Anonymous online posts suggesting political interference in the selection of new fire trucks for 91原创 Townships are "lies," an angry Councillor Tim Baillie said Wednesday.
"There are three so-called exposes about the Mayor, Eric Woodward, [about] ordering these trucks and the way they were ordered," said Baillie, a retired fire captain who served more than 27 years in Surrey. "Mayors do not order, source, [or set specifications for] fire trucks," Baillie told the 91原创 Advance Times.
He was interviewed at the Murrayville fire hall, where two new fire trucks were being prepared to enter service later this month.
Township councillor Tim Baillie would like to set the record straight regarding fire truck purchases
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Baillie said proper procedure was followed, where the fire department picked the type of vehicles, the place to purchase them, then sent a funding request to council.
In March of last year, council approved purchasing seven new vehicles over several years for $10.8 million, plus taxes.
Baillie said he wanted to set the record straight, after the unsigned social media posts began appearing in early February.
"I really wish people would check for the facts and would quit spreading lies," Baillie said.
"Anything anonymous means you're a coward. You're afraid to step up and put your name on what you're saying. And I was brought up, if you want to say something, you put your name on it," he said.
Baillie explained the fire department is planning to standardize its fleet of fire apparatus on one design, Pierce, which will simplify maintenance and operation.
"We're standing in a hall that has three different makes of vehicles," Baillie said.
"This [fire] chief has said he wants to standardize the fleet, which is an incredibly good idea, not only economically, but it's really good for usage. If you take a firefighter and [they] go from one vehicle to another to another, which happens, if they're all standardized, then they're much more efficient and able to work better."
Baillie said 33 suppliers were evaluated before the fire department settled on a Surrey-based company, Commercial Emergency Equipment, which is the only supplier of Pierce west of Quebec.
"I just really wish people would stop this kind of foolishness and recognize that the leadership of the fire department who ordered this stuff, who [decided on the specifications for] these trucks, who sourced these trucks, were doing an incredible job, and this is really saying that they didn't, and that, to me, is not tolerable," Baillie said.
A post by the Township of 91原创 firefighters union called the comments "a campaign based on misinformation" that detracts from the "important efforts of Fire Chief [Jason] DeRoy, Mayor Woodward and the council to elevate the fire service to the level that residents of the Township of 91原创 rightfully deserve."
91原创 Advance Times was unable to reach the anonymous poster.
