Posts Tagged fire district and village to split in Barrington

Barrington FD signs auto-aid agreements

The Daily Herald has an article about the Barrington Fire Department signing several automatic-aid agreements with neighbors:

Barrington trustees Monday approved two of the four automatic-aid agreements they’ve had to revise with neighboring fire departments due to the village’s coming Jan. 1 split from the Barrington Countryside Fire Protection District.

The new agreements reached were those with the Lake Zurich and Long Grove departments. But Barrington is also aiming to have further agreements soon with both the Palatine Rural Fire Protection District and Barrington Countryside itself.

The aid agreements spell out the locations, situations and equipment involved for one department to respond automatically to another’s call — usually driven by whose station is closest. Though the village of Barrington isn’t starting a new fire department from scratch like the Barrington Countryside District, the ending of the two agencies’ decades-long contract for service is changing the jurisdictional boundaries for both.

The fire district will now take independent responsibility for fire protection and ambulance service for parts of Barrington Hills, Lake Barrington, South Barrington and Inverness and unincorporated Cook, Lake and McHenry counties.

On the eve of their contractual split, Barrington and Barrington Countryside have found an auto-aid agreement between themselves to be the most time-consuming to negotiate. But Barrington Village Manager Jeff Lawler said Monday he believes the two agencies are getting there.

In contrast, talks aimed at an auto-aid agreement for Palatine Rural to respond to calls in Barrington Countryside’s area of Inverness seem to have broken down completely.

Barrington Countryside rejected a request to give a significant portion of its property tax from Inverness to Palatine Rural, while Palatine Rural has similarly declined three counterproposals, officials said.

thanks Ron & Dan

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Barrington FD & Fire Protection District update

The Daily Herald has an article about the Village of Barrington Fire Department and the Barrington Countryside Fire Protection District dividing their assets for what will become the two separate departments after the 1st of January.

The Barrington Fire Department and Barrington Countryside Fire Protection District on Friday took the last major step before they separate on Jan. 1, by dividing up the vehicles and equipment they co-own.

… both sides expressed satisfaction with the division.

Officials of the 48-square-mile fire district just outside of Barrington also found out this week that 16 of the 19 laid-off Barrington firefighters to whom it offered jobs have applied with them. Barrington Countryside offered these firefighters their current union salaries and vacation time, but not a continuation of their pensions.

Rowan said it is important to the fire district to retain firefighters with as much experience and institutional memory of the fire district as work there now.

The rest of the fire district’s roster of 33 full-time firefighters will be filled with staff provided by private contractor Paramedic Services of Illinois.

“I think the residents are going to be really pleased,” Rowan said. “We have the equipment we need and the personnel we need.”

On Jan. 1, the fire district will terminate its long-running contract for service from the Barrington Fire Department.

The newly divided equipment should be moved to its new locations among the village’s fire station and the fire district’s two stations in Barrington Hills and Lake Barrington about a week or two before the Jan. 1 split, Rowan said.

The contractual relationship between the village and fire district will be officially finished at the shift change at 8 a.m. on Jan. 1, he added.

Some of the previous posts on this split can be found HERE, HERE, and HERE.

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