Fire Meeting

Can you say deja vu? Only it wasn’t angry words for the Ruston council over an unpopular condo project this time, it was tension about the council’s continued pursuit of contracting with Tacoma for emergency services even after Tacoma has withdrawn from negotiations.

Tonight’s study session lasted about 20 minutes for mostly procedural discussion before disintegrating out of control. Here is a break down as best I can recall. This is not intended to fully reflect what everyone saw or heard at the meeting, only my observations. The tapes will be available.

After the usual opening, Council Member Albertson stood up and announced that council members had been called names and yelled at the last meeting (not related to fire department issues). They would not tolerate such treatment and promised to adjourn the meeting if they felt they were being mistreated.

The mayor then stood up and said he, as mayor, had statutory authority to conduct the meetings and he was exercising that authority to run this meeting tonight. Albertson interjected that the council had the authority to adopt the procedural process that would be followed at meetings, but the mayor pointed out that the council had never adopted any such rules.

Council Member Albertson then stated that he had many questions about the fire committee report and he wanted the fire chief to answer them. The mayor pointed out that these questions should have been submitted in advance so that both the fire chief and the committee would have time to research and provide adequate answers. Having questions thrown at someone without notice could be perceived as adversarial.

Chief Torbet agreed to answer questions. Albertson had many questions that were all centered around what criteria should be used to judge which fire department (Tacoma or Ruston) would be better. He asked first about response times, then wanted Chief Torbet to outline what criteria the council should use to make a choice between the two departments.

The repeated questioning about the same issue drew some angry outbursts from the audience, many of whom were standing by now. Council Member Huson then stood up and left. Several people came forward to talk to council members at this point. After a few minutes, Council Member Albertson and Chief Torbet agreed to speak alone. They stepped out into the hallway with the mayor.

After several minutes, the mayor returned and announced the meeting was adjourned. He told everyone to clear the room so Albertson and Torbet could talk in private. After waiting several more minutes for everyone to disperse, the lights were turned off and the three men left to meet at some other location.

The goal of this blog is open, civil dialogue. No one was allowed to speak tonight except for the three men who are now meeting privately. Please use this outlet to share your thoughts. And feel free to leave your unedited comments on the Ruston Truth post of the meeting if ‘civil’ is more than you can tolerate at the moment.

Karen