At the last Dillon County Council meeting, Councilman Joe Johnson made a motion that all Dillon County fire chiefs also serve as full-time engineers, that they be hired by, report to and be supervised by the county administrator. This policy is to be effective immediately and implemented as soon as feasible by the county administrator. The motion was seconded by Councilman Harold Moody and was passed with Johnson, H. Moody, and Chairman Aron Gandy voting for it and Councilman Andrew Graves and Councilman Archie Scott voting against it.
This motion appears to be little more than a thinly veiled attempt by council to politically micromanage the fire departments to produce a specific result. Shame on them, but let’s review how we got here.
It all started a few weeks ago when Dillon County Station One held their election for fire chief. When the vote was held the first time on June 5th, the results were 10 votes for D.J. Williams (an engineer) and 9 votes for Bobby Lee Thompson. Then another firefighter spoke up and said he was supposed to cast a vote for a fireman in the hospital to leave the slate of officers as is which made the vote 10-10. After some controversy, the men agreed to another vote on June 19th, and this time, Thompson was the clear winner. At least six firemen have quit the department and The Herald is told that this was a result of the election.
Now, the first election shouldn’t have happened the way it did. There is really no question about that. There should be clear rules as to how the elections should be conducted. Firemen who wish to vote should be present. If departments want to let someone vote who is not present due to illness, then a legal proxy should be presented if the rules are set up to allow that. However, the firemen agreed to another election and when it was held that should have been in the end of it.
Elections happen. Some elections are close. There are winners and losers. People are going to take sides, and in the end, one side is going to win and one side is going to lose. It’s just how it happens. It’s at that point that men need to be men and suck it up and set the good example.
That’s not what happened here. There has been bickering and back talk and several firemen quit. When the fire department has become so political that good firemen have so lost their focus that they would quit over such a situation then either they weren’t in the department for the right reasons or they have forgotten what led them there in the first place—public service, helping people and deterring loss of life and property. In quitting rather than trying to stick the situation out and weather the storm, these firemen have done themselves a disservice as well as a disservice to the people they serve.
To compound the situation and make things exponentially worse, the council jumps off and tries to quickly set a policy that has the appearance of being politically motivated and has ramifications that extend to all county fire departments and will affect the departments far into the future. One wonders if the effects on all departments were considered or if the motion was so hasty and narrow-focused that it was designed to only remedy or affect the results of a specific situation in a specific department. In Latta, for example, the full-time engineers are not members of the fire department, and one engineer does not live in the Town of Latta. Also, the fire chiefs in place that The Herald has spoken to tell us that they already report to and are directed by the county administrator.
All of the fire departments in the county—some of whom have also had close elections but handled themselves like adults and moved forward—should not be punished for the bad behavior of one fire department. If the council has a problem with one department, then they should send the county administrator there to deal with it or have him put sanctions on that department if he feels that is appropriate.
The elections of the fire chiefs should be up to the departments. The other departments seems to be able to handle it. Limiting it to the two or three engineers in each department will create a situation in which one or two people could hold the position for a long time whereas free elections when properly conducted allow the majority of the department’s members to make a change if they feel a change is needed. It takes away the motivation from the young firefighter trying to advance himself in the department. It may put a young engineer who lacks experience in charge of a situation that he may not be ready to handle creating a potentially dangerous problem. It does more harm than good.
The council, who if any group should know about the nature of elections, should have had the good sense and the good taste to have stayed out of the fire department elections.
They should have let or required the county administrator do his job and handle the situation if it needed to be handled. Their attempt to make what could be construed in some circles as a politically popular move may well mushroom into a situation that has the potential to create havoc across the county.
Nobody wins—not the council, not the fire departments—and in the end, the big losers will be the public and the people will suffer.