Tobyhanna Township Tells Court Volunteer Fire Company Poses Danger to Community, Wants them Evicted from Fire Stations

DEC 9 2022, 5:45pm

STROUDSBURG –Less than an hour into Tobyhanna Township’s injunction case against the Tobyhanna Township Volunteer Fire Company this afternoon, Monroe County common pleas judge Dan Higgins adjourned the hearing until an as-yet unspecified date “hopefully later this month.”

Residents packed the tiny basement courtroom to hear the township’s attorney, Harry Coleman, argue that the 92-year-old fire company posed “an immediate threat of irreparable harm” to the residents of the township and is “prejudicial to the safety of the community.”

Mr. Coleman told the court the township wanted orders precluding the company from helping other first responders even when asked; forcing them to vacate the firehouses provided by the township; assessing back rent; and ordering an audit of the non-profit’s accounts to find any money in the volunteer unit’s “coffers that belong to the township.”

Mr. Coleman spent considerable time in his cross-examination of the only witness of the day, fire company President Ed Tutrone, trying to show that tax money almost never went to the fire company, but was instead paid to vendors on the company’s behalf. He told the court that in only three instances were fire tax receipts given direct to the fire company and that each time they were associated with specific amounts used as payments for vehicles. The township’s counsel has not yet explained how, if the tax money was paid to vendors, it would now be in the firefighters’ “coffers.”

Another topic he spent a considerable amount of time on was “proving” that the township performed maintenance on the township-owned buildings, took care of the lawn, paid for the heat and electricity, paid for some vehicle maintenance, and fuel for the trucks, and other expense items.   Mr. Coleman claimed “everything has been paid for . . . by the township residents,” except for “the pizza and soda.”

The township’s lawyer also went over the purchase of each of the current fire company vehicles, emphasizing that there were no trade-ins involved. He suggested that money from the sale of out-of-service vehicles should have been turned over to the township instead of being used by the company for its operating expenses.

Fred Buck, attorney for the fire company, told the court that the township ignored settled law in claiming the right to recover the equipment or prevent the company from using resale proceeds to pay operating expenses.  Mr. Buck read to the judge decisions by higher Pennsylvania courts saying that, even when the fire company – or any nonprofit – buys vehicles, equipment, or assets with fire tax money, the municipality has no claims over the acquired property.

The hearing started about ten minutes late. After some preliminary statements from the lawyers, the township called Mr. Tutrone to the stand at about 2:30 pm. Mr. Coleman several times asked Mr. Tutrone to agree that his fire company “took themselves out of service.” Each time Mr. Tutrone corrected him by insisting that the company never said it would no longer service the residents of the township, only that they did not want to be classified as the municipality’s “officially recognized” provider.

They took this position, he explained, because the Fire Ordinance passed in August applies only to “officially recognized” providers, referred to colloquially as the ‘primary’ responders. Because the company did not want to sign its vehicles over to the township, or allow the supervisors to take control of the entire operation, which the ordinance allowed, Mr. Tutrone said they wanted to adopt the same status as the Tunkhannock volunteer unit. As a “secondary” responder, the new fire ordinance does not extend controls over Tunkhannock’s equipment and operations.

“We took ourselves out of primary and asked to be put in as secondary until the dispute over this ordinance is settled so there will be no detriment to the community,” Mr. Tutrone testified. “We were going to do the same as Tunkhannock,” but the supervisors rejected that offer. Mr. Buck noted that the Tobyhanna Township Volunteer Fire Company also offered to waive any subsidy payments and fire tax shares from the township during the time they were a ‘secondary’ provider.

Mr. Coleman argued that the fire company never told the supervisors that “I never saw it,” he told Mr. Tutrone.  As proof, he asked if the witness could find the word “secondary” in the letter from the fire company’s attorney. The two then went back and forth a little over the word choice.  They sparred over what the lawyer meant when he wrote this to the township: 

“The purpose of this letter is to notify you and, through you, the members of the Board of Supervisors, that Tobyhanna Township Volunteer Fire Company fully intends to continue to provide fire protection services to the citizens of Tobyhanna Township and will always respond to a fire or other emergency when dispatched to do so. However, if the ordinance is adopted in its present form the Fire Company will not agree to operate as the officially recognized fire company for the Township.”

Under questioning by Mr. Coleman, Mr. Tutrone also testified that for the 30 years he has been a member of the Tobyhanna Township Volunteer Fire Company, the vehicles always have been titled in the name of the fire company.  He said this was a practice started before his time by the former chief of the company, John Kerrick. Mr. Kerrick is now the president of the township board of supervisors.

Mr. Coleman ended his questioning soon after that exchange.  Following a brief private discussion with both lawyers, at about 3:25 pm, the judge adjourned the hearing. No date to resume the testimony has been set yet.  Mr. Tutrone will retake the stand on the resumption of the hearing to answer any follow-up questions his company’s attorney might have.  We are monitoring the case and will provide updates as information becomes available.