LEBANON JUNCTION, Ky. — Fifteen people left the Lebanon Junction Volunteer Fire Department in the past week, according to interim chief Steve Geoghegen.
He said their roster is down to 18 people (from 33) after almost a third of the department resigned the morning of Thursday, July 7. Those resignations included the fire chief, an assistant chief and several other members.
The resignations cited poor standards of the governing body and that the office promotes a “life-endangering environment.” Firefighters that left the department tell WHAS11 it came down to disagreements about training.
Mayor Larry Dangerfield said the firemen left his city "high and dry."
"I've never gained anything by getting mad, jumping out and running and quitting," Dangerfield said when asked about the firefighters' departures.
Former assistant chief Will Brown told WHAS11 the personal decision to leave was not an easy one, but one that he believed was necessary after the disagreements over training standards at last Tuesday's city council meeting.
"We did not turn our backs on Lebanon Junction, on the citizens or on our members," Brown said. " We wouldn't be fighting for the truth to come out."
Why did they leave?
In two recent city council meetings, the mayor and council members criticized the fire departments standard operating procedure. Specifically, the requirement of three trainings per quarter.
Multiple volunteers, including the police chief who is also a volunteer firefighter, did not meet the requirement. So, the former leadership limited their duties.
"[Police] Chief Terry Philips had zero training hours. He has not attended or had a training entered into the State Fire Commissions website since October of 2020," Brown said.
According to a memo on the training procedures provided to WHAS11 by one of the resigned Lebanon Junction firefighters, the department is mandated by the Kentucky State Fire Commission requiring the minimum of 20 hours of training per member to receive state aid money and to be considered an operating fire department.
The former assistant chief says he would have been responsible for penalizations and had to resign, while the mayor says these requirements are taking the volunteer out of volunteer firefighter.
"Is that problem worth it?" Dangerfield posited. "Did you want to be firefighters to start with? Is that problem worth giving up and putting Lebanon Junction in this kind of situation?"
The mayor said he believes the city is safe and covered by the department as it is staffed, citing multiple runs the department responded to over the weekend after the loss of leadership.
"With the mayor not wanting us to allow us to hold people accountable, that is what this came down to. It force our hand," Brown said. "Overnight that membership dropped by half and the department took steps back... This could have been avoided. This was a complete miscommunication and misunderstanding of information."
Monday night, the mayor of Lebanon Junction met with firefighters at the station to talk about staffing and name the new interim chief, Steve Geoghegan.
Geoghegan told WHAS11 the change has not been ideal, but they are getting new applicants and still able to perform training.
Though, how much training is still a topic of debate.
"We love those citizens, we still support them," Brown said. "We're still here for them. We hope they will take the time to understand that we're fighting to get the department back to what it was. It can't be that way unless the city allows the department to operate in the safe manner it should."
He said he would like to sit down and discuss the issues with the current mayor and council, but that he nor other firefighters have been reached out to by the city.
"When consideration for our safety and value is there, we'll be right back to help them if that's the case," Brown said.
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