Lake Bluff Rejects Lake Forest Offer To Take Over Fire Department

LAKE BLUFF, IL — The village of Lake Bluff rejected an offer from Lake Forest to take over the Lake Bluff Fire Department. Lake Forest city officials made an unsolicited offer in a letter last month to assume all fire services of its neighbor to the north, according to Lake Bluff Village President Kathy O'Hara. The village responded with a letter explaining it has no interest in the city's proposal.

“We are very honored and happy to have the continuing service of the Lake Bluff Fire Department for many years to come,” O'Hara said. "Our fire department has been a wonderful asset to our community. It is part of our culture, it is part of our traditions.” She noted more than 400 people were on hand at the fire station for a recent Veteran's Day celebration forced indoors by inclement weather.

Lake Bluff has had a volunteer fire department since 1897. It currently has 60 members, as well as three paid-on-premise firefighters manning the station during weekday business hours, O'Hara said.

Lake Forest City Manager Bob Kiely expressed disappointment that Lake Bluff had declined the offer without any discussion. Consolidating services with Lake Bluff would provide "the same operational efficiencies and improved quality of service" as in a recent deal with the Rockland Fire Protection District, the Libertyville Fire Department and the Libertyville Fire Protection District, the retiring city manager told Pioneer Press.

"Though the board and administration are always looking for economic efficiencies, we do not feel that this proposed takeover of our volunteer fire department by Lake Forest is in the best interests of our citizens and our community," O'Hara said at the Nov. 12 village board meeting. Lake Bluff currently contracts with Lake Forest to provide ambulance service.

The village currently pays just over $1 million for its fire and EMS services, which do not include pension costs because of its volunteer model. Lake Forest's initial takeover offer including an annual fee starting at $986,000, according to the Lake Forester.

O'Hara said 20 former members of the Knollwood Fire Department have joined the Lake Bluff Fire Department since the Rockland Fire Protection District board disbanded the department. Lake Forest and Libertyville both entered into an intergovernmental agreement with the Rockland Fire Protection District to jointly offer emergency service to the unincorporated areas of Knollwood and The Sanctuary. Under the agreement, Lake Forest covers its southern portion and Libertyville handles everything to the north of the railroad tracks that pass through the area.

In 2017, residents of the area of roughly 670 homes had passed a referendum to elect members of their fire protection district board, with more than 80 percent of voters approving the change. But before the elections could take place, a board appointed by former Lake County Board Chair Aaron Lawler disbanded the department, effective Oct. 1, and began moving to sell off its assets. (A last-ditch lawsuit failed to convince a judge to issue a restraining order to block the deal and ethics complaints to the county about the board president were closed without a hearing.)

In a farewell statement, former Knollwood Fire Chief Jon Harlow said he believed the deal would mean a decrease in the level of service provided to residents.

"It’s no secret that this is not a contract that I wanted," Harlow said. "I wanted our community to have the opportunity to elect officials who truly are looking out for the best interest of us all."

The board's president is Dan Rogers, a local Republican precinct committeeman and the co-owner of a landscaping company and restaurant. He said he was appointed to work on consolidating the fire department and he had no intention of waiting for an elected board to evaluate the deal he had crafted.

"I've spent almost four years of my life working on this, I mean, if you work on something for four years you want to get it all the way to the goal line and then say, 'Ah, we'll see if somebody else wants to punch it in,'?" Rogers asked. "I had a board that was interested in looking at this. We got the deal that we thought it was good. We put it to the board."