Annville board votes 4-1 to move forward on regional fire commission

This article was funded by LebTown donors as part of our Civic Impact Reporting Project.

Annville Township commissioners approved by 4-1 vote a request by the Regional Fire Steering Committee to contribute up to $5,000 to help pay ROBB Consulting LLC develop a regional fire commission that could potentially combine six Lebanon County fire companies into one agency.

Annville Township’s contribution to the consultancy fee is contingent on the five other local municipalities’ equal contributions to the merging of volunteer departments.

Cleona Borough also has approved up to $5,000 in such “seed money” to hire the consultant and develop the commission, Annville Township board vice president Henri Lively told LebTown.

Six municipalities are considering the combination of their fire companies into a regional commission to address dwindling volunteers to fight fires and help purchase increasingly expensive firefighting equipment.

The Regional Fire Steering Committee also has applied for grants to help finance the development costs, according to the request. Any grant funds received will be shared equally with the six contributing municipalities, according to the draft proposal.

Commissioner Scott Daubert cast the dissenting vote to oppose the contribution.

“I’ve said at a previous meeting I wasn’t in favor of this, because there seems to be some issues between Cleona and Annville, at this point in time, of some sort,” Daubert said. “And I felt like a joint fire company is not on solid ground.”

He said he was also concerned about how consultancy studies tend to be drawn out before making any recommendations. Asked after the meeting for details of “issues” between Cleona and Annville, Daubert said he knew no specifics.

Study results will not necessarily lead to a full-on merger of the six fire departments, commissioner Anthony Perrotto told the board.

“We have issues with manpower, we benefit from collaborating with our neighbors,” Perrotto said. “When everybody’s working together, even if it’s not a full merger but some sort of collaboration or cooperation, that’s what this consulting firm would be doing is helping us put that together.”

The four remaining municipalities participating in the steering committee – Cornwall Borough and West Cornwall, North Cornwall, and West Lebanon townships, are expected to vote on the request for funding this month, according to a message Lively sent to the Cleona and Annville fire departments Wednesday. He said the steering committee working toward a regional fire commission expects the “real work” to evolve in the next 6 to 12 months, and that the commission would potentially go “live” in 2028.

ROBB Consulting, based in Lemoyne, specializes in fire department mergers, regionalization, and consolidation efforts.

Each fire company would maintain its own identity under a regional fire commission, according to Lively’s email, while the commission would be responsible for leading future apparatus and capital purchases. The Warwick Emergency Services Commission would be used as a model for development of the regional fire commission, he wrote.

“Transparency and cooperation amongst the participating municipalities and fire departments is crucial to the success of this project,” Lively wrote.

In a separate item, Perrotto raised the question of whether the township can install speed bumps along a section of Maple Street, where several intersections have four-way stops. State Rep. Russ Diamond (R-102) lives in Annville Township, Perrotto said, and has worked on legislation to allow municipalities to install speed bumps without Pennsylvania Department of Transportation’s study and approval.

First- and second-class cities in Pennsylvania can add such speed-limiting road equipment to slow traffic, township solicitor Megan Ryland-Tanner told the board, but smaller municipalities must apply to PennDOT for approval.

Diamond confirmed to LebTown that he is working on such legislation but said that PennDOT has contacted Annville Township with information that no such approval is required for any size municipality in the commonwealth.

Township manager Candie Johnson said she would come back to the board with more information on requirements to add speed bumps at the next meeting, Aug. 4.

The board also:

• Voted 5-0 to approve Lisa Daubert, wife of board commissioner Scott Daubert, to serve on the township’s zoning hearing board. Daubert replaces Laura Cherelian, who resigned from the board in June.
• Voted 5-0 to approve Kerrie Smedley as a member of the alternative zoning hearing board, replacing Rich Raiders, who stepped down last month.
• Voted 5-0 to approve Matt Wolson as a member of the Historical Architectural Review Board, replacing Rick Wherley, who also stepped down last month.
• Approved a handicapped parking space at 336 E. Sheridan Ave. by 5-0 vote.