10/27/2024
FYI — this “Public Notice” from the Fire District appears to be an attempt to “clarify” the “confusion” that the District is attributing to others, yet it does nothing of the sort. To make it perfectly clear, I will use the “legal” names recorded for the various entities in this response:
1) The volunteers of the Fall River Valley Volunteer Fire Department have not responded to emergencies since the evening of October 2, 2023, and have NEVER claimed to do so since they were locked out by the District and its employees on that date, without any notice to the volunteers, nor to the taxpayers.
2) The Mcarthur Volunteer Fire Department, Inc, has been a legal nonprofit entity since 1961, and always had its own property and money separate from the District. It is still a current legal nonprofit corporation today, and is registered with the Office of the Attorney General Registry of Charitable Trusts. See attached.
3). On the same day as the lockout, the District began collecting applications for its own “District volunteers”, which had never existed before that date. According to their policies, the new volunteers would need to apply directly with the Fire District, and would serve within the new Fire District volunteer structure, under direct supervision of the District’s newly-appointed Chief.
4). In January 2024, a new nonprofit entity was formed by John Will as “Individual”. That entity is known as the “Fall River Valley Fire District Volunteer Association”. As of this date, it has NOT been registered with the Office of the Attorney General Registry of Charitable Trusts. See attached.
5). In February 2024, the District Board executed an MOU between the District and the new FRV Fire District Volunteer Association, that appears to be an optional union-like arrangement, as District Volunteers are not required to be members of the FRV Fire District Volunteer Association, and vice versa. See attached.
6). It is unclear why there was a need for an MOU between the District and its own volunteer firefighters that applied directly to the Fire District. There is no clause in that MOU that states the FRV Fire District Volunteer Association provides the firefighting personnel to the District.
7). The Fire District Board, through either incapacity or willful intent, fails to use the proper recognized names for various entities, instead using vague terms such as “an association” and “the volunteers” to describe both groups, and publicly refers to the “Fire District” and “Fire Department” as one and the same.
8.) Even in this “Public Notice” The Fire District uses the incorrect name for the nonprofit Association that they state is maintained by the volunteer firefighters that serve the Fire District, further clouding the issue.
