FIRE CHIEF: NO CAPITAL PROJECTS
FOR 09-10 BUDGET YEAR

Lincolnton Fire Department chief Mike Lee during Friday's first day of the city's budget workshop.

By Jon Mayhew

LINCOLNTON – City leaders and city department heads sat down Friday to get insight on departmental needs within the City of Lincolnton.

And in a surprise development, one department didn’t actually make any official budgetary requests for the upcoming fiscal year.

Instead, Lincolnton Fire Department chief Mike Lee used the opportunity to direct city leaders to look at the future of the department.

“Due to the state of the economy, I’m putting budget requests for the upcoming year on hold,” said Lee. “In a way, I might be asking for budget cutbacks.”

Chief Lee did voice one concern, however, in that there’s only one fireman available on an engine in the eastern part of the city at any time.

“I have a real problem with this,” said Lee. “It’s a point of contention from a safety standpoint as well as an insurance rating standpoint.”

Currently, a firefighter from Lincolnton is stationed at Boger City, which relies on volunteer personnel otherwise.

Lee told city leaders the western part of Lincolnton is served “very well.”

“East of Highway 321, however, people are only getting one man and a truck,” said Lee. “They aren’t receiving protection the west side of the city is getting.”

Despite the discrepancy, Lee said he can promise five firefighters per major call within four minutes of receiving the call.

In outlining future needs, Lee said the city needs to look at a fire station location to better serve the people in eastern Lincolnton. He also talked to city leaders about a fire training facility.

Lee, who became fire chief last year after the retirement of Harvey Gates, told city department heads there was a 60 percent increase in call volume with the fire department in 2008 over 2007.

With more than 1,700 emergency responses during last year – more than 750 of the responses considered hazardous – Lee said that the majority of the calls came in a 12-hour period between 7pm and 7am.

The fire department covered nearly $5 million in property within the city limits in 2008. Three percent – about $143,000 – was property lost during the year, while $4.7 million (or 97 percent) was saved according to Lee.

Archives Page:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40
41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50

2008 Archives