Voters approved the budget, nixed the purchase of a new truck and ousted two incumbent fire district commissioners in the recent Tabernacle Fire District Election.
The new commissioners are John Burger (298 votes) and Jules Krause (287 votes). They replace Kevin Zebrowski (187 votes) and Don Perkins (87 votes).
Shawn Vena, also a non-incumbent, gained 164 votes in a losing effort.
Burger and Krause were elected to full, three-year terms.
The new $659,000 pumper truck received 237 yes votes and 323 no votes.
The $511,913 budget was approved by a 321 to 230-vote margin.
Deputy Fire Chief John Welling was disappointed by the vote on the truck.
“The morale of the company is extremely low,” Welling said. “All of our volunteers are disappointed because we did exactly what the residents and township committee asked for.”
He said they lowered the budget and developed a capital plan.
“The purchase of the truck would not have raised taxes and was being paid for by a combination of future capital funding and retired debt,” Welling said. “The impact of this defeat means that a fire truck will not go in the new emergency services building for at least two years.”
He said not having the truck impacts response time to the northeastern parts of Tabernacle.
“A truck on New Road reduces our response time to those areas from 13:30 minutes to 6:19 minutes, over seven minutes,” Welling said. “This is significant if you consider fire doubles every 30 seconds.”
He also said there is always the potential Tabernacle’s ISO rating may be reevaluated and increased because the township has not purchased the third Class A pumper as identified by the ISO evaluation.
Insurance Services Office (ISO) is a source of information about property/casualty insurance risk.
“ISO used the 1974 pumper in its evaluation — and this truck is no longer in service or NFPA compliant,” Welling said. “This would increase homeowners’ insurance rates in Tabernacle. Our members are not happy and they are all contemplating their future. They have all worked hard to save our taxpayers money through grants, tightening the belt, completing the ISO upgrade and putting in over 13,000 man hours annually of volunteer time –only to be slapped in the face by a commissioner and some residents.
“We have saved residents hundreds of thousands of dollars. We do really appreciate those residents that understood the facts and did not listen to the misgivings of a few and supported us.”
Welling said some in the township unfairly proffered inaccurate information about the truck, though he didn’t cite anyone specifically.
“Unfortunately, some people put some information out to the public that was not accurate,” he said. “Unfortunately, some people only think of tomorrow and they don’t think of the long term. I don’t think people come out and listen to the facts. I think they listen to the rhetoric.”
Welling said he doesn’t know the agenda of those he claims circulated false information.
He said it is now the responsibility of the board of fire commissioners to put the pumper on next year’s ballot.
