East Lansdowne Fire Company set to close due to lack of volunteers, funding

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East Lansdowne Fire Company set to close due to lack of volunteers, funding

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EAST LANSDOWNE, Pa. (WPVI) — The East Lansdowne Borough Council voted to terminate its association with the East Lansdowne Fire Company on Monday night. Operations will end on December 31.

“The idea that this town is too small to have a fire department — that’s ridiculous. It’s been here 114 years,” said Will Stanton, who is a resident and is worried about the lack of service.

“This is a sad day for East Lansdowne,” said Mayor Joe Bland.

Mayor Bland says the decision comes after a decline in volunteer firefighters, with only five active members who don’t live in the borough and poor response times.

“This is no dig at them at all, but the facts are our neighboring mutual aid companies – Lansdowne, Yeadon, Upper Darby – they’ve been the first one scene for over a year now,” said Mayor Bland.

“By no means do we disagree, we’re low on manpower,” said East Lansdowne Fire Company Deputy Chief Steve Castellano who is saddened by the situation after volunteering for 21 years.

Deputy Fire Chief Steve Castellano says it’s been difficult to recruit volunteers and sustain service, but this has been a major problem.

“We got to that point with 10 years’ worth of conversations with the borough of East Lansdowne regarding the potential for possible tax increases. That fell on deaf ears,” said Castellano.

Castellano says the company relies on donations, but those have diminished. He presented a solution to borough leaders to provide compensation for part-time staffing to ensure coverage, but it was denied.

“We did the financial analysis. We would have to raise taxes to our residents 60% to cover part-time,” said Mayor Bland.

Mayor Bland says they’re still negotiating with neighboring departments, but at this time, there would be no additional cost to taxpayers; they would just have to transfer the fire tax.

Local leaders also say that over the last few years, the borough has helped the fire company beyond the $59,000 a year that’s allotted to them through taxes and the general fund, such as paying their mortgage and utility bills.

Castellano hopes their closure is a wake-up call for other departments nationwide.

“Municipal officials need to get ahead of this before it gets to this point,” said Castellano.

Borough leaders discussed volunteer firefighters partnering with neighboring departments or regionalization. They are still deciding what to do with the building and equipment.