COVER FEATURE
By B.C. Kowalski
FIRE END
A fire truck in a small Portage County village broke down at a fire last month - and it’s not the first time as the department comes to an end
Last month, a fire call summoned the fire department in the little village of Park Ridge in Portage County. The department was called to the town of Stockton, part of a mutual aid call the small volunteer department was used to responding to. Their fire truck made it to the fire on May 10 in the town of Stockton in Portage County. No one was hurt in the fire. But Park Ridge’s fire truck, built before Jimmy Carter was president, didn’t make. “It’s the first time we had to call a tow truck,” nowformer Park Ridge Fire Chief Brian Lepper tells me on a Thursday afternoon at Emy J’s in Stevens Point. “It’s not the first time we had a truck experience a mechanical failure on an emergency scene.” Lepper is explaining to me why no one was particularly surprised at the breakdown. For one, it’s the department’s oldest truck, built in 1974. Lepper tells me when they needed parts for it, the parts dealers assumed that a truck that old must be used for ceremonies, parades and such. They’re always shocked to learn it’s actually a service truck used in live fire scenes. It’s the oldest of the small village’s three trucks, but none are exactly new. They also have a 1980 fire vehicle and a 1993 one. In other words, the department’s newest vehicle is nearly 30 years old, and its oldest is getting close to 50. If they were cars, they’d all qualify for collector’s plates. The breakdowns are an embarrassment to the village, and to the firefighters who volunteer their time to the village’s department. It’s a symbol of a fire department left in decline by its village for years. Lepper himself put in his four month notice in February, and now several of the department’s volunteer firefighters are leaving.
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June 23-30, 2022
It’s not likely the department will be able to recruit any new volunteer firefighters. After all, they only started paying anything under Lepper’s insistence when he became chief — and that pay is much lower than other volunteer departments. Another advantage those departments, such as Plover’s, have is newer equipment that’s more exciting to young firefighters. It’s another story of neglect of a fire service, something critical to public safety. This is what residents pay taxes for. City Pages reported recently on how the Wausau Fire Department hadn’t seen a staffing increase since the 1970s, despite call volumes doubling in the last two decades alone. That seemed unbelievable to many who heard it. But for all those struggles, the struggles smaller departments face is worse — as materials and equipment costs, not to mention labor cost, continue to rise, more and more departments are merging. So it’s interesting that a village of just a few more than 500 residents still has its own department. But probably not for long.
Years of neglect Park Ridge is a small village completely surrounded by Stevens Point; many probably don’t know about its existence. Its population is a little more than 500 people. If you’ve visited Stevens Point, you’ve probably driven past it without knowing you’d done so. City Pages recently met with Steve Menzel. Menzel was elected to the village of Park Ridge in a recall election that saw several Park Ridge elected officials ousted. The fire department was a pretty big source of that recall, he says. Residents didn’t feel listened to. When the
village decided to build a new fire station that year, many residents didn’t think it was the right move. It’s not that the fire department didn’t need the building — plus new trucks and other equipment — but some felt the village should be taking a step back to decide whether it even should have a fire department in the first place. As both Menzel and Lepper explain, the department itself has about eight fire calls per year in the actual village. Most of the calls to which the department responds are aid calls outside the village — Stevens Point, Plover, Hull, etc. Unlike in Marathon County, in Portage County ambulance calls are handled by the county, contracting with various fire departments. Some residents, including Menzel, signed on to a lawsuit over alleged open meetings violations - a zoning change that would have allowed the fire station was done without a public hearing, residents alleged. The frame of the building was on its way to the village when the injunction halted the project. Park Ridge spends $47,000 per year on its fire department. The total village budget is well under $1 million. So it’s easy to see how it might be challenging to maintain a fire department and buy new fire trucks and a new building. It means borrowing a lot of money, and while interest rates are still pretty good, that money needs to be paid back. Both Menzel and Lepper agree that the village never properly planned for equipment replacement. That’s not a recipe for success. The department has had multiple vehicle failures in the past. The most recent incident, on May 10, saw the village’s 1974 truck towed from a fire scene in Stockton.
