MIDWAY — Midway City Council will work with the Georgia Municipal Association to buy fire trucks, after council members voted to approve a resolution.
The resolution, which passed 2-1, with Council member Malcolm Williams dissenting, allows the city to enter into lease agreements with the GMA for fire trucks. The city is taking steps to revive its dormant fire department and the two trucks it had been using belonged to Liberty County.
“The City of Midway is in the process of purchasing several trucks,” Mayor pro tem Dr. Clemontine Washington said.
Council members did not take action on a proposal from county commissioners to provide fire protection for the next 120 days. The Georgia Fire Standards and Training Council suspended the city’s certification, rather than revoke it completely.
City council members, after months of the county proposing to cover Midway fire calls, voted to resurrect their fire station and begin hiring their own fire fighters.
Under the agreement commissioners approved in a 5-1-1 vote, the county stands to get reimbursed for costs of covering fire calls in Midway. Currently, the county is not running medical calls in Midway unless there is
CPR underway or requested by EMS to do so.
Council members did not have a copy of the county’s proposal to provide coverage for 120 days, and as a result, did not vote on it. County attorney Kelly Davis detailed to them what the plan entails.
“The county would respond to the same calls it responds to now,” he said.
It also would get reimbursed for its personnel’s time at an hourly rate, with the rates based on the lowest rate possible for those positions. Also, the use of its equipment would be reimbursed based on Federal Emergency Management Agency rates.
For instance, Davis said, the rates for a fire fighter would be $15.99 an hour, with $18.54 an hour for a lieutenant, $20.47 an hour for a captain and $33.50 an hour for a chief officer. There also would be different rates for the vehicles used, such as ladder trucks, tankers, tenders and support vehicles.
Davis said if the city requires an agreement to go beyond 120 days, the county would need some notice to extend.