12/15/2021
Long post. Sorry for that, but sometimes this is what it takes to get the facts straight.
Facts Matter.
The Gadsden County Board of County Commissioners voted on December 7th to award the fire service contract back to the Town of Greensboro for a one-year term. Obviously, we were disappointed in this decision, but we feel it’s important to share the full story and all the facts that lead us to where we are today. As we’ve been accused of not being transparent, here is our attempt to make things crystal clear.
First things first, it’s important to know the history leading up to the April 2021 Town of Greensboro Council Meeting.
FACT: The Town has not always had a full-time town manager position.
Greensboro is a small town with only two full time employees; a town secretary and someone to maintain the grass / read the water meters. Some time ago the Town did have a Police Department, although those positions were part-time. During this period, the Mayor had the duties of what the present town manager has. Also during this time, the volunteer fire department had complete control over their own budget. The Town was the custodian of the money, however the Fire Chief had full control of his budget to effectively run his department….and NEVER once went over budget. At some point the Town Council decided they would rather have a full-time town manager instead of a police department. The decision was made to close down the police department and bring in a full time town manager. After going through several managers, we arrive at where we are today with Mr. Dennis Henderson as the manager. Mr. Henderson is the husband of Libby Henderson who is on the town council. It’s important to note that Mr. Henderson had no public administration experience leading up to this role. Until Mr. Henderson’s arrival as manager the Fire Chief continued to have full operational control of his budget, and this worked very effectively.
When Danny Hunter was voted Assistant Chief, by the fire department membership, Mr. Henderson was still new in this role as town manager. Chief Hunter attempted to establish sound working relations with Mr. Henderson right from the start. But it was apparent that Mr. Henderson would settle for nothing less than complete tyrannical control of the fire department, although he has no experience as a firefighter or running a fire department, compared with Chief Hunter’s 28 years in the fire service. With Mr. Henderson’s appointment the town took back all control of the fire departments budget. As the firefighters began to explore the department’s finances it was obvious that a significant portion of the budget was being used to pay the town clerk, with unspent money going into the Town’s reserves.
FACT: The town’s budget for the fire department contains zero money from the town. It is funded 100% by the County. $31,589; which is a fraction of what is actually needed.
The firefighters asked Chief Hunter to approach the Council to see if they would please stop paying the clerk out of the fire department budget. This request was driven by the fact that we had very important equipment that needed to be replaced and little money to do it with.
FACT: Over the course of four years, we asked the Council to please stop using firefighter funds to pay the clerk.
However, the town consistently refused and often referred to the funds “as not belonging to the firefighters, but the Town’s money” from 2018 to 2021. In 2021 tensions began to rise between the firefighters and the town, when we needed to replace our single most important piece of safety equipment, our self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA), or air packs.
FACT: The town had the opportunity to apply for a federal grant (AFG Grant) to replace the needed equipment and refused because there would be a cost to do so.
Chief Hunter approached Mr. Henderson about applying for the AFG Grant to supply all the needed equipment the department needed, and even went so far as the bring in a consultant would handle the application and administration of the grant. Mr. Henderson refused to apply for the grant because there would be an administrative cost of around $2,500 if we were to be awarded $200,000. His own words were that if the money wasn’t free he didn’t want it.
FACT: Mr. Henderson requested an inventory of the SCBA’s before he would consider anything further on the matter. This inventory was provided to him by Chief Hunter in August of 2020. The Town’s claims that we never provided an inventory is blatant lie.
At this point it was obvious to the firefighters that the town wasn’t interested in the safety of its firefighters and operational ability of the fire department. The town’s only concern was that they continued to receive money from the County to supplement their own financial reserves.
Once it was also obvious that the town would not be replacing the needed safety gear anytime soon, we contacted the County, and they provided a few loaner sets of retired SCBA’s. Since the County provided these, Mr. Henderson saw no need to consider buying new equipment. Keep in mind these sets were provided from the County, were better than what we did have previously, but were also used from another department in south FL.
FACT: The firefighters never asked the Town to assign us the fire service contract with the county. We only wanted to have operational control of our own budget, like it had been done in the past.
Now we began to ask for control of our own budget again. It was Mrs. Henderson that changed the narrative to make it look as if we were looking for some sort of contract assignment. The County contact cannot be assigned, and this was not what we were asking for. We simply wanted to have operational control like we had prior to the town manager position. We agreed to provide monthly financials in advance of the town council meetings, and we would provide full records for contract compliance. The Town refused. The Town continued to pay the clerk from fire department funds, and we were no closer to getting our needed equipment.
FACT: Tensions rose, and relations broke down on both sides.
In all of the council meetings one thing was obvious. Although there are five members, only one really controlled the show and that was Mrs. Libby Henderson. For reasons unknown, the other four council members seem to have relinquished their own authority to Mrs. Henderson. Chief Hunter acknowledged he had lost his temper during the December 2020 town meeting and publicly apologized.
FACT: The firefighters were asked by the Council to bring forward a plan for separation.
In the February 2021 council meeting Council President Bill Willis asked the firefighters if we felt we could better manage ourselves and wanted to operate with autonomy. We agreed that we did. It was actually Mrs. Henderson who made the motion for us to come back with a plan of separation. The firefighters came ready to present our plan at the April 2021 council meeting. However, after the actions of town came to light in the local TV news, tensions rose again on the night of the April meeting, and we were not allowed to present our plans. A plan that we honestly felt was mutually beneficial to both parties, and had we been able to present it, they would have probably like what we were bringing to the table. It was obvious the Town was embarrassed by having their deeds put on public display.
But we were presented with an ultimatum from Mrs. Henderson. We were told that we could continue as is, or we could all leave. She openly stated that having the whole department quit “was a risk she was willing to take” Mrs. Henderson openly stated that she was fine waiting on Quincy Fire Department to respond to Greensboro, and this is all documented in video’s on this FB page.
FACT: The firefighters never wanted to resign and after being forced to do so, still provided protection to the residents. All of our members joined the neighboring departments on the night we resigned to ensure the town still had coverage.
Remember; It was Libby Henderson who openly stated several times in council meetings that she was perfectly okay with waiting for the Quincy Fire Department if there was a fire in Greensboro. The video of that meeting is available on this page. This is in spite of the fact that Quincy has a 15–20-minute response time to Greensboro. Imagine living in Greensboro with a fire engine sitting in a station not being used; but because Town Council is fine with this arraignment you get wait for neighboring departments to make it to you, as you watch your house burn down.
Over the next eight months the Henderson’s would launch a smear effort to discredit the firefighters. Often repeating the lie that none of our 13 firefighters lived in the response district, when the facts are that one lives inside the Greensboro city limits, and six live outside the city but within the primary response area (3 mile radius), while the other six live in the secondary response area. One of which does live inside Leon County. And that firefighter has made it to every large fire we’ve ever had. He serves a critical need for additional manpower after the initial team is expended.
They would lie and say that we abandoned the town. It is not in our inherent nature to do such a thing. The night in April when we were forced out, each of our 13 firefighters joined neighboring departments to ensure we could continue to provide as much coverage as we could. We’ve honestly never had to fight so hard to do such consuming work for free.
FACT: Regardless of the ill will, the firefighters have tried on four occasions in the past eight months to bring this to a resolution. The Town has yet to officially respond.
Finding volunteers to do this work is extremely difficult to do. The fact that we have 13 seasoned firefighters ready willing and able to respond should speak volumes. Personally, we do this work at a financial loss. There is no reimbursement for gas, vehicle repairs, etc. Our Board President Joe Parramore has reached out to the Town Council President on four separate occasions to bring this issue to conclusion. To date, the Town has yet to respond to us in any capacity. Even though Libby Henderson once again openly lied in her letter to the County during the December County BOCC meeting, where she stated, “we’ve been unable to reach a compromise with the firefighters”. More lies, deception, and misdirection.
All the firefighters ever wanted is simple. We just want to serve our community by responding to emergencies and doing so in as safe of a manner as possible. We don’t want to be taken for granted or have our safety jeopardized by being forced to utilize outdated equipment that is no long fit for service, all the while having the Town of Greensboro skim money meant for fire service, to be used for other things. Firefighters’ safety and wellbeing should take priority over the Town of Greensboro improving their financial reserves. These sentiments were validated in the December County BOCC meeting when the County Administrator acknowledged the Town had been misapplying the awarded fire service funds.
Going forward, this group of firefighters will be responding with our current respective departments, like we’ve been doing for the last eight months. Even to calls for service in Greensboro, like we have many times since April.
If the Town feels like this has been a big win for them, the real losers in this battle are the residents in and around Greensboro, who still don’t have a responding fire department, directly due to the actions of Town of Greensboro.
