I think that reading these is great entertainment. It's so funny that so many people have so many different opinions when only 1, maybe 2, have correct information. It boggles my mind as to how so many of you get your "facts" to base your opinions on. Please keep it up, I really enjoy the laughs.

correction: Edgerton has never had an in house EMS service, it has always been privatly run. Also, that "rescue ambulance" you are talking about was for cold water rescue and was designated by the fire department for that specific purpose. And as for your positives about Curtis, I do agree that they provide an ambulance service, but they do not supply Edgerton with Madison or Milwaukee crews regularly when the schedule cannot be filled...unless they get at least a week's notice (which is very difficult). The ride-along program was the brain child of one of the volunteer EMT's who wanted to make the service better and provide an opportunity for high school students to learn what EMS is all about and hopefully recruit incoming EMT's (not Curtis's idea).

I really wish people would get the facts before they start saying what they think are the facts. Go to the information meetings when these things are discussed. As citizens, you deserve to know the facts and there are many opportunities for you to get the facts.

the fire department did have fire and rescue at one point. if you know so much about the efd then what did we trade in to help with the money for e78? as i recall it was the rescue ambulence that we no longer use because curtis is here. as for positives that curtis has brought to edgerton is 1. an ambulence 2. crews from madison or milwaukee when edgerton doesnt have enough people to cover 3. a ride-a-long program to the high school. its not that curtis hasnt done anything for edgerton they have there not the best company in the world but there not the worse. also im really happy edgerton is getting full timers itll bring great changes to the EFD. great job demrow and the rest of the firefighters for thinking about your communities and how to better them.

emtivtech - name some positives from Curtis, I would be interested in hearing them. Also, I would wager a bet that almost none of the people posting on this blog have ever been to an Edgerton Fire District meeting. That means you jvlrat, because if you had you would know that there are qualified, well-educated people on that board who know what they are talking about and how to help the community. So next time, go to a meeting, you might be surprised how much you will learn if you have an open mind

I believe that all of the facts need to be put out before judgment is passed. Any private ambulance company will run into the same problems that curtis has. Working with volunteers is dificult. Volunteers have lives outside of EMS or Fire servicse. They need to spend time with family and work full time jobs. Devoting extra time and being woken up at 2 or 3 in the morning is not easy, especially when you have to go to your real job at 6 or 7 am. Not only is being a volunteer difficult, so is manaaging volunteers. The service needs to make sure that the ambulance calls are covered and ther are no openings in the schedule. Sometimes to do this, a company or a service needs to put on full time and part time staff to cover the openings. When you do this, it creates added dollars to the payroll, that someone has to pay for. Unlike mu;niciple services, private companies do not receive grants from the state or the federal government. They have to bill patiients and in the instance of Edgerton, they may have to ask for more monies from the communities to suplplement their losses. Why not look at the good things that may have been don for Edgerton by Curtis and not focus on the negatives.
As for the fulltime Chief's positions, it is a great idea. Oh, wait, isn't that what Curtis did? Add paid on-call and full time positions?

Its too bad that the information in these comments isn't reviewed for accuracy. Edgerton has never had its own ambulance service in house. They have always had a private service they contracted with. Before Curtis came here, AMR was the contracted ambulance service and and most of the EMT's quit do to management issues. Maybe the emt's are the problem and not the company?????????? I know some of them complain if they don't get there way. And If anyone knows anything about volunteer firefighters and emts they would know that the whole state is experiencing a shortage of volunteers. Curtis obviously doesn't have its reputation for nothing, but all of the problems that service is facing are not the fault of Curtis. I know some of the emts that work for Edgerton and they are all great emts. But there is so much bickering and back stabbing going on between all of them that it is making the whole service look bad. Maybe Curtis just needs to get rid of the "bad apples". Just remember that just because someone told you something, doesn't make it true. Check your facts before bashing anyone. Demrow and Beckwith are both great firefighters. And nowhere did it say that they would be the ones filling the two created positions. I don't think it is right that they got rid of "the 3" and then not two months later want to hire full time staff, but if that is what is best for the community, then that is what should be done. Remember these decisions are made by people that don't know anything about fire/ems. Linsley knows what he is talking about, but the rest of the board are just a bunch of undereducated community members.

first off a lot of you have no clue what your talking about. curtis is a private ambulence out of milwaukee. edgerton got rid of there ambulence so curtis took it over because the city needs an ambulence. curtis is a terrible company to work for and that is why edgerton has had a few EMTs quit. It has not been a lot like everyone is making it to seem. The fire department getting full timers is a great thing for the city. Demrow and Beckwith are amazing people and great firefighters, why do you think they were voted chiefs? also as for the edgerton 3 ONE OF THEM IS ON THE FIRE DEPARTMENT NOW. The two edgerton fire fighters who are now full timers in janesville are the two people who you would want coming to save you. Walton and Marrio are amazing firefighters and paramedics. Edgerton Curtis is not a paramedic service which means all that schooling they went to to get there EMT-P was useless because they couldnt use there skills they had to run as an EMT-I not EMT-P. To get a full time Fire/EMS job is extremely hard so to rip on those two for doing that is not only uncalled for its the most disrespectful thing you could possibly do. People just expect firefighters/emts to be there and to help no matter if there on call or not, driving by or just happen to be there. We do not have to but guess what we do it. We give hours and hours to calls plus the hours of training plus the hours of schooling for what? You people to sit here and say "o we dont need that, thats a waste of money" Well guess what with the city of Edgerton, the 4 townships, and 10 miles of I90 that we cover needs it. I dont care who you are a CEO of a huge company or president of GM firefighters/emts are here for you. You dont care or dont want to take the time to save lives so we do. Next week is fire safety week guess what us non needed firefighters do. we take time off our other jobs to go talk to YOUR children to teach them things that you as parents dont. We bring all of our stuff even our o2 tanks and we dress up for these children, why you ask because fire fighters look scary in uniform. We do this because maybe your child will cry seeing us crawling around the circle but as soon as we take that mask off and we show them that we are just dressed up it makes a huge difference. Us firefighters save lives because you wont. Think about that next time you decide to rip on a firefighter/emt there going to be the ones you count on to save you.

lifeisgood, whom are you referring to by "JD" I haven't recalled any past fulltime firefighters in Edgerton by that name??? And hopefully if this individual by "JD" works for GM he has other irons to fry but to worry about this subject. Please, if you are not directly involved with the city of Edgerton and this topic; please stick to what is pertinent here.

First of all, everyone has their own opinion on the issue, and that is to be respected by all. My opinion on this subject is that the three firefighters who got on to Janesville FD deserved to get onto that department. They worked extremely hard to get to where they are today. They had to quit Edgerton FD because the union has declared Edgerton a hostile territory and they cannot come back, ever! Unless they quit on Janesville, which I think is a bunch of BS personally.

These two new positions are a great idea! The volunteers need people that will be there all the time for the little things that need to be done down at the station. All of the volunteers have families that they are taken away from when that pager goes off because of how dedicated they are to what they do for their community, and I don't think it is fair for them to have to stay down there for hours after the fact to do paperwork! These two new positions would save them from having to go down to the station in order to do the administrative/reception/cleaning/inspections/training/everything else the positions would cover! That would even get more volunteers into the community!

As for the ambulance, it sounds like something needs to be done because Curtis is obviously treating its volunteers like crap if they are all quitting. If they didn't hire so many full time positions, they would have more volunteers back and wouldn't need to increase their budget so much! Apparently Curtis needs to be kicked out or the management needs to change. It sounds like it was never a problem before (at least no one mentioned it). I'm sure that the only reason more volunteers haven't quit is because they care about the quality of patient care their community recieves.

Unbelievable.. They should have to have a referendum on this. Can we vote to recall Linsley too?

I don’t think they were anti union. But they may have been anti non-firefighters-using-the-union-to-divide-the-community.

Oh yeah, and as far as the 3 that were hired in Janesville... what a joke! All 3 of them were very against union! And now they are working a union job!!

I can not believe that the district is already looking at hiring full time! Unbelievable!! We knew eventually it would happen, but it sure didn't take them long! Of course Demrow and Beckwith are right in front! Go figure!

Opinion - you are right, I am not in Edgerton, but I also have no ax to grind with any side of this.
*
Are you saying that 3 volunteers who fought to keep the union out of the Fire District - thus against the "Edgerton 3" - are now working as union firefighters in Janesville??
*
How could Brian Murray in Janesville go along with hiring ANYONE from the Edgerton volunteer department, given what I read in past articles?
*
By the way Opinion, I would agree with you that bringing the EMT back into your firehouse would be the way to go - but you don't have enough volunteers, no one new appears to be volunteering, given the shoddy management of the EMT company, or the hyper politics you all played by keeping your little fire club from turning union.
*
Had you all settled, let the union in, bide your time for the plaintiffs to retire, you ALL would be in a much better position to provide professional service with qualifications that a union would have insisted on. And, with better wages than your $12 whatever per fire call.
*
Stop living in the 1850s - we don't have one room school houses anymore, we don't tie-up our horses in front of the saloon, and volunteer fire departments can't recruit enough volunteers - as you have proven there in Edgerton.

From what I hear, the three Edgerton firefighters that were hired by Janesville worked very hard at getting the training they need to be qualified. I think they were even certified paramedics. They were also very community minded. The three employees that formed the union didn’t even have the minimum qualifications to apply as a firefighter on the Janesville department. Their concerns were more about themselves than the community.
.
Qualified firefighters are deserving of anything that the union can negotiate, but whenever anyone refers to three former EFD employees as firefighters, including the Gazette, it’s an insult to real firefighters that have worked hard to be where they are.

Why JD? are you looking for a job now that GM's closing?

when will the applications be available for anyone interested I wonder.

It should be no secret that the guys that got hired onto janesville were against the union but when they were offered a union job they snapped it right up sounds like a scab to me the 3 previus full time guys were singled out because they wanted to join the union to have a better standard of living they always did what was asked of them but some of the new volunteers wanted to play god and bark orders and get rid of them, don't forget one of the city council members is stan midtboes mouth piece and he doesnt want unions in edgerton because it would effect his employees. the ems needs to stay seperate look at how much the fire dept is following the ambulance now and by the way the fire dept does not recieve a dime for this it's on the tax payers.

SmithJones-It is true, and I am sure 2 of the 3 form Edgerton that recently got hired on Janesville,that were on Edgerton, and had to quit, would probablly come back.

I heard that even though the lawsuit has been settled, the union won’t permit any firefighters on the Janesville fire department to volunteer for the Edgerton fire department, however they are permitted to serve on other volunteer departments in surrounding communities.
.
Stacey Vogel – can the Gazette check this out to see if it’s true? If it is, it would be pretty good reading to find out what their logic is and why they are continuing to do things that hurt the Edgerton community.

“The ambulance service has had to double full-time staff in Edgerton from two to four over the past year because it’s losing volunteer EMTs, he said.”
Has anybody ever asked why they are loosing their volunteers? Maybe it is because the crappy way they are getting treated! Bring the EMS back in house and you will get your volunteer EMS back, because 1) they love being on EMS and 2) they won’t have to put up with the BS from Curtis. The district needs to look into expanding the building and bringing the EMS back.

Where in the article does it mention anything about Brian or Ryan wanting to be full time??? I do believe Demrow has a full-time job working for the city and Beckwith runs his own business. I think the point Demrow was getting at in the article is that he is stick of doing the administration side of things and they want to get 2 people in there to run the business side of things.

opinion-do you think with all the crying that you and the fire district are doing, that they would be able to get enough volunteers to bring the ems back in house? highly unlikely. this did start with the edgerton three and about how you all wanted a volunteer only department. now the chief and beckwith are crying because they want to be full time. except now they got rid of the union, so they can get a sweet deal with the district and get it because they non-union. but, good luck with your dog and pony show fire department.

Obviously Long_Time_Gone is nowhere near Edgerton, because he defiantly doesn’t know what is going on here. I don’t see you on the fire department dropping whatever you are doing to go help someone. It takes a special person to do something like that and the job sure isn’t worth $12/hr for the things they go though, the things they see, or the crap they put up with from people like you. People should be saying Thank you to these guys for what they do for the community. As far as the 3, who wants old, over weight, untrained, uneducated, unhealthy, unmotivated, money hungry, poor me, overpaid, glorified janitors working at the station?!? It is about time they are gone and about time the district listens to the volunteers as to what is best for the department.

The 3 guys could never fill the positions that are now being budgeted for, they have never even taken Firefighter one or past the breathing test that is required to go into a fire! As far as the $160,000 budgeted, do you really think that is even close to what they were paying the 3, time you add in all the benefits?

The amount of money that Curtis is trying to bill for EMS, is a bunch of BS, maybe the district should look into bringing the EMS back in house.

What a bunch of crap - don't pull on taxpayers' heartstrings with a sob story about families. Everyone but the Fire District saw this coming...100% volunteer fire departments went the way of horse-drawn water wagons and pump kettles.
*
The arguement you folks made, opinion, was that you all were not "anti-union" but rather "pro-volunteer." In fact, if you look on-line and find the settlement you made with the "Edgerton 3" it included language that stipulated the fire district would remain all-volunteer.
*
I live 100 miles from this issue and 20 minutes of Googling tells me this was a set-up - the Fire District simply wanted to get rid of the union, #1, and 3 guys that apparently had personality conflicts with the guy Mr. Linsley, #2.
*
If I am wrong, then why not settle the lawsuit, without the union, as was done, and move those guys into the postions you all are now budgeting $160,000 for?
*
And lastly, privatizing the EMT/Ambulance service was supposed to save money, not double the taxpayer outlay in 1 year.
*
Who is running that mickey mouse show over there, Mr. Linsley still?
*
Perhaps that young Mayor has the cahonies to call for merging with the Milton Fire Department. As I read all the Gazette articles onthat issue, they seem to have a much better understanding that volunteer fire departments don't work in urban/commuter areas in the 21st Century.

For anyone that actually knows how much time the volunteers put in, not only with calls, but with all the other stuff that they do, the amount of money that they receive is only a fraction of what they should be paid. $12 an hour for the volunteers is nothing for the time they miss away from their family. A lot of the volunteers are young with young family, do you really think they are missing out on their kids growing up for $12 an hour, no they do it because they love helping their community. It would be wonderful to get a full-time chief and administrator/deputy chief in there that is QUALIFIED, unlike the three, to elevate some of the stress and time the volunteers have. As far the money set aside for the two positions, that is minimum compared to how much it will help out the volunteers. It is about time they get some adequate help down there. For those of you that don’t know how much time most of the volunteers spend on calls, practice, meeting, fire inspections, paper work etc..., I challenge you to ask a volunteer how much time they spend on fire department stuff and what things in their families lives they have miss out on because of it.

I'll say it again...
*
For anyone back there who has not followed this story full of incompetance, union-busting thugery, personality conflicts and wasteful spending of public tax dollars, not to mention a lawyer from my hometown who milked fees from the Fire District all the way to the State Supreme Court, knowing they had no chance, none, for the Court to even accept hearing this case, then I suggest you read the Gazette archives before commenting here.
*
This is the biggest joke, and an expensive one, ever leveled on the taxpayers of those communities dependent on that fire district.