also anyone who thinks the members who left the department are whinners are sadly mistaken. They were great members of the department and will be very missed.

Thank you for recognizing All the Volunteers. Unfortunatley at this point in time the member in question has drove away several very good members, regardless of their connection with EMS volunteers. The person at hand has over stepped his bounds and is a liability. As for going to the boards, board meetings have been held on both fire and rescue to try to control him. also on more than one occastion the issues have been brought to the township president. I agree with the person who said the paper should due more digging. If something isn't done soon even more members will leave. this is not a new issue, just one that is being brought public.

Thanks go out to all the Volunteers on any fire department or rescue squad.
All of you that are complaining, maybe you should use your energy, and become a volunteer.
I can't quite understand why this can't be worked out, if someone is too outspoken, and taking control, it may not always be a bad thing. They are all trying to do the same thing, and that is respond to calls and help people or victims.
Thanks go out to the Darien Fire Department, to ALL OF THEM. You need someone to keep order, give orders, and keep things running.
If not, you will have alot of craziness.
All departments have someone that gives orders, to me, seems like the right thing to do.
Anyone that has a problem with that, needs to go to the next board meeting, and speak up there, not on the Janesville Blog page.

Not sure who the bad apple is, but someone on here knows I bet!!

Thanks, Jim.

Correct me if I am wrong, you know the drill. Get control of your employees Fire Chief!

Now you got me curious whatever536, you must be a former co-worker of mine. As they would know about the dropping the plow thing.

Your right as usual Dean, the Chief needs to kick the problem person in the rear and get them to shut their mouth! The problem is that the Chief needs to gain control of his Department! Although the person that is the problem may be a town board member and on the Fire Department! Kind of like calling out the snow plow guyz in Delavan for not putting their plows down when it snows....inside joke for us two!!!

I agree that the problem is one person but that one person is not the one making the problems it is the Fire Chief who for some reason is not running his department properly and is not man enough to get rid of the person that is causing all the friction. When you have a Chief, be it a fire chief or police chief that does not take control of the department and control his people he is the one that needs to be replaced.

abdce12345 - Your knowledge of who left is not correct. I know for a fact (being that one who left is a relative) had been a member for almost 20 years. He was not a complainer nor a "cry baby". He was a well respected member of the team. The members left due to an ongoing problem with one member. How sad that one person is destroying a department.

Well,if the problems have left, I guess that's why there was no need for a follow up. They probably called the paper in the first place. Problem solved.

Duh!

whatever Thought you were kidding about not knowing "where the bodies are buried". It means what are the secrets.

one still want to hear about the bodies!

RAM003 If you want really to know what's going on you should contact a board member either Village or Town. Don't wait for it to come out in the paper
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abcde12345 seems to have a good handle on it.(maybe a board member?)

I feel perfectly safe with the fire department volunteers that we have now. It's about time that the cry babies are getting weeded out. They are the ones that cause problems. Besides the firefighters that quit, without a resignation letters are all related... two are Father and Son of the chief on the rescue squad(Father quit 3 months ago and the son has quit several times.) The other two are a Son and a boyfriend of another rescue squad member(the son was quiting anyway because the chief of the fire department thought it was inappropiate to smoke cigarrettes while they were at a house fire and Nickles made it a rule.) The fifth person is moving away. Come on guys! Let's give it a rest. We are in a very safe community!

Did the five resign or what? I need to know about my fire protection. I need to feels safe at night. What are the boards doing about this. Didn't they meet last Tuesday? The public needs to know more about what's going on.

"One943", some of us actually have been involved in the politics of that department. bodies, that was weird??

Whatever,
You need to get a hold of Kayla Bunge & tell her where the bodies are buried. I would think it is very hard for someone on the outside to come in & figure out what's what

Everyone in the area knows what is wrong with the Darien Fire Department, one loose cannon, that needs to be reigned in! This is where the chain of command system needs to step up and strip that particular person of their perceived power! The Gazette really needs to do more digging on this story, because there is much more to it, lots of conflicts of interest being ignored!

I don't care how you look at it, half of that area takes almost that 30 minutes to get to from either area. Besides that is not the issue. The issue at hand is that it is hard enough to get and KEEP volunteers. Having things happen where a person gets out of control only makes that an even harder task. It is just more proof that the volunteer system is on a downward spiral.

Maybe the "Boss" should just be quiet, or get kicked off the Fire Department!

I thought Richmond got tired of having to wait 30 minutes for Darien then have Paratech show up.

Richmond voted to have City of Delavan cover their area because they were gaurenteed a paramedic on all calls. The fact of the matter is that if the person in question were on any other department they would have been disaplined severely a long time ago. The matter has gone too far, no matter what happens the department has lost out on some much needed members

The FD does elect their officers but both boards must approve them. If the Village thinks someone from the Township has too much power then don't approve them.
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As far as Richmond they already bailed on Rescue. Delavan responds to the south half. Maybe Fire should too.

Elections for what?? The Village and Town Boards, or the Fire Dept elections?? This thing is bigger than all of that, and you also have to concider that only the fire dept votes 4 their officers, the same with the township and village. Also there are those that are in Richmond and other surrounding areas that depend on the fire dept. This is a legal matter that will need to be decided by both the boards.

Walworth, Sharon & Delavan will respond.
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Those of you who don't believe things are right-- there is a April election. All you have to do is find the right people to run. You have a much better issue than a "fire hydrant charge"

So who will respond to the fires????

to my2centsworth Dan nickles is the fire chief who does not have controll over his dept because he is afraid of dan boss due too dan being on the town board.

Who is really the "Boss" of that department???

I agree that in the past metzner has had his issues but this time he is doing what should have been done by the fire dept board. nickles should be concerned I know both fire and rescue are both understaffed

yeah, at that $7.00 is only on a call right? Not for meetings, trainings, and school!!! That's alot of volunteer time!

Yehh...$7.00 an hour for risking their lives.

'paid on-call volunteers'. volunteers get paid??

What are people thinking... keeping Bob Metzner on the board anyway. This isn't the first time he has stirred up trouble, and I'm sure it won't be the last. Get rid of him!!!

HDRoadKing: Although the comment tally says five, the four comments that you see were made by users who haven't been banned from the Web site. Comments from banned users are still counted, but they aren't visible to anyone using the site, including me. Hope that helps.
Kayla Bunge
Reporter

abcde12345 You must live in Darien cause you hit the nail right on the head.

Anytime you have 26 people together like this you are going to have conflict. I think Dan Nickels has a handle on it & will take care of it.

Looks like Bob Metzner once again has gone off half cocked

Maybe there is simply something wrong with the system and the people that devised this can't count past three?!?!?

Why does it list 5 comments on this article when there are only 4 comments that are shown? Are we not allowing the same privledges to everyone and simply deleting someone because of his/her views before the rest of the internet world has even has a chance to read them?

It's a situation of who doesn't like who and this was an opportunity to get vindictive against the person they dislike. So my question is...if you want to get technical...how many empty lockers do they have in the rescue department because of the rescue squad chief? It happens everywhere. I'm sorry but isn't the community supposed to work together!!!

I only assuming that the 5 have addressed this issue with the fire chief prior to this incident? Leaving gear on the floor seems kind of childish. I know this from experience when a number of members from our village's department threw their badges on the floor at a board meeting. Another childish act.

"Nickels said he isn’t concerned." Finding and keeping volunteer firefighters is a huge and growing problem today because of a number of problems that are extremely difficult to remedy. I wish that I had the luxury of not being concerned. Village President Robert Metzner seems to have the proper assessment of the situation.

It would appear to me that the fire chief needs to take control of his department. Hey Neill Flood in Delavan, you need to do the same thing, you know who I am talking about.