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Local emergency responder urges striking volunteer-firefighter references from charter
Summary
A longtime firefighter and emergency responder asked the study commission to remove all references to volunteer firefighters from the Butte-Silver Bow charter, citing professional qualifications and concerns about how volunteers are treated.
Karen Sargent of Josephine Street told the study commission on Oct. 28 that she is a nationally certified, professionally trained firefighter with three decades of emergency-response experience and urged the commission to "strike every reference to the volunteer firefighters in Butte-Silver Bow out of the charter." She said the edit would be "a simple thing, just a strike through line."
Sargent said she has served as a firefighter on multiple departments and holds professional-level certifications from the National Fire Academy and FEMA. She told commissioners that in the three years she has lived in Butte she has experienced ‘‘a high level of disrespect and disdain’’ from the local career department and said she wanted the charter language changed to address that dynamic.
The commission did not act on Ms. Sargent’s request during the meeting; public comment on matters not on the agenda was heard near the meeting’s start and the commission continued with its scheduled agenda items.
