ALBION—An orchestrated walkout of volunteer firefighters for the Albion city/rural fire department was held on the night of a special meeting, called to address stopping the construction of a new fire station.
The April 8 walkout underscored the divisiveness created over two factors: Calls from members of the city council for accountability in spending, and objection to those members’ concerns by others of the council, this lead by former mayor Ryan Hallam.
It was in fact Hallam who created the walkout, bringing in 19 of 23 firefighters to sign a resignation statement completed before the meeting.
But the entire drama was staged, it appears, in order to detract from one glaring problem: the contract under which the new fire department is being built appears to have been signed and okayed illegally.
And Hallam’s signature is on the bottom line.
The Shupe
Repeatedly indicating that the matter is over increased costs of the fire station, mainstream media has done little but provide sleight-of-hand for those butting heads with members of the city council who have for the past couple of years been attempting to control costs in every aspect of city business.
One aspect came to the fore a year ago in May when Alderwoman Karen Shupe saw in the local paper that fire volunteer Dana Mosson had transported his high schooler to the Edwards County prom in a fire truck. Indicating what an irresponsible use of equipment that was, she set about to learn certain expenses as regards running the fire department—and was immediately besieged with attacks, both verbally and in the form of fire trucks on practice runs once a month blaring their horns past her Main Street residence.
Hallam, in his February 3 resignation, seemed to blame Shupe for all the contention, arising from a handful of Freedom of Information Act requests she had submitted to fire chief Kent Nale.
This was the beginning of the combustion.
Changing bids
At the March meeting, it came to the attention of the council that construction on the new fire station—sited in a rather bizarre location, the old Lovins Pharmacy building lot next to McDonald’s, a poor spot because fire trucks pulling out onto highway 15 would be subjected to heavy school and Champion Labs traffic at least twice a day—had gone about $60,000 over budget already, due to “change orders.”
Searching for the contract that specified what orders had been in place according to the original bid versus what labor and materials were running currently, no one on the council could locate a contract.
On April 2, a copy of the “contract” was mailed to the council. In it, it had a bid called “Bid 3” attached for a total amount of $624,340…for a larger building than had been presented to and approved by the city council (what was called “Bid 2) on October 1, 2012. Bid 3 had never been mentioned to the council, and the council had never authorized any more bidding for the fire station after Bid 2 was approved…so Bid 3 was unauthorized.
Further, the contract mailed to the council (of which there was no official copy, nor fire station plans, found in city hall) showed it was between the “contractor” (Greenwalt and Sons Construction) and the “owner,” Albion Fire Department…an entity unable to legally “own” the station; only the city and/or rural fire district could “own” it.
Even further, the “contract” was found to have been signed by then-mayor Hallam on January 18, 2013. Meeting minutes showed that no discussion or approval had been given by the council to sign the contract, increased costs or not. Hallam had only been authorized to sign for Bid 2, in the amount of $562,288…and authorization hadn’t been formally given as of Jan. 18.
The contract the council received Apr. 2 wasn’t signed by the city clerk (who had also resigned, with Hallam, 17 days after the signature); the city seal hadn’t been affixed to it; the city attorney hadn’t reviewed it; the enclosed plans hadn’t been approved by an architect with an attendant seal; there was no list of sub-contractors; there was no deadline for completion of the contract; and details, like inclusion of electrical and plumbing work, were missing from the contract.
Special meeting called
Resultant of this, the remaining council (the alderman who had acted as pro tem mayor in Hallam’s absence in February, Brett Berger, had also resigned) called a special meeting April 8 to “authorize the council to seek independent counsel to evaluate and explain the rights and obligations of the firehouse contract” and to “determine whether work can be stopped pending validity of the contract on the firehouse.”
Firemen show up in force
When Hallam learned that the fire station work might be stopped, the rally was on to force the council to “call off” their plans to cease construction. There was, Disclosure has learned, a certain level of hubris associated with the siting of a fire station where the firemen could gather, sit and drink coffee (and on certain nights, beer) and watch everything going on out on the main drag through town. The fire department had, over the past several years, come to believe itself a “good ol boys” club for them to pal around in, not just provide a service to the area.
The two items of business on the agenda were not discussed immediately. At first, the source of funds for the construction (reportedly a Rural Development loan) was discussed, as well as how the contract got signed by Hallam.
“Plans got done,” Hallam reported from the audience, “and Brett (Berger) was there and acting as a liaison between the council and fire department.” Hallam then said Berger gave him the approval for the expansion, which accounted for the increased cost.
The council, however, already knew Berger had not done such a thing.
Shupe brought up seeking independent counsel at that point, stating “At least we’ll know where we stand.”
The firefighters began muttering under their breath at the motion, one of them stating clearly, “She’s never known where she stands.”
Mayor pro tem Kevin Harper heard the hateful statement.
“If you guys don’t calm down,” he told them sternly, “then you’ll leave.”
The firemen and the various citizens they’d brought with them in their show of force began attempting to persuade the council to just approve a new bid for the contract, which included an extra $60,000, despite the fact that no one knew where that money was going to come from.
In the melee
Amidst this mess, Edwards County High School Comp/Lit instructor Melissa Felling, seated in the audience in front of Hallam, turned around and said, “Hallam, I had you in my English class at school and I don’t know if you forgot, but ‘liaison’ is the talking between a group of people, not a ‘person signing between groups,’” displaying what several were already beginning to figure out: there was some hedging going on with the signing of the contract; but to what end?
Hallam repeated that Berger had told him to sign the contract.
At that point Shupe moved to hire an attorney to look at the contract and examine its validity. The unspoken presumption at that point was that the construction, therefore, would stop until the contract could be declared valid by independent counsel.
Hallam arose, shaking (although whether out of anger or fear couldn’t be determined), and read the resignation letter from the 19 firemen.
“We know when enough is enough,” he stumbled through what ended up being a highly self-aggrandizing speech, “At this present time, we the members of the Albion Fire Department do present our resignation, effective immediately. We are no longer appreciated and it’s time to move forward. This is not a reflection on the citizens of Albion. We have loved serving you. This is a reflection on the current city council that questions every move, does not appreciate us. It’s very unfortunate when a few rotten apples can spoil the whole barrel. There’s over 300 years combined experience on this department; it’ll take so many years to replace this experience, as Harry Truman said, ‘enough is enough.’” He then read the names of the resignees.
Kevin Harper summed it up immedately.
“All I have to say is that you weren’t hired here; I don’t know why you have to resign from here,” he said mildly but with impact.
The Watchdogs
Many of the firemen, present for their big dramatic exit, began to storm out, with Sam Smith providing one last jab at Shupe by throwing his radio in front of her and muttering about “38 years of experience; YOU get out at 1 in the morning,” displaying no humility at all.
Interestingly, Edgar County Watchdogs, having read the drama about the fire department situation from reading coverage in Disclosure, were present. The team of John Kraft and Kirk Allen (who is fire chief in Kansas) advised from the audience that if ever there was a need for an emergency meeting of the council, this was it, and the council (because it was an emergency and therefore no need to wait the requisite 48 hours for an agenda to be posted) determined that they needed to appoint a fire chief and have locks changed at the station. However, without the resignation letter, they were unsure who was still on the fire department, so a chief couldn’t be appointed, and a locksmith couldn’t be called to tend to the keypad at that time of night.
The immediate concern of stopping construction was addressed at that point, with Darren Greenwalt stating he would “wait to continue work until we have a valid contract.”
So another special meeting was called for Wednesday, Apr. 10.
The fearmongering begins
Naturally, at that meeting, the city’s ‘risk manager,’ Randy Hallam, father of Ryan, was available to put the fear of having no (or at least, only a few) active fire volunteers in the city’s volunteer department.
The city’s insurer is Burnham and Flowers, with Randy Hallam as the ‘agent of record.’ This has been the situation for a couple of years; prior to his son becoming mayor in 2001, Hallam was not only the ‘risk manager’ but also bid out the insurance from time to time to ‘keep the premiums as low as possible.’ However, he received a 10 percent commission over and above the premium cost, which resulted in a constant raise for Hallam.
When this was changed in 2011 to bid out the insurance instead, the city saved about $25,000 a year in premiums. Hallam still makes premiums from the carrier as agent of record, but this take is much reduced now, and it’s largely due to the newer members of the council since 2011: Arrol Stewart and Terry Harper, who, along with Shupe, have been doing what they can to save the city money wherever they can…which effort has included what the fire department is doing.
Hallam gave his own soliloquy about how “dangerous” it would be to be without fire volunteers, and how the city needed to “come together” and do what they could to compromise. He spoke of Champion Labs (Albion’s only industry) and the school facing increased risk, and talked at length about how the city’s ISO (Insurance Services Office) rating could rise, meaning that everyone would face increased premiums. It appeared, with every turn of phrase, that Hallam was promoting mass hysteria if the city didn’t back off, end their plans to examine the contract via independent counsel, and allow the fire department to spend as much money as they wanted in order to construct “their” fire house how they saw fit.
His pleas, which were word-for-word with a local “anonymous insurance agent” in the local paper printed that same day, fell on deaf ears.
The council determined to hire attorney Troy Payne from Vandalia as special counsel.
It was determined to change the code on the fire department keypad; but Kevin Harper mentioned that there were several keys to city hall that just “weren’t accounted for” and pointed out that mayor-elect Steve McMahel, present at the meeting, had found a locksmith to address that particular issue.
A fire chief could not be selected at that time per that agenda item, but it was determined that there were at least five volunteers available to staff the station and respond to fires (indeed, they already had, to a field fire earlier that day) and the Browns Fire Department had already pledged mutual aid to Albion.
No action was taken on the agenda item of selecting a go-to person to go between the contractor and the city council; this appointment would be pending review by Payne of the “contract” and its validity.
And no action was taken on discussion/approval of the contract on the new construction of the fire house, the very first item on the agenda
In the meantime, mainstream media continues to either focus on the wrong facets of the problem, or is ignoring the matter altogether. In a place as small as Albion, every dime matters, especially to media, and with a fire department staffed by volunteers who own the only businesses able to advertise in said media, it doesn’t pay to always tell the truth.