Hobgood: Fire Services Proposal "Provides Considerable Savings" to Residents

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Editor’s note: the following is a letter to the editor from Canton Mayor Gene Hobgood in response to resident Clark Yaggy’s opinion on the city’s deliberations on the northwest fire station.

Dear Mr. Yaggy,

Thank you for sending me a copy of your letter to the media regarding your viewpoints on our fire services. I always appreciate input from our citizens.

A tremendous amount of information has been presented and thoroughly discussed on this issue. I realize that this information and the months of debate may not have been fully available for your consideration. This issue has been thoroughly analyzed.

To clarify what I said about the number of firefighters the city needs, i.e. 27, this number came from our own fire department based on the ideal number recommended by the NFPA (National Fire Protection Association).

I realize this is indeed ideal and unlikely to occur. My point in mentioning that number is that the proposal with the county, if implemented, would allow — not require — the city to go ahead and add some of the firemen that we already need anyway. And I believe there is support not only on the council but within the community as well to do just that.

If we hire the nine firemen and put them at Laurel Canyon, we have not improved our fire services at all; just expanded by one station and replaced what the county was already doing at Station 9. But, if we add new firefighters to the existing two stations, service is improved.

You are correct. Any private business that is managed the way government is would go broke. We are trying to deal with what we have. We have a good proposal on the table which provides considerable savings to both the city and county taxpayers while allowing the city the opportunity to improve the quality of our fire services.

Very few issues avail themselves to this council which do both.

Thank you again for your comments. 

Gene Hobgood