Two Chain Themselves to Rigs During Rally to Save Taftville, CT, Fire Company

Daniel Drainville

The Day, New London, Conn.

(TNS)

Norwich — In a show of support to the Taftville volunteer fire company — which thought it might be suspended Wednesday by the city — two women chained themselves to fire trucks during a rally at the fire station Wednesday morning.

The Taftville department, along with the Occum and Laurel Hill volunteer departments, ended up not being suspended Wednesday, despite an announcement by the city last Tuesday stating that those departments had five business days to sign an agreement to comply with Unified Command — a citywide fire policy enacted last August — or else face suspension."

At the fire station, a few hours after the rally had begun — around 9 a.m. — Taftville Fire Chief Timothy Jencks described what had happened.

"The news channels were here," he said. "We actually had two girls chain themselves to the truck."

Jencks said more than 100 people showed up, but that he could not provide an exact count.

"I was shocked when they showed up and were like, 'We're going to chain ourselves to the truck.' I'm like 'Yeah, right.'"

"Then all of the sudden my wife comes over, and says, 'They chained themselves to the truck. And I'm like, are you kidding me?" Jencks said.

"It had nothing to do with the fire department," Jencks said of the rally organizers. "It's just, they knew about our plight, and we just opened the doors and said here you go. But that's — Taftville is so ingrained and embedded in the community."

The rally, which had been attended by Republican Aldermen Peter Nystrom and Bill Nash, along with former Republican Alderwoman Stacy Gould, had been organized by Taftville residents.

Jencks said following the city announcement, leaders of the department had gathered the entire membership and said, "Guys, what do you want to do?"

"We're following the direction of our membership," he explained. "We're going to stay the course and continue with the litigation. If they shut us down, it's not through our own doing. It's that the membership believes in, I guess, the fight we got."

In early February, the Yantic volunteer fire company was shut down by the city after failing to sign an agreement to comply with Unified Command, and city-owned trucks within the department were repossessed by the city, which since has operated a makeshift substation in the Yantic fire district.

Unified Command was announced in August 2025 by City Manager John Salomone and City Fire Chief Sam Wilson, who said it was designed to unify the paid and volunteer fire services by decreasing fragmentation between the paid and volunteer staff. In addition to establishing a new command structure with Wilson at the top, the policy standardized training, communications and emergency response protocols for both paid and volunteer fire services in the city.

Shortly after the closure of the Yantic department, Attorney Mark Kovack filed a lawsuit on its behalf, along with the Taftville, Occum and Laurel Hill departments, challenging the authority of Wilson and Salomone under the city charter to implement the policy.

"He has no authority to do what he's doing," Nystrom said at the rally Wednesday. "None."

"And that's what we're questioning," added Jencks.

At the Taftville department Wednesday — the fifth business day after the city's announcement that said it would face suspension — neither Jencks, nor his son, Timothy Jencks Jr., said they had any idea whether the city was going to show up.

"We don't know," Jencks said. "We were given till yesterday to sign a — the lawyer gave it out ... we could either do a quote-unquote handshake agreement to follow Unified Command, and they were going to stick an engine crew here, or they were just going to shut us down and stick an engine crew here anyways."

"I mean, I grew up here. This has been my second home. Like, everybody here's been my family since before I could walk," Jencks Jr. added. "There's one thing I'm always down for, and that's down for a fight. They can close us down, but it doesn't mean I'm going to stop."

But Salomone, on Wednesday afternoon, said the announcement never meant the city was going to shut the department down that day.

"If they would have asked their lawyer (Kovack), they would have realized that we didn't file anything today that would start that process," he said.

Salomone said the announcement was "giving them a courtesy notice that we might. Because we could."

Asked whether there had been any discussions with volunteers since the announcement, he said, "My door is open. And I'm still willing to discuss things, always, with any volunteer chief."

The only fire company not involved in the lawsuit against the city is East Great Plain, which Salomone said has been allowed not to sign an agreement, on the condition that it has gone along with the policy.

"All I wanted them to do was work with us," he said. "I didn't want to have one sign and one not and stuff like that. At this point, I'm satisfied that they're working with us on Unified Command. And it's worked well."

Salomone said the women's decision to chain themselves to the fire truck was "out of hand," posing that what if there was a fire call to go to and they were still chained up, but said Jencks made it clear to him he did not support their action.

At the fire station, Jencks noted that Taftville has a very proud community, which is in part due to all of the community events it hosts, and participates in — including a well-attended monthly breakfast, movie nights in the summer and Halloween event. He said if the fire department were to be shut down, it would affect the quality of life in the community.

Taftville resident Veronica Signorino, who had an emergency this past weekend, stopped by with a cheesecake and croissants for the fire house.

"I live up the street," she explained. "I had a medical call on Saturday morning, and they were there, faster than I don't know what. I had bad stomach pains, and they took excellent care of me."

"And I'm just praying about the situation, that they don't close," Signorino added. "We need you guys. I mean, I hope I don't need you guys, but I like to know and be reassured that you guys are here if I do."

Jencks said volunteers felt, in two mediation sessions held between lawyers for the volunteers and the city, that the city did not approach the sessions "in good faith," meaning to negotiate with an open mind. Asked what his solution was to the ongoing debacle, he urged city officials to consider doing so.

"They've got to come to the table with an open mind. And all of the volunteer chiefs do have an open mind. It's not about my kingdom or anything else. It's a collaborative effort to work together.

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