Fike, Rhodes both back regional police, fire
Roberto M. Esquivel/HeraldStandard.com
Republican Russ Rhodes, a candidate for the office of Uniontown mayor, addresses the HeraldStandard.com editorial board during a recent election forum.
Roberto M. Esquivel/HeraldStandard.com
Uniontown Mayor Ed Fike pauses before answering a question from the HeraldStandard.com editorial board during a recent election forum. Fike is seeking a second term as mayor in the November election.
The following is the second in a three-part series on the race for Uniontown mayor.
Both candidates for Uniontown mayor say they support creating regional police and fire departments with neighboring North Union and South Union townships.
Democrat Ed Fike, who is running in the Nov. 8 election for his second term, and Republican Russ Rhodes, who lost to Fike in the 2007 election, addressed regionalization and other issues at a recent debate held by the HeraldStandard.com editorial board.
Fike said he believes it is unlikely that state police would continue to cover townships because of the cost. A regional department could have 40 officers making decent wages, Fike said.
He said he would support a regional fire department, but he has met with volunteer departments in the townships and learned that they have concerns about their authority in a regional department.
Rhodes said the townships sharing the cost of a regional police department would be advantageous to the city.
A regional fire department would provide faster emergency response times by having some paid firefighters staffing fire stations, Rhodes said.
Both candidates also said if the city could afford it, they would like to keep all 11 full-time firefighters after the federal grant the city received to help cover wages and benefits expires in 2012.
Fike said he would support keeping the current number of firefighters if the tax base grows enough to fund the department. He said four or five firemen will be retiring in the next two or three years. The city would be able to afford to keep the fire department if its budget were around $1 million, Fike said.
Rhodes said houses in the city are too close together to rely on volunteer firefighters for fire protection. He said fires spread quickly and full-time firefighters are able to respond to fires faster than volunteers.
In another personnel matter, Fike said the city is getting good code enforcement service from its two part-time code enforcement employees and its building code official.
The part-time code enforcement officer and a part-time code enforcement clerical employee are the equivalent of a full-time employee, Fike said. Building code official K2 Engineering Inc. of Uniontown addresses blight every day and police can issue citations, he said, adding that council would consider hiring another code officer if one were needed.
Rhodes said the city used to have a full-time code officer and one is still needed. He said the building code is not being sufficiently enforced and something has to be done about abandoned houses.
The landlord licensing ordinance, which was adopted by the prior administration and rescinded by the current administration, should be reconsidered, Rhodes said.
While Fike said he is pleased with the performances of K2 and McMillen Engineering of Uniontown, the city’s engineering firm, Rhodes said city firefighters are trained as building code officials and could do the work K2 is doing at no cost to the city.
Fike said K2 keeps 75 percent of building permit application fees as its payment and the city keeps 25 percent of the fees.
In another staffing matter, Rhodes said he supports hiring a city manager and Fike said he would support a manager if the city could afford one.
Managers are trained in small governments operations, work with state and federal bureaucracies, find new sources of revenue and run the city’s daily business, while the mayor and council make decisions, Rhodes said.
Fike said the city already has an Elm Street program manager, Main Street program manager, two councilmen who are schoolteachers and himself, who has run the same business for 50 years. Together, they can do the work that a city manager could do. He said a city manager would command a salary of $75,000 to $80,000.
See related video at www.HeraldStandard.com.