South Orange Village President Sheena Collum and the South Orange/Maplewood Joint Exploratory Committee on Fire Services are rushing to dissolve the South Orange Fire Department in a dangerously flawed plan to “consolidate” the South Orange and Maplewood Fire Departments. This plan promises tax cuts it cannot possibly deliver because its cost savings are based on murky math—omitting major expenditures such as overtime pay, EMT services and dispatch costs, all of which increase under this plan. It reduces shift staffing and slows response time to levels that fail to meet all recognized fire-safety standards, jeopardizing not only the safety of South Orange and Maplewood residents, but of our firefighters and our neighbors with whom we share mutual aid agreements. Finally, it eliminates Civil Service, a system designed to ensure public safety policy and procedures are implemented by qualified and trained professionals because it protects police and fire departments from nepotism and political interference.  

Fire safety policies and procedures, such as response times and staffing levels necessary to avoid catastrophic loss of life and property, are based on scientific evidence. President Collum doesn’t believe the science. She thinks fire safety is about politics and sees a consolidated fire department as a vehicle for fulfilling her political ambitions. We’re not politicians. We’re firefighters. It is our duty and obligation to raise awareness and inform the public about fire safety risks, and this consolidation plan jeopardizes fire safety for minimal, if any, actual cost savings. We are not opposed to a consolidated fire department. We are against the willful creation of a sub-standard fire department that will be perilously understaffed and under-resourced and that will operate without the professional standards of civil service.   

We want you to know the facts. You deserve a voice in this important decision about the future of your safety.