“With dismay, I have read twice in the local newspaper that the town of Wartrace is taking steps to break away from the Bedford County Fire Department,” is how Wartrace Mayor Cindy Drake, put it on Wartrace Town Hall, the town’s Facebook page.

“… at no time did any person on the Board of Mayor and Aldermen or any Wartrace Fire Department member present at the meeting, suggest, propose, recommend or outright say we want to break away.”

It’s true, no one at a meeting used the words “break away” but they did talk extensively about getting free of Bedford County Fire Department control. It’s also true that the Times-Gazette never used the words “break away.”

The closest the Times-Gazette came to saying “break away” was in a June 16 story. “The board is directing $18,000 to the fire department for turnout gear (firefighting suits, helmets, etc.) in the newly begun effort to establish a stand alone fire department free of Bedford County Fire Department control,” is how it was worded. Perhaps the wording was in artful, but at its core it is true.

Indeed, the words “break away” were not used, but firefighter Rob Belfield said (quote taken from an audio recording of a May 30 meeting)  “If the (Wartrace) fire department fails, (Bedford County Fire Chief) Mark Thomas will take it over and appoint his own chief. That’s what they want. That increases their call volume which increases their budget.” A half dozen Wartrace volunteer firefighters were in the room during Belfield’s comments and no one disputed his account. “I was in the middle of all this, I was a witness,” Belfield said.

The Wartrace firefighters were also quite explicit at the May 30 meeting about their concerns that since the county fire department owns all but one of the trucks and all the equipment, the county fire department calls the shots. When there’s a county fire call, Wartrace firefighters are often called to standby at Station 1 in Shelbyville — eight miles from Wartrace. When Wartrace Fire is in Shelbyville, they pointed out, there is no in-town coverage for Wartrace. That is certainly a laudable reason for the town to buy its own trucks and equipment.

To solve this problem the firefighters, the aldermen and presumably Mayor Drake agreed, that it was time to follow the Bell Buckle model — for the town to buy its own turnout gear and eventually its own trucks and equipment. “We did not interpret any of this to mean we should break away from the Bedford County Fire Department,” Mayor Drake wrote.

The dictionary defines “break away” as “to detach oneself especially from a group ….”

Mayor Drake also noted in her Facebook post that “The Board was also reminded that turn-out gear and equipment bought with County funds go with the firefighters if they change stations.” This is a vague reference to what happened when she appointed Jim Gardner to be fire chief in February – the third fire chief in a year. When Gardner was appointed fire chief several (reports varied from three to six) volunteer firefighters resigned and walked out taking with them the department’s radios, pagers, turnout gear, helmets and department paperwork. It was not a theft (except maybe the paperwork) because the county fire department owned the equipment. Gardner served as fire chief for a month.

Firefighter Belfield also said, when Mayor Drake appointed Gardner, Bedford County Fire Chief Mark Thomas and Assistant Chief Brian Cantrell, “took advantage” of the situation.

“I was in the middle of all this, I was a witness,” Belfield told the Wartrace aldermen, May 30 (again taken from the audio recording of the meeting). “What happened was they (Bedford County Fire Chief Mark Thomas and Assistant Chief Brian Cantrell) told Cindy ‘Hey, we sign off on Jim. Go ahead and bring him on as chief.’ Then they started telling everybody else (the volunteer firefighters) ‘OK, these are county trucks; you’re on the county roster. If there’s a call go pick up the truck and take it’ completely bypassing any authority Jim may have had.”

“We, the Town of Wartrace and WVFD, appreciate the relationship we have with the Bedford County Fire Department and we have no intention of breaking away,” is how Mayor Drake summed up her viewpoint in the Facebook post. It’s accurate to say Wartrace is not “breaking away” from the county fire department and its annual financial support but there’s no to denying that the town is taking steps to gain control of its own department or “…to escape from control of a person, group or practice.” Mayor Drake is making a distinction with no difference.