Harmon controversy still burning: Residents seek to take fire department out of village board’s hands
HARMON – As a new fire chief scrambles to resuscitate this village’s comatose ambulance service, a growing contingent of residents is seeking to wrest control of the volunteer fire department from the village board.
The residents want to start a fire protection district – independent of Harmon village trustees – that would be controlled by a board of directors appointed by the Lee County Board chairman.
Residents presented Village Board President Jeff Morehead with a petition asking for the district at Tuesday’s trustees meeting.
It was the same night that Morehead swore in former paramedic and longtime volunteer EMT D.J. Sheridan as the new fire chief.
Confusion ensued over the village’s ambulance service 3 weeks ago, when a handful of EMTs walked off the job with former Chief Mike Thompson, who resigned, citing department infighting.
The village has been without local ambulance service since Aug. 19, when KSB Hospital pulled Harmon’s ambulance license because the village didn’t have enough EMTs to guarantee 24/7 coverage of the village’s one ambulance.
Sheridan said he plans to have the village ambulance back in service within 30 days.
“I don’t want the people of Harmon thinking this means their ambulance is gone for good,” Sheridan said. “My first priority is to get this ambulance back on the road.”
Within 3 months, Sheridan hopes to have 25 volunteers trained as firefighters and certified as EMTs.
Until the department can recruit enough volunteers to reinstate its ambulance license, average response times will remain around double the usual 10 to 15 minutes because ambulances now must travel from either KSB Hospital in Dixon or CGH Medical Center in Sterling, Sheridan said.
Even the all-volunteer fire service is running dangerously low on volunteers, Sheridan said. He called an emergency meeting last Saturday, and only 10 people attended.
“Right now we sort of show up and hope somebody from Dixon Rural or Rock Falls gets there [to a fire] quickly,” Sheridan said.
Melody Holocker, a member of the Harmon Fire Auxiliary Board and the Community Building Board, started the petition drive for a fire protection district “because of all the infighting,” she said. “I thought it would solve a lot of problems.”
Holocker has more than the 50 signatures required to take the request to the Lee County Board.
She plans to do exactly that at the next County Board meeting on Sept. 18.
Morehead signed the petition after the 2.5-hour meeting and said he would support such a district.
In the meantime, however, “We’re trying to put a fire department together and put an ambulance back on the road,” Morehead said. “I don’t know much about all these personality conflicts and he-said-she-said stuff. All we know is we got a call from an EMT coordinator [at KSB Hospital] who said, ‘You got a problem.’”
Thompson, who served 3 years as chief, said he feels run out by the village board and a handful of volunteers with friends and family on the board.
Bob Gangloff, a village trustee, denied that assertion.
“We, as a village board, felt something needed to be done [about the dwindling volunteer numbers]. that we should go in a different direction,” Gangloff said. “If this new guy [Sheridan] doesn’t work out, we’ll treat him the same as any other chief.”
To volunteer
Harmon’s new Fire Chief D.J. Sheridan wants to have enough EMTs in place to have the village ambulance back on the road within 30 days. That takes six EMTs. Right now Sheridan has just one he can count on, he said.
Sheridan also would like to have 25 volunteers trained as EMTs and firefighters within 3 months. Volunteers make $5 a call, and many return their stipend to the department, which operates on about $10,000 a year, Sheridan said.
“We’re not in this for the money,” Sheridan said.
Anyone interested in volunteering can reach Sheridan at 815-359-7667 or cooriesrus@gallatinriver.net.
Harmon Fire Department service area
The Harmon Fire Department, which operates under the Harmon Village Board, serves about 60 square miles, roughly bordered by U.S. Route 30, state Route 26, Arch Road, and the railroad tracks west of Schilpp Road, according to former Fire Chief Michael Thompson.
