After the first three articles about TFS, something interesting has happened.
People are talking.
People are asking questions.
People who have been involved with the fire department, the Fire Service Area, the board, and the community are offering information.
That is exactly what should happen.
But there is also a problem.
Different people are giving different answers to some very basic questions.
Who actually belongs to the fire department?
Who gets to vote?
Who pays the fire service fee?
Do vacant property owners pay?
What exactly does the FSA board control?
What does the fire department board control?
Where does the Fire Chief’s authority begin and end?
Which decisions belong to the county commissioners?
And which governing document actually answers each of those questions?
I have received some additional information since publishing the last article. Some of it may prove completely correct. Some may be partly correct. Some may reflect older rules, misunderstandings, or the way things have traditionally been done rather than what the governing documents actually require.
I am not going to decide which is which based on who says it the loudest.
We need the documents.
TWO BOARDS, TWO DIFFERENT JOBS
One thing that deserves much more clarity is the relationship between the Fire Service Area board and the nonprofit volunteer fire department board.
They are not the same board.
They do not necessarily have the same authority.
And yet, depending on whom you ask, you can get very different explanations about what each one actually does.
That is not something we need to argue about.
There should be documents that tell us.
WHO IS A MEMBER, AND WHO PAYS?
This is another area where I am hearing different explanations.
I’ve now been told that fire department membership is tied specifically to ownership of property containing a structure, and that owners of vacant property do not pay the fire service fee.
That may be correct.
But before I repeat it as fact, I want to see exactly what the current bylaws, county resolutions, fee structure, Articles of Incorporation, and other governing documents say.
There may also be an important difference between a property owner, fee payer, fire department member, voting member, board member, and firefighter.
Those terms should not be treated as interchangeable unless the documents say they are.
THERE HAVE ALSO BEEN IMPROVEMENTS
I have also been told that TFS now employs a bookkeeper who prepares financial reports for meetings, reportedly a change made within the last few years following financial questions.
If verified, that matters too.
Accountability isn’t about looking only for what is wrong.
If something was identified as a weakness and subsequently improved, the community should know that as well.
Then we can ask what financial safeguards exist today and whether the public can reasonably access those records.
AND THEN THERE ARE THE MINUTES
I’ve heard several explanations for why some historical meeting minutes contain very little useful information.
Some explanations involve poor minute-taking, difficulty hearing meetings, inadequate transcription tools, lack of training, or simply people doing the best they could with what they had.
There have also been separate concerns raised about whether information was omitted or minutes were changed.
Those are very different things.
I am not going to assume either explanation is true without evidence.
The way to find out is to compare agendas, draft minutes, approved minutes, recordings, correspondence, reports, and other available records.
That is what records are for.
SO NOW I WANT THE FOUNDATION
There is one set of documents I especially want to see next:
The TFS Articles of Incorporation, including any amendments.
Then we put those beside the bylaws, policies, county resolutions, FSA documents, service agreements, meeting records, and Montana law.
Because something has become increasingly obvious during this process.
If five people can attend the same meetings and walk away with five different explanations of who has authority, who is a member, who pays, what the FSA controls, and what the fire department controls, the answer isn’t to argue louder.
Pull out the Articles of Incorporation, bylaws, contracts, resolutions, policies, and Montana law and read them.
That isn’t attacking the fire department.
It isn’t attacking the board.
And it isn’t taking anybody’s side.
It is how you separate institutional memory, personal opinion, “this is how we’ve always done it,” and rumor from what is actually written down.
And that is where I’m headed next.
Because the people serving on these boards deserve to know exactly where their authority begins and ends.
The firefighters deserve to know.
Property owners deserve to know.
The people paying for these services deserve to know.
And the community certainly deserves to know.
Documents don’t care who is popular.
They don’t care who has been here the longest.
They don’t care who is annoyed that somebody asked a question.
They simply tell us what was actually adopted.
Now let’s go find them.
© Amberli Emery
Leave a Reply