PALMER RAPIDS – Palmer Rapids resident Kim Mantifel spoke to council about a number of concerns she wanted to address at the regularly scheduled Brudenell-Lyndoch-Raglan (BLR) meeting on February 3.
She said when choosing candidates in the last election, she felt that people in the township based their platform on the fire department as one of their main issues, taking into account expenditures such as equipment and vehicles.
She said that she had nothing against Jordan Genrick, who was recently hired by the township as a fire chief/facility manager, but questioned how the township can afford to hire him.
“Nobody in their right mind is going to turn down a full-time job; all I’m asking is where did the money come from? One week I read in the paper the failing community centre funds, now all of a sudden we have a full-time arena manager and fire chief,” Kim said. “We didn’t want to spend the money, and here you’ve turned around and you’ve done exactly what you’ve campaigned and said you weren’t going to do.”
Further, she mentioned that Lil Gruntz, wife of Mayor Garry Gruntz, was named the fire prevention officer and wondered who paid for the training course. She also wondered why the position was not advertised.
When the conversation opened up to council, Mayor Gruntz said his wife was asked by the fire chief at the time to take on the role, which she accepted. He said the cost for the training came out of pocket and as a volunteer firefighter, she gets her points the same as anyone else.
He clarified that there has been no increase in the fire department budget in the last year.
Get your February 10, 2016 edition of The Valley Gazette to read the full story.