Woolwich’s fire chief and deputy fire chief will be moving to town hall this year, closing down the fire department’s office in St. Jacobs.
Fire chief Rick Pedersen told councillors that fire staff already routinely attend many meetings in Elmira, spending a great deal of time on the road — time that could be saved by moving their offices to Elmira.
“Forty to fifty per cent of our work is up here,” said Pedersen, at the Jan. 10 committee-of-the-whole meeting. “It’s very inefficient for us to go back and forth.”
As well, with much of the administrative work requiring good access to the township server, moving to Elmira will mean less down time. Currently, access to the server is quite slow.
Christine Broughton, township director of council and information services, told councillors that the fire department staff is “spending a lot of time trying to connect; it’s very inefficient.”
Broughton said that there is some software that the fire department is simply unable to access, because of these issues.
Pedersen noted that the other issue is safety, with the fire department’s administrative assistant often left alone at the St. Jacobs fire hall for extended periods of time.
The move to the township’s administrative building is seen as a temporary measure, with the township’s fire services eventually being housed in the new fire hall, which would be built as part of the Lunor subdivision on Church Street.