Alpena Township Trustees, Fire Dept. Look to Work Together

At Monday night’s Alpena Township Board of Trustees meeting, the board announced raises for their own members, while announcing cuts to the fire department. The public gave comment and expressed their frustration.

“As being a first responder, $13, how far does that go with fuel that we’re paying for out of our pocket and stuff?” said Alpena Township First Responder Matt Klimczak. “With some people on the board, it’s all about numbers, so I was really surprised that last month that they actually voted to give everybody, themselves a raise.”

However, during the meeting later, the board addressed items on the agenda related to the fire department. Not only did they approve two of them, but they made a motion to collect data and find a mediator in order for the two sides to decide on a direction for the department and where the board wants it to go.

“I believe getting somebody, a neutral party in there, to get the board in agreement to start out with would be a big help, and then we can lay plans for building a future department here that’ll be what the taxpayers are looking for,” said Alpena Township Fire Chief Mark Hansen.

Despite not always seeing eye-to-eye on different topics, whether it’s certain budgetary issues or whatever else, they both want the same things, yet they can’t figure out what it is that’s keeping them apart.

“I think we’ve kind of been in a building phase, and it’s taken that next step,” said Alpena Township Trustee Cash Kroll. “I think if we were to sit down and say, ‘hey, this is what we want,’ and agree on our goal versus the big picture maybe that leads to the big picture or the next step.”

Both sides are feeling optimistic about the direction they’re heading, compared to where they were not too long ago, and even if they have a ways to go.

“Our fire department has improved greatly in the last year, so it’s – I would say we’ve had a success at this point, from where we were a year ago,” said Kroll.

When it comes to working together to make the fire department the best it can be, both sides agree it just comes down to coming up with a concrete plan to do so.