St. Marys Fire Dept. to add worker a year

ST. MARYS - The St. Marys Fire Department (SMFD) plans to hire one new employee annually over the next few years to maintain sufficient personnel levels, city councilors learned on Monday night.

The city safety committee met on Oct. 7 to address concerns and goals for recruiting and retaining staff within the fire department, all of which were shared during Monday night's regular council meeting.

The SMFD has a staff of 13 and has three shifts, each 24 hours long, per meeting minutes. The average work week is 53 hours. The rotation backfills the department when calls come in. Multiple runs are becoming more frequent. The department has had a 180% increase in run volumes since 1980.

Long term goals established at last week's meeting include adding one employee each year going forward from 2024-2026, per the minutes. This would allow for the immediate response of two ambulances. It would also allow for a truck and ambulance to respond to motor vehicle accidents.

Other goals are to to use the department as a fire and emergency medical services training site, allow personnel to acquire fire/EMS instructor status and possibly institute a firefighter program for juniors and seniors at St. Marys City Schools which would allow them to be eligible for auxiliary status at 18.

Immediate goals for SMFD include recruiting for an auxiliary fire department, continue offering laterals for prospective employees and composing a memorandum of understanding for an immediate 6.5% raise for the nine firefighters and three captains and an additional 3% increase for early 2025, the meeting minutes state.

Councilors had planned to meet Monday night at the new municipal building on Spring Street. However, due to delays with project contractors, the move-in date was pushed back to the second week of November.

Each of the three floors of the new municipal building will be about 8,300 square feet for a total of roughly 25,000 square feet.

The city will relocate its administrative offices to the new building once finished. Because the building is designed for future growth, city officials plan to lease office space on the third floor, according to superintendent of community services and engineering Craig Moeller.

In other business, councilors learned that Manuel Garcia, 35, of Auglaize County allegedly broke in and vandalized city property in the early morning hours of Oct. 12, interim police chief Brian Christopher said.

"It would have been Oct. 12, going into the 13th, just after midnight, officers responded back here to the back parking lot (of the new municipal building)," Christopher said. "Officers responded, found a male just outside of the under parking garage, ultimately arrested him for breaking and entering. … So he is in jail."

Garcia has been charged with one count of breaking and entering, a fifth-degree felony; vandalism, a fifth-degree felony; theft, a first-degree misdemeanor; and criminal mischief, a third-degree misdemeanor.

He is being held without bail at the Auglaize County Correctional Center.

Garcia is scheduled to appear in court for an arraignment today, Christopher said.

Also, councilors approved a resolution honoring former police chief Jake Sutton for his years of service.

Sutton started at the department in January 1999 and rose through the ranks to sergeant in 2007, then police chief in 2017.

His last day on the job was Oct. 6, according to safety/service director Greg Foxhoven. He began a job in the private sector the following day.

Foxhoven said testing for Sutton's successor will take place on Dec. 7.

"That'll be a written test for both the open sergeant's position and open chief's position," he said. "And then the assessment center will be the following week. I believe one group goes Saturday, another group goes Sunday. It's going to be a process in the interim."

The city intends to hire in-house for its next police chief. There are four sergeants at the department eligible for and interested in the police chief position, according to Foxhoven.

Council meet next at 6:30 p.m. Nov. 11 in the council chambers.