Council heard from South Ward Fire Chief Mark Bower, who questioned whether closed door meetings are being held to discuss the potential consolidation of the Tamaqua fire departments.

Bower said that he has not heard anything from the public safety committee regarding such a move.

“Financially, we’re stable. Manpower, we’re stable. We’re making our calls,” said Bower, “I don’t understand what this is all about.”

Bower also referenced a report from the state on fire department consolidations, and he said that while some consolidations and mergers have gone successfully, more have failed, with volunteers choosing to leave the company entirely.

Bower said that the same thing is likely to happen if a consolidation is forced in Tamaqua.

“If I have 40 guys in one company, they’re not just going to join up with a new company, they’re going to leave,” he said.

Bower also referenced incidents that he said happened on the scenes of recent fires that involved people “being treated like idiots” and “being shoved.”

Council President David Mace said that to his knowledge, the fire departments themselves formed a committee to consider consolidation among themselves, with three of the four departments originally joining the committee, and one of those departments backing out after the initial meetings.

He said that he had only recently been invited to a meeting and went to “gather facts.”

Mace said that he is trying to determine what role council plays in the matter, if they play any at all.

“I’m noncommittal as to a.) whether or not council will be involved and b.) as to what the outcome may be,” he added.

Mace said that he does think that the “prudent” thing to do is to be “proactive” in such a matter, that dwindling volunteerism is faced by every community, and that the primary goal of responding to fires needs to continue to be the goal.

Bower said that he has done his own fact finding, and the borough needs to be aware that eight to 10 trains go through Tamaqua daily.

Bower also cited a case from Williamsport where the fire companies sued the borough and the borough lost the lawsuit and had to reinstate the fire companies.