[8/11/04]City and county officials are debating a proposed mutual aid agreement that would allow Vicksburg firefighters to respond to fires outside the municipal limits.

The argument isn’t between Vicksburg and Warren County, but among city officials who aren’t sure how fire department responses to the county will be funded. Mayor Laurence Leyens said that despite that uncertainty, he wants to go ahead with the agreement.

“This is the right thing to do,” Leyens said. “It’s about saving lives, and it makes sense.”

District 4 Supervisor Richard George said he agrees with Leyens. “This idea is more moral than financial,” George said.

South Ward Alderman Sid Beauman, however, said he has a problem with the agreement because it doesn’t provide a way for the city to be reimbursed any expenses of dispatching city employees and equipment outside the city limits.

Beauman said the city can bill a property owner’s insurance company, but the city has no means of collecting.

“We have a responsibility to city taxpayers to do city business with city taxes,” Beauman said.

City and county officials began discussing a possible mutual aid agreement about a year ago after it was discovered that there was no agreement in place. Without that agreement, city firefighters cannot respond to fires beyond the city limits, even when the closest volunteer fire department is further away. For example, the city’s newest fire station on Indiana Avenue is less than a minute away from Oak Park subdivision, but Oak Park is outside the corporate limits.

Also, about four years ago, a fire on Sherman Avenue destroyed a home within sight of the city’s fire station in Kings while firefighters there were unable to do anything. The closest volunteer fire department to that blaze was the Culkin Department several miles away.

The agreement currently being proposed by the Warren County Volunteer Fire Coordinator and the Vicksburg Fire Chief would not necessarily have helped the homeowner on Sherman Avenue, but would allow city firefighters to assist volunteers when requested.

Volunteer Fire Coordinator Kelly Worthy said that in two years and four months there were 16 fires where volunteers would have called in city firefighters under the proposed agreement. Fire Chief Keith Rogers said each of those responses would have cost the city about $3,500.

“It’s about being able to respond,” Rogers said. “We need that ability.”

Officials said that under the proposed agreement city firefighters would be called out only in a dire emergency when volunteer units are in danger or out of resources to fight the blaze. Leyens cited the fire at Rouse Polymerics International Inc. on U.S. 61 South in 2002, although inside the city limits, as an example of the type of fires where city units would respond.

The proposed agreement would also make it the fire chief’s discretion to respond.

Under current separate agreements, the city’s ambulance and rescue service currently responds to wrecks, fires and other emergencies outside the city limits. The city is funded for those services out of the county’s general operating budget, but volunteer fire departments are funded through special taxes in limited areas.

River Region Medical Center is also outside the city’s fire protection area, but its owners pay the city an annual fee to send fire crews when needed.