NEW RICHMOND -- New Richmond's fire and emergency medical services departments merged Jan. 1 to form the New Richmond Fire and EMS Department.
It was a plan that "had been in the works for a couple of years," said New Richmond Mayor Terry Durrette.
"It's just logical," said Mark Baird, former EMS chief and chief of the new department.
It would have been more expensive to continue operating as two departments in two separate buildings, he said. "It makes a lot of sense economically."
"(The departments) have worked very closely together for years and years and years," said Baird. "It has been pretty much the assumption that, at some point in time, the fire and EMS departments would merge."
"It was determined that now's the time," he said.
Other than hiring one additional full-time employee, the merge didn't cost anything, Baird said. The two existing budgets were simply put together.
The former fire chief, Richard Feldkamp, is the assistant chief of the new department.
The EMS department works mainly out of the Hamilton Street station, and the fire department, out of the Market Street station, but the department is looking to add some bays for fire trucks at the EMS station "so we can operate out of the one facility," Durrette said.
No money has been set aside yet for this project, said Baird. "Right now we're in the design phase, then once we have an idea of what we're going to do, we're going to seek grant funding."
There isn't any local money available for the project, so it's dependent on grants and other outside sources, he said. If those sources aren't available, the department will have to continue to work out of two stations.
Both departments recently passed tax levies, so there are "no plans to run (more) in the future," Baird said. "All things considered, as long as nothing goes haywire with local funding, we should be good to go, for a few years anyway."
And the merge will help with staffing, as all officers will have the opportunity to train with both departments.
"Most of the officers from the previous departments are still officers," Baird said. "People will be able to work in both capacities."
The merge is still somewhat in progress, Durrette said. "There's a learning curve on it, but we're very pleased with the results that have come so far. It was tricky putting the whole thing together, but we feel that we'll be able to do a lot with it."
But so far, things have gone smoothly. "Frankly, we're taking what was two well-trained and efficient departments and combining them to make one better department," said Baird.
