Here's a link to an article in the June 25, 2012 edition of the Daily Herald which describes creating an alliance of departments; not a full consolidation.

http://www.dailyherald.com/article/20120...

It would be much like when the Gazette and the "Messenger" merged. The Gazette got rid of the messenger then began charging more for their daily paper.

Yeah, by the most direct route (Chicago St./CTH M) it's 8.2 miles (just slightly worse than JFD's 7.5 mi). No idea how you ... uh, your intern :) ... came up with 21 miles. That's more like Milton to Darien.
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Still, I feel there are considerations you may be overlooking. The MABAS system would dictate that JFD being activated then activates Milton to cover Janesville (this happened with the Franklin Court fire, incidentally). The simple fact that JFD is closer doesn't mean it's more efficient to send them, as the Janesville fire district is much more densely populated and has a higher tempo of calls. While JFD has multiple stations that can cover each other to some extent, just keep in mind that moving a resource somewhere can lengthen the response time for the area that resource normally covers.
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To the extent that cooperation does a better job of managing these resources, it may give you most of the benefits of consolidation without the actual need to do so.
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In any case, the Beloit area presents a much better argument for consolidation, due primarily to the "town island" effects of the Town of Beloit resisting annexation. I think you were wrong to blame Arft for having the wrong attitude when it's the adjoining townships that want to retain their identity (and anyway, he doesn't set policy, which you should well know). He may be merely reflecting longstanding grievances between the town and the city, or with the other townships, but it should be clear that Beloit carries most of the advantages here -- it's likely that the outlying township departments would be the losers. So unless you know specifically that he's been standing in the way of something the townships really want (I doubt this, but I don't know what everyone thinks or says behind closed doors), he's not the problem here.
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Ultimately one of the real issues, as well, let's keep in mind, is Wisconsin's tradition of township government. I think it's clear that this may have worked in the past but today contributes to poor planning, resistance to smart, concentrated growth, and to rural sprawl of the type that is very, very expensive from a services standpoint.

Greg, I think you should verify that the distance from the MIlton fire station to Rock Prairie Church is twenty one miles. If memory and Mapquest serves me right I think it's closer to eight or nine miles.