rate if the ordinance passes tonight. They already pay 13.4 cents for every $100 of assessed property value.
"Why have three different tax rates in one town?" Diliberto said in a telephone interview Friday. "That seems very archaic."
