H’wick council votes to sue fire department

The Howardwick City Council approved filing a lawsuit against the Howardwick Volunteer Fire Department during its regular meeting April 9.

Aldermen first unanimously approved authorizing City Secretary Sandy Childress and the city’s attorney to complete requests for motor vehicle registration forms in the name of the City of Howardwick Volunteer Fire Department, then went into executive session for almost 30 minutes with legal counsel before unanimously authorizing the lawsuit.

Childress told the Enterprise that the city’s official fire department – the City of Howardwick Volunteer Fire Department as defined in Chapter 7 of the code of ordinances – has been replaced by a new entity calling itself the Howardwick Volunteer Fire Department.

According to a statement from City Hall, the Howardwick Volunteer Fire Department is a non-profit corporation created on March 26, 2018, separate and apart from the city, and the city believes fire vehicles were improperly transferred to the new department making them uninsured by the city’s insurance.

“The City has a duty to protect the assets of the City,” the statement said.

A restraining order was obtained the same day the lawsuit was filed, April 17, to prevent the department from using the fire vehicles until it could provide proof of insurance. That proof was provided the next day, which allows the department to use the vehicles and protect the city while the litigation is pending.

Part of the litigation issue, the city says, is that the fire department does not have a service agreement with the city. Fire Chief Will Jordan says an agreement is in place, but the city just doesn’t like it.

“We have a five-year service agreement in place,” Jordan told the Enterprise Tuesday. “We got it approved right before the election,” he said, referring to the November 2017 special election in which Greta Byars was elected mayor.

“I wanted to insulate the department from what I saw coming,” Jordan said.

According to Jordan, the city gave the department permission to incorporate in 1999, but no one ever followed through with it. When they finally did incorporate last year, he says the title work on the vehicles was done to clear up confusion.

“We had titles in all different names – Howardwick Volunteer Fire Department, City of Howardwick VFD, Howardwick VFD,” he said. “There was just all these different names and too many unknowns.”

Jordan says the HVFD was planning to get their own insurance anyway, which he did the day after the lawsuit was filed through the Texas Forest Service for less money than the city was paying.

In other city business, the council did approve an animal ordinance, Ordinance 115, as corrected; and in her Mayor’s Report, Byars said that Red River Water Authority had pulled over 100 water meters of people that were getting free water.