Summer Resident Question........WHAT is Going On In This Town?

SUMMER RESIDENT QUESTION..........

 

 

 

We received this question via Private Message..........

I have decided to keep their name confidential because I can tell they are truly concerned.

 

 

Jun 3rd, 2:42pm

I camp in one of the campgrounds in Lebanon and have been for many years. I have to ask; What is going on in town? Some will say that I don't have a right to ask since I am not a resident. Well, I may not be able to attend town meeting, I may not be able to vote in town elections, but through the campground, I do contribute to the town coffers. Many of us come from larger towns and cities with full time fire and rescue crews and have concerns (perhaps unjust) regarding volunteer departments. After following the various Facebook sites regarding Lebanon's Fire and Rescue crews, these concerns are growing. If there is an emergency in the campground, what level of service can we count on? Or should we just drive the injured (if possible) into Rochester and call them?

 

Here is our answer: 

 

Hi there Summer Resident!! Well, let's see. I suppose to make a long story short, I should start with a little history. We had an Assistant Rescue Chief who grew up in town. He was sort of like everyone's golden boy. The entire town sat on their duff and allowed him to take control of everything in town. They elected him Selectman, made him in charge of our town festival, made his wife the Rescue Chief, made him Assistant Chief, and then he had everyone vote to make the Rescue Department a separate entity, in charge of their own cash flow, so that no one had the right to ask any questions because it was not a town funded department. To be fair, no one in town should have EVER been handed that much "power" or "freedom" and I attribute part of that to the laziness of people in town who could just sit back and let that one person do everything, and they could relax, cause they trusted him to do it ALL. Now, to give that person credit, he did a fine job. Almost too good. They would sit out and listen to State Police Calls and jump the gun and be on the scene quicker than anyone could ever imagine. They did all KINDS of FREE stuff, the festival was free, you could pay $40 a year and all your ambulance service co payments would be free, they had Christmas gifts delivered via Santa on the Fire Truck free to under priviledged kids in town and the Easter bunny would arrive similarly in the ambulance at Easter time with goodies...........everything was FREE..........but you know how that works, don't you?? It doesn't. Just because someone SAYS something is FREE, there's always SOMEONE who must foot the bill. What happened was that acting as Selectman, he was able to access the town's General Fund and pay for everything with taxpayer dollars by screaming FREE, and FUN......So, eventually the poop hit the fan and the gig was up......we've had 3 Rescue Chiefs within the year since the old Chief and Selectman and Asst Chief resigned or retired or whatever they call it these days......not one of them would stay as there was BIG trouble with Maine EMS (the governing body for Rescue Departments), OSHA was in the middle of fining our town $8,000 a day for the past year as they had sent things that needed to be done and the former Rescue Chief and Asst Chief were too busy doing the FUN and FREE to pay attention to OSHA. There were 2 years worth of certifications missing for ALL of our EMTs which could have cost them their license, AND the heavy duty schedule 1 narcotics lock box was ALL messed up, with drugs missing and drugs signed in for other departments appearing in our lock boxes mysteriously. In short, it was a MESS. So now we have a new Chief. He lives right in Rochester and his Dad and Grandpa were Chiefs as well. He's been a Rochester Firefighter for AGES and he KNOWS HIS STUFF, I guarantee you that. In the meanwhile, our Fire Chief retired. Not out of anything bad, it was just his time. So the Selectmen asked this new man, Chief Daniel Meehan, to take over BOTH Fire and Rescue. You are in GOOD hands with this guy. Not only has he managed to clean up EVERYTHING so that OSHA is not fining us, not ONLY does he have all the EMT's certifications in order and has worked with Maine EMS to stop them from shutting down the Rescue COMPLETELY, not ONLY has he boosted the amount of volunteers on the Department, BUT he had done so making FULLY 1/3 of the money that the former folks were making. He's only been our Chief since January and he's got that Rescue building cleaned up (It was like a kids club house in there), he's got the fire engines and ambulances in the best working condition possible for their age, and he has secured a grant to send 12 more volunteers to EMT school without charge. He has also bolstered relationships with the towns that come when we are understaffed.....the Mutual Aid community who had all but stopped responding before his arrival. The "other pages" are all run by our former Rescue Chief and Asst. Chief. ALL of them, and many different Facebook pages with aliases. It's scary, actually. He has put photos of people's children and grandchildren on these pages and said VERY unkind and VERY untrue things about them. Thus Rochester has acted and banned him from their schools. There is also the fact that when husband and wife retired, there was over $200,000 missing from the Rescue Department kitty.......YEAH, that's a big one.....MY guess is that it was used to pay for all the FUN and FREE.....but that's only my guess. You have folks in town that will stand by them to the death because THEY were the recipients of the FREE and the FUN.......and then you have the taxpayers who are mad as all get out that there is $200,000 of OUR money GONE........ Anyway, anything else I can answer for you, feel free to ask. Summer residents pay their way and SHOULD be able to trust that they have services available to them just as the year round people do.

No matter what the outcome of the REST of the garbage, you can rest assured that you do NOT have to drive ANYONE to Rochester and call for them to respond. Should you need services and our volunteers are on another call, our Central Dispatch folks (you know them as 911) know the score and they will have Rochester respond under the Mutual Aid agreement our town has with them. Thanks to our new Fire and Rescue Chief, that relationship is in good order and good standing.

Thank you for taking the time to ask.