The original Orange City proposal was written with total consent of the Orange City City Manager. The contract proposal since the last commission meeting will actually be less, since the County of Volusia will be leaving all of the equipment. The Deltona proposal will more than likely be less than proposed originally also.

In response to Special Teams such as HazMat and Technical Rescue; all are funded by outside sources not sole tax dollars. The other agencies contribute personnel and the County cannot refuse to send them to anywhere that requests them by law and also to prevent losing the grant money provided to support the teams.

Union President Calache is doing what he can in the best interest of his union membership; admirable. Unfortunately he has no right to speak on behalf of the council (City and/or County). If he is speaking on behalf of the county (making promises to the City of Debary, which occured) then who is actually running the government?

As far as bashing of Volunteers, considering a portion of the full time firefighters came from the volunteer program: good call. I guess those that were hired by the county were crap and you made them the firefighters they are today. As far as the interests of the citizens of Debary; the firefighters that are in Debary change from year to year as they bid out. They have no interest in staying in the community and only one or two even live in Debary.

The final thing to realize is that the County cancelled the contract. Why should the city beg the county to stay? The City pays for poor service, 6-8 minute responses. Orange City and Deltona have 4-6 minute response times.