Warrenville voters to decide how fire trustees are chosen

Voters served by the Warrenville Fire Protection District will decide Tuesday if they want the board overseeing the agency to have elected or appointed members.

It's a vote that could influence whether the district participates in future efforts to consolidate fire services in DuPage County.

The fire protection district - which serves residents in all of Warrenville and unincorporated parts of Wheaton and Naperville - has existed for 75 years. For that entire time, the three members of the district's board of trustee have been appointed by the county board chairman.

But Kate Perkins, a former fire district trustee working to get the binding question approved, says voters should be able to pick their government representatives.

"This is about who's going to have a voice in the decisions made about the fire district's future," Perkins said. "If the people can elect their representatives, then they'll have control over what the board of trustees is doing."

While the idea for the ballot question "had been kicked around for years," Perkins said a push to make it happen was fueled when DuPage County Board Chairman Dan Cronin expressed an interest in consolidating local fire protection districts.

In 2012, a consulting firm hired by the county suggested DuPage partner with fire protection districts to investigate options for consolidation. Warrenville was one of the districts the firm examined before making its recommendation.

The consultants, however, found Warrenville to be a financially stable district. And fire officials say the district already is providing quality fire protection and ambulance services. It doesn't need to be consolidated, they say.

Fire Chief Dennis Rogers said Warrenville saves a lot of money by using 45 part-time, paid-on-call firefighters to complement its 10 full-time firefighters.

"Other departments have bargaining agreements with their union firefighters," Rogers said. "If we consolidated with another department, we would lose our paid-on-call firefighters."

So the district would need to increase the number of full-time firefighters it employs. That would result in higher taxes for the property taxpayers, he said.

Cronin said in a statement that it's up to district voters to decide if they want appointed or elected fire board trustees.

"However, if the authority remains with the county," Cronin said, "I can assure you that I will continue to appoint residents to the board who believe in shared services and greater transparency and efficiency for taxpayers."

According to Cronin, district officials have resisted recent efforts to bring transparency and accountability to the agency.

For example, the fire protection district board adopted DuPage's ethics policy but refused to enter into an intergovernmental agreement with the county that would have made the policy enforceable. County officials also have suggested the district join the West Suburban Fire/Rescue Alliance, which has worked to reduce emergency response times and share resources.

Rogers said the district didn't approve the intergovernmental agreement because it didn't want to have to pay the county's investigator general, who gets $185 an hour to review ethics complaints and prosecute any that require a hearing.

He also said it would be difficult for the department to join the alliance, in part, because of the distance between Warrenville and the alliance towns, including West Chicago and Wheaton. In the meantime, Warrenville has a close relationship with the Naperville Fire Department.

"We're looking at different shared services to improve our customer service to our citizens," Rogers said.

If the ballot question is approved, Cronin said, "I know that Warrenville residents will continue to ask tough questions and demand greater accountability from the officials who serve them."