OBSERVER Photo by Braden Carmen Brocton Deputy Mayor Bryan Woleben, a member of the Brocton Fire Department, does not support merging with Fredonia and/or Dunkirk as part of a larger fire district.

BROCTON — Representatives from several fire departments across northern Chautauqua County recently met at the SUNY Incubator in Dunkirk for a discussion on potentially merging local fire departments into a larger fire district.

Bryan Woleben, Brocton’s Deputy Mayor and a member of the Brocton Fire Department, left the meeting convinced that if such a venture were to take place, Brocton would be better off left out.

According to Woleben, in attendance at the meeting were representatives from the Dunkirk and Fredonia fire departments, as well as East Town and West Town of Dunkirk fire departments, as well as Fredonia Mayor Mike Ferguson, Pomfret Supervisor Dan Pacos, and Chautauqua County Emergency Coordinator Noel Guttman. Woleben attended the meeting as a guest.

The talks were exploratory and there was no formal ask from members of other departments for Brocton to join a potential district. Between 3-7 commissioners would govern the district with one chief and one set of regulations.

The topic of a joint fire district was discussed for several months before two of the five departments that serve the town of Hanover — the Silver Creek Fire Department and the Sunset Bay Fire Department — merged to form one joint fire district, the Bay Creek Fire District.

Woleben said if Brocton were to join such a district, all of Brocton’s equipment would need to be signed over to the new district. Residents of the district as a whole would be taxed for budgetary expenses, such as paid firefighters, which the city of Dunkirk and the village of Fredonia employ. The Brocton Fire Department is run entirely by volunteers. That fact, coupled with the financial turmoil that the city of Dunkirk and the village of Fredonia are both currently in, convinced Woleben that Brocton would be much better off not joining forces with its neighbors.

“In my personal opinion, take it the way you want, it’s a money grab to help other people out,” Woleben said. “I feel, if anybody is asked, that we should not be part of this.”

The Brocton Fire Department responded to 33 calls in the month of June. The Village Board voted to approve two new members of the Fire Department, Ed Wallace and Nick Wallace, as recommended by the Department.