Sometimes Divorce Is Inevitable, OCFD

While I attended last nights Ocean City Council Meeting, it was completely packed again, standing room only. Obviously the Ocean City Volunteer Fire Department is the hottest ticket on the Shore.

I'm going to start off here somewhat getting away from the main story because I feel the need to give everyone an understanding of just what these Volunteers are actually going through.

The closest comparison I can give to their situation is very similar to a couple divorcing. Many parents tell their children, you're head of household, pull it together and save this marriage. What many people do not get is that you cannot control your spouse. If your partner cheats on you, lies and has no regard for everyone else involved, sometimes divorce is inevitable. That being said, the long and short of the OC Volunteer Fire company is the spouse that was cheated on and lied to. The trust is gone.

Last night the Council President clearly admitted he had done the Volunteers wrong. He did things behind their backs, lied and manned up to his portion of his involvement by apologizing and asking for forgiveness. The Mayor never offered such an apology and perhaps had hoped that since the Council President said it, maybe his guilt was relieved in the hopes that the Council President was speaking for everyone involved?

I can tell you that there came a time in a Budget Meeting where the Paid Firefighters and others on the Council, (and Mayor) snuck in a new Fire Truck and yes, even a new Fire Chief. All of which was never mentioned to the Volunteers and they later learned their intent was to turn the entire Department into a paid Fire Fighting Service. They never confronted the Volunteers on any of it.

The Council President went on to say, (after his apology) he wasn't sure if they could mend the damage that had been done but they were willing to do everything in their powers to make things work.

IMO, this could be one of those things where they know they screwed the Volunteers and by apologizing and stating that they are willing to do anything to repair it, they may actually intend NOT to fix and mend things, yet they can come back in the end and say, well, we offered everything possible to make things right and hope the Public forgives them?

That of course is my opinion because I am so used to Salisbury Politics and especially the former Council President Mike Dunn. You couldn't trust a word out of that guys mouth and whenever you challenged him he'd chop your head off or have you removed from a Council Meeting for expressing your feelings.

I will say that the drama from the OC Council is very tame compared to Salisbury as well. There's no attacks back and forth and they handle themselves very professionally. The Salisbury City Council should be forced to watch these people, (7 of them, 8 including the Mayor) work.

Now, Councilman Hall actually stated the most intelligent statement of them all. He said, this is not a game. If Ocean City were to have a catastrophe, you have 100 Volunteers that actually total 300 to 400 people when you add their families into the scope of it all. These are Families that sacrifice every day of the week, 365 days a year. If something serious were to happen and we didn't have these Volunteers, you're talking about another internal disaster because we'd only have 40 paid Firefighters to care for the entire City. "We need 300 to 400 Firefighters, not 40!"

This is a very serious matter to consider because there has been years of training for such a situation and to lose all those Volunteers, (which is a serious possibility) could cripple the City.

I spoke with Chief Laramore and we discussed this possibility. Quite frankly, they may have no choice but to walk out. The reason for such is the serious tension between the Paid Firefighters and the Volunteers. If YOU had attended last night, the paid were separated from the Volunteers and when I was speaking to other Firefighters outside the building before the meeting, believe me, they all do not want anything to do with one and other. Life time friendships have been destroyed and many do not ever feel they can be mended.

If you saw the arrogance of the Paid Firefighters, not even willing to go to the podium to speak unless the Volunteers left their place at the table in front of the Council, it was disgusting to see!

The solution may end up in a divorce and the Volunteers may just have to move to West Ocean City and provide a service there 2nd to none there. The hope from the Mayor & Council is for all of them to get together and talk this out till the end. The Volunteers have agreed to do so, they just weren't able to settle on a date last night.

Why Ocean City can't learn from what happened to the City of Salisbury and how screwed up that environment is, is beyond me? The Volunteers in Salisbury were screwed in a big way and I doubt many reading this will disagree. The Mayor, Chief See & Gordy really divided all of them and have such control over the Department, not many are happy with the outcome.

The Volunteers need to learn from that history and decide, do they divorce Ocean or do they settle in and change rolls in their own homes? The Volunteer Chief put on the table a proposal that would divide the Paramedics from the Firefighters and that's what they'll discuss in a future meeting, as mentioned earlier.

There was another major issue I'd like to bring to the table here and that is a major question asked to the Paid Firefighters. If you're no longer on your shift and a fire breaks out, are you allowed and or do you go to the fire anyway. The answer is, NO. However, they tried skirting around the answer by comparing Baltimore as an answer, not OC. They were asked again, more directly and in the end their stated their insurance would not cover them and they were not willing to take that risk. You ALL know I have a word for that and it rhymes with wussy.

I'll add something the Volunteer Chief stated. "I don't see why we have to fight so hard just to volunteer." That was very powerful.

More to come.

Joe