No one listened

Three years ago, I wrote the following about the Hillsboro firefighters.

There's an old saying that brings to mind the required psychological makeup and intestinal fortitude of the professional firefighter. After all, these are the individuals who rush into burning buildings when everyone else is in a rush to get out of them.

Such was the case on an August Thursday morning when Hillsboro Fire and Rescue was called to a house fire in the 300 block of North East Street. Upon arrival, firefighters learned that not everyone had safely evacuated the burning home. One resident was still inside.

To make matters more difficult, visibility and breathing were severely impaired by a thick, dark smoke which blended eerily into the heavy morning blanket of fog over much of southern Ohio.

In a matter of moments, which may have seemed like hours to the family of the woman trapped inside, Hillsboro firefighters made their way into the burning structure and rescued the resident.

Fast-forward three years.

The relatively new Hillsboro mayor and his well-compensated administration have proposed that it's time to bring an end to the Hillsboro Fire Department as we know it.

Before readers leap to the inaccurate conclusion that this column is a criticism of the mayor – whose name I was happily ignorant of five short years ago – it isn't.

After all, isn't the mayor doing what a majority of his political supporters want? 

Moreover, in November 2007, I said in print "New mayor must address spending."

I wrote similar warnings from 1995-98 and again from 2002 to the present.

No one listened.

It was as if the city of Hillsboro was riding the taxpayer-driven Gravy Train From Here to Eternity.

At that time, my good friend Jim Surber offered a Biblical reference that Hillsboro had become the land of milk and honey. So it seemed.

No one likes anyone who says "I told you so."

But, by God, I did. Or, at least, I tried to.

Five years ago, I wrote: "The city of Hillsboro continues its practice of letting firefighters choose their own hours while city managers champion their efforts, stating unequivocally that they work 5,000 hours a year, and present the assumption that the pay, $17 an hour, isn't all that much to save a life.

"(But) when we look at real compensation in the city fire department, we find one so-called $17-an-hour firefighter had been paid $78,000 in 2007, including vacation pay, personal leave pay, holiday overtime, acting pay and sick leave. He is approaching between $96,000 and $100,000 for his 2007 compensation, plus another $30,000 for benefits.

"In 2006, the average pay for a city firefighter was $62,000, plus another $20,000 per person in benefits. By comparison, the average annual household income in Hillsboro, according to the 1999 U.S. Census, was $25,998."

The last proposed city tax increase, as I recall, was an earnings tax in 2005. Voters wisely – and soundly – rejected it. Clearly, a tax increase is not an option.

As I've said for years, city officials need to understand what taxpayers already know: Even though the last increase in the city income tax was in 1987, taxable income has gone up significantly in the past 20 years. So have sales taxes and revenues from the water and sewer funds. Revenues have not been the city's problem. Spending has.

For one more brief piece of city history: Public records will show that total salary, wage and benefit compensation for the HFD increased by a double-digit annual average from 1996-2003 – before Mayor Dick Zink took office. So let's stop blaming Mayor Zink for sinking the Titanic. The deck chairs were already in the water when he took office.

A staunch supporter of the present mayor is championing the city auditor's press conference announcement. That's all well and good. The present auditor has tried to inform the city administration and city council. His predecessor in that office tried for 18 years. Again, no one listened. The city just kept spending.

(On a side note: the Highland County commissioners heeded the advice of County Auditor Bill Fawley. In the past four years, commissioners trimmed more than $2 million from the budget.)

So what to do?

If you're a member of Hillsboro City Council, what would you do?

Maybe a better question is this: What wouldn't you do?

If you were on council:

• Would you vote to disband the Hillsboro Fire Department before really negotiating a reasonable plan to save it? I wouldn't.

• Would you agree to two seemingly hurried "special meetings" in a four-day period? I wouldn't. Why the rush? The infamous rumor mill of late centers around councilman Rod Daniels' short-term local presence from military service and the potential vote on Monday – which may negate the likelihood of a tie-breaking vote (and potential conflict of interest) from the council president, Lee Koogler, who, according to the auditor, has a relative working for the HFD. If that's the case, it's not a good reason to hold back-to-back special meetings. I wouldn't.

• As representatives of Highland County's county seat, largest economic center and only city, would you vote to join another Fire/EMS district BEFORE you had a written agreement of your pending acceptance? I wouldn't.

If Hillsboro City Council agrees with the mayor's decision to join the Paint Creek EMS/Fire District, and votes accordingly in the next few days, what's the backup plan if the Paint Creek board decides there's more shaker than salt in accepting Hillsboro?

Maybe Paint Creek has concerns that the city of Hillsboro and its firefighters have a contract through 2013. Maybe Paint Creek doesn't want any part of that potential litigation.

Then again, maybe Paint Creek welcomes Hillsboro with open arms and not raised digits. I don't know.

What I do believe is this: Reasonable options were available. Maybe they still are, but I doubt it.

As I wrote as recently as two months ago, City Auditor Gary Lewis placed a value of $27 per Liberty Township resident to this city service. This was an increase of 22 percent on the townships.

The city administration, i.e., the mayor, balked at the figure.

Later, the townships offered a rate of $30 per resident, an increase of 30 percent payable to the city of Hillsboro.

The city administration again balked at the figure.

Thus, Liberty and other townships were left in limbo and subject to the latest whims of the city which, to this point, has not disclosed its "real rate" for services rendered.

Last year, the city auditor told the city that it should look at the arrangement as a "shared cost of labor" and if it did, $27 per resident would be reasonable. The townships offered $30.

The townships put their cards on the table in good faith. Other than the auditor, the city didn't.

So here we are. We have press conferences and special meetings but no real solutions.

This whole mess started 16 years ago. Frankly, I'm tired of writing about it.

I still maintain that Highland County Prosecutor Anneka Collins and Hillsboro City Auditor Gary Lewis could have resolved this in about four hours in a closed-door negotiation. But that ship, like the Titanic, has sailed.

Time to pay the ship's fiddler.

Rory Ryan is publisher of The Highland County Press.