Village of Weston
WESTON, WI (WSAU) — Village leaders have walked back a decision they made in early summer to leave their current fire district.
Back in June the Village of Weston Board of Trustees voted to leave the SAFER fire district. Trustees voted to leave the district due to concerns about management and personnel. But on Monday afternoon the board voted to rescind their June decision and continue their contract with SAFER.
Board President and Weston’s SAFER representative Mark Maloney led the discussion with the board as he and former President Wally Sparks made the initial move to terminate the contract. At the most recent SAFER meeting in September Maloney says the board made the decision to purchase new accounting software that will help SAFER improve its management and keep its money within the fire district.
With the new accounting software and steps to improve management, Maloney believes the two entities will work better together than they have before. “The Village of Weston is paying two-thirds of this and Rib Mountain is paying a third. And I just felt it was not a true partnership. In the last several months, I feel more of a partnership, I really do.”
Maloney also explained that as the Village’s representative on the SAFER board he should have taken more time to understand where other SAFER board members were coming from. “Let’s throw some olive branches across. Let’s talk about this. And he [Fred Schafer] kept saying nope I’m not going to vote in favor of this accounting until you rescind that termination. And I said, you know it’s got to start somewhere. And I had talked to Fred prior to the meeting and said it’s got to start and tonight is the night it’s going to start.”
Hearing from Maloney about the recent changes to SAFER led the board to vote to rescind their termination decision on a 6-1 vote. Maloney also mentioned during the meeting that he has started talking with the Riverside Fire District based in Schofield about working with them in the future for fire protection.
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