Hooks back in service

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Firefighters discovered an issue with the ladder truck’s hydraulic lines during last week’s training.

By Krystle S. Morey

After being unable to respond to calls for seven months, the Granville Hook & Ladder Fire Company is back in service – and officials are talking about combining the village’s two fire companies into one.
But the village is still withholding funding as it awaits a state audit of the Hook & Ladder Company’s finances and readiness.
The Village Board voted unanimously Monday night to rescind the stand-down order, after several fire department officials and business leaders urged the board do so.
Hooks Chief Dan McClenning said at the meeting that he thought the village board was “doing an injustice by holding back a ladder truck that is certified and serviceable to the village of Granville.”
About an hour into the meeting – after the routine agenda items and public comment session had ended – Mayor Brian LaRose said: “I am willing to rescind the order on the stand-down order on the ladder truck, if you folks (the board) are comfortable with it.”
Trustee Paul Labas agreed, “as long as all of the criteria has been met,” he said.
Citing “hundreds of thousands of dollars” of debt and the absence of certifications for its members and equipment, in June the board ordered Granville Hook & Ladder Co. to go on “stand-down” until further notice.
“My biggest concern was to make sure that the liability was not an issue,” LaRose said. “As I have sat in this chair over the last six or seven years, my No. 1 concern has always been this village and the people in it. I have a duty to the village and I have a duty to you … to make sure that you guys (firefighters) are protected.”
The other board members agreed, referencing that they have responsibility to the community, taxpayers and firemen to make sure that the equipment being used is safe and that the lives of those firemen are not put in danger in any way.
The village and the fire company went back and forth since the stand-down order addressing different liability concerns and other requirements.
“What happened today … was a positive thing,” deputy mayor Gordy Smith said of the rescinded stand-down.
He added that he would like to see consolidation of the two companies in the future.
“There’s no reason why we can’t apply one of these grants to build us a nice Taj Mahal firehouse like you see over on Bay Road in Glens Falls or over on Route 32 in Gansevoort … we could house the fire department there, we could house the rescue squad there … all centralized under one building.”
He added: “It would be more economical and bring the department together.”
“There has been a lot of salt poured into wounds here,” Labas said. “We have come a long way on this.”
Prior to the vote to end the stand-down, Dan Roberts, president of the Hooks, addressed the board about the concerns he had with its growing list of requirements.
“We have applied and done everything this board has asked us to do … everything,” he said. “Without a doubt, we’ve done everything.”
Also attending the board meeting were a few local business leaders, who were encouraged by Roberts to attend.
“When it comes to a fire, I don’t care who is up on that ladder … whether it is this company or that company, I have 40 residents over there who need to get out,” said Penny Illsley, manager at Mountainview Commons, where many elderly people live.
One of village officials’ concerns with lifting the stand-down in recent weeks was manpower.
“Are we going to have enough certified members to operate that apparatus?” LaRose said previously. He suggested to the Hook & Ladder and the Engine & Hose Company that they work together to ensure enough certified members would be available to respond to a call, if needed.
McClenning told the board Monday that the companies have always worked together, during the 25 years he has belonged to the Hooks.
“I don’t care if it’s been a mutual aid call or if it’s been a village call … the fire (companies) have always come together to get the job done in a safe and secure manner,” he said. “There’s no reason that that’s not going to continue to occur.”
Monday night was the first night the companies agreed to work together, LaRose said.
“That was the first time I heard … it’s been whispered in my ear, but not in public,” he said. “I was kind of waiting to hear that.”
McClenning said: “These two (companies), used to be three (companies), can fight or argue on whatever they want to argue behind closed doors … but when they come together as a village fire department, they represent it as one. I don’t care who was behind me doing that job, we did the job safe and securely. I don’t know where we got away from that, but if we have, it’s dead wrong.”
“This department needs to come together and protect the village it’s sworn to serve as a unit,” he said. “If it takes somebody from another department being on that truck … we’ve done it before. This isn’t the first time and it won’t be the last.”
Hooks member Wes Barlow added: “When it comes to a fire, we are one.”
“I would hope that both fire departments, if there is a fire, whether it be this fire department or that fire department, that both of them can come together, and put this rift behind them, and work together,” Illsley added.
Rev. Jim Petersen of the Granville Baptist Church was pleased to see the stand-down lifted. Before the board voted, he said: “All of these church buildings are very large and if there was a fire, we would certainly need the aerial ladder.”
Anthony Stokowski, of John Stokowski & Sons, Inc., in Middle Granville, agreed. “Let’s not lose a valuable asset,” he said of the ladder truck.
Next on the agenda for the fire companies, LaRose said, is to spend time revisiting and documenting standard operating procedures within the department.
“SOPs are key,” he added. “If there is ever an issue … we’ve got something to fall back on … to guide you through it, but also to verify the things that you folks do.”
The village is still waiting on the results of a state audit of the companies, which the mayor ordered at the time of the stand-down order. LaRose said he expects “relatively soon” an audit report that will make suggestions relating to the operation and finances within each company.
“One thing that I am pretty confident is going to come out of the audit that we are going to see from the state comptroller’s office, is suggestions on how to make these SOPs and those procedures between both companies clearer and more documented than what we have,” La Rose said.
Though the stand-down was lifted, the village is still withholding some of the Hooks’ funding. The only funds being released are to pay the company’s vehicle loan and building mortgage.
LaRose said once the village receives the audit results he will initiate another discussion relative to the monies that are to be appropriated to the Hooks.
“It’s our responsibility to the taxpayers of this community to make sure that those monies are allocated and that they are directed in the proper manner,” LaRose said.
Roger Forando, a member of the Hook & Ladder Fire Company, questioned the board about how releasing the funds was related to the audit.
“The basics of what we are doing shouldn’t impact what local officials are doing,” Brian Butry, deputy press secretary at the state Comptroller’s Office, said previously. Butry said his office is only looking at a set period of time when it is conducting its audit, so any actions taken by the board or decisions made by the board will not affect the state’s analyzation of the past financial records in question.
LaRose said he would call the state Comptroller’s Office this week to make sure of the same.
“If it’s a non-issue, then those monies will be given out,” he said. “Until I know for sure, I am not doing it.”