SARAH WATSON

Moline Dispatch and Rock Island Argus, Ill.

(TNS)

Eldridge City Council voted Monday night to take over the volunteer fire department.

All five council members voted in support of a motion for the city to hire a fire chief, supervise volunteers and build out a second-floor living quarters on the current fire station.

That's not what the volunteer fire department members wanted, department leaders told the city council at a July 13 meeting.

The Eldridge Volunteer Fire Co., an all-volunteer nonprofit, responds to EMS and fire calls in Eldridge and rural surrounding areas.

After years of negotiating whether and how to become a city department, in early June, the department's members voted to remain independent, rather than be absorbed by the city.

Department leaders submitted a three-year budget request to the city, starting at about $766,000 for the first year, for what it would cost for the department to run with two full-time staff members, a build-out of the upstairs and replacement of equipment. They started a campaign on social media, sent out flyers to residents, and held a community informational meeting about their budget requests.

At a meeting on July 13, fire department leaders told city council members trust between the city and fire department had broken down after the city dragged its feet in negotiations. Half of the department's volunteers said in a straw poll they would leave the department if the city took it over.

After the council's vote Monday, members of the volunteer fire department in the audience stood up and left the city council meeting. A member of the volunteer fire department declined to comment, but several people gathered outside expressed frustration with the decision.

City officials had expressed concern with the size of the funding request and being able to closely track taxpayer dollars going to an independent entity.

Fire department officials have said the request covered combined capital and operating budgets and that it makes up for being underfunded for years.

Mayor Scott Campbell said Monday what he heard from the previous meeting was the urgency in the need for a decision from the city council.

Council member Jeff Ashcraft, in making the motion for the city to take over the department, told the council members he believed it would support the continuation of fire and EMS services in Eldridge while ensuring adequate oversight of taxpayer dollars.

Council member Brian Dockery advocated for continuing to allow the Eldridge Volunteer Fire Co. to manage its volunteers and hire a chief while the city could own the assets and make capital improvements. But Dockery ultimately voted for the city to absorb fire services.

Before the vote, Assistant City Administrator Jeff Martens gave a timeline of the city staff's efforts to evaluate a city-run fire department dating back to his hiring in 2022. Martens said one of his first tasks was to create a report on communities of a similar size in Iowa that had made a transition to paid or hybrid fire departments.

He said other departments were running on operating budgets with less money than the Eldridge Volunteer Fire Company was at that time without a paid chief.

After more back-and-forth, research, and talks with other fire departments, Martens acknowledged that in January 2025, the city "requested a lot of information" and the fire department "spent a lot of hours putting that together."

In 2025, the city did more research, including meeting with other communities and digging into whether an intergovernmental agreement existed for fire services. The city also began setting aside funds for future fire department needs, drafted an ordinance to transition the department, and worked on a job description with the fire department leaders, Martens said.

At one point, the city looked into whether the county's fire district board of trustees could hire a staff member who would oversee the fire department, which Martens said didn't produce any results.

The city continued meeting with volunteers and other cities through early 2026. Martens said Nevada's fire budget was $260,000 with a paid chief and LeClaire's budget was $541,000 for fiscal 2026 with a paid chief and a paid captain.

Martens added that in 2023, the Eldridge Volunteer Fire Co. was awarded $721,000 from FEMA in the form of a SAFER grant for retention and recruitment of volunteers and appointed a full-time grant administrator to oversee it.

"It's my opinion, this isn't a money issue, this is more of a management issue," Martens said.

People in the audience did not appreciate Martens' comment, with several people saying, "Oh, come on."

Before the vote, a few Eldridge residents expressed support for funding the Volunteer Fire Department's three-year request.

"With this option, we have a highly experienced, certified, and committed fire department," Judith Gilbert said.

Gilbert pointed to the department's vote to remain independent.

"Please respect their wishes," she said. "If you vote for the other option to take over the department, as a city department, it will cost you a lot more money in the long run, you will immediately lose membership and that will cost a lot of time, money, and resources to replace those experienced firefighters."

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