The Yantic Volunteer Fire Department has been shut down following a dispute with city officials who say the department can reopen if it agrees to come under the command of the city’s fire department.
The closure went into effect at 10 a.m. Tuesday after City of Norwich officials sent a letter to the volunteer fire department demanding it sign a contract to come under a unified command structure, the Yantic Fire Department said in a statement.
At a press conference later in the day, Norwich Fire Department Chief Samuel Wilson said the dispute arose after issues with volunteer firefighters not following his directives, which he says had led to “operational failures.”
“The rules have to be followed and it’s important for a fire service to have structure and command to have structure, and that’s just not happening within our fire service,” Wilson said. “So really the city of Norwich was left with no choice but to take this administrative action.”
City officials said they have been working for seven months to get the volunteer fire companies in Norwich to come under the command of the city fire department.
City Manager John Salomone said the contract deadline the city put Yantic under came after frustrations that went back even further than that.
“We had to put a deadline at some point to kind of get their attention because, for eight years, I tried to get their attention and I couldn’t,” Salomone said.
Yantic fire officials said they were sent the contract demand “well after the close of business hours” on Monday without enough time to “review, understand, digest and respond to a nine-page contract that left no opportunity to question any aspect of whatsoever under the looming threat of immediate shutdown.”
According to the Yantic Fire Department, its chief did not have the authority to agree to the contract without notice to the 58 volunteers and their input.
For now, emergencies in the Yantic section of Norwich will be handled by the city fire department. Wilson said firefighters responded to three calls on Tuesday and were at the scene in under two minutes.
City officials said Yantic will be allowed to reopen its doors once an agreement is reached. The Yantic Fire Department said it will seek legal recourse.
“The Yantic volunteers have diligently served the Norwich community since 1847,” the volunteer fire department wrote. “Last year alone, we responded to over 772 emergency calls.”
“The city and Chief Wilson’s actions — we fear — will only jeopardize public safety,” Yantic fire officials wrote. “Further, given that the city will not even talk with us unless we first sign what our attorney describes as a ‘contract of adhesion,’ the city, Mr. Salomone and Chief Wilson have left us with no alternative but to seek legal redress for their wrongdoing in the pursuit of resuming public safety.”
