[00:00:00] Fuzz Martin: Ah, so we meet at last, or at least since last week. Hello, friend. Thank you for listening to Fifteen Minutes with Fuzz, a show about the positive things happening in and around Washington County, Wisconsin. My name is Fuzz Martin. This is Season 4, Episode 3, the 118th overall episode of the show. And I really appreciate you listening.
If you have been listening for a while, you kind of know that I have four main rules for this show. One is no politics. Two is no negativity, cynicism, or criticism. Three is be interesting. And four is keep it short. And I’ve actually changed the rules recently. Number three used to be no criticism, but that was really kind of an offshoot of rule number two, the no negativity or cynicism rule.
So I’ve put those together and I made be interesting my third rule. Anyway, last week I broke my keep it short rule. The fourth rule and the show ran about 25 minutes long, uh, for a 15 minutes podcast. It’s, you know, it’s almost twice as long. Uh, sorry about that. This week, I’m straddling the line on rule number one, the no politics rule, but only because it deals with an item that is election related.
We don’t get into the politics of the item, but we are talking about a referendum. And this is my third ever episode about a referendum. So it’s not like without precedent. And I think it’s important that people know what’s on their ballot. And again, we don’t really get into the politics of it. It just happens to be about an election.
I’m not going to justify it. It’s my show. I can, I can do what I do, what I want. Jim Healy, the Village Administrator in Richfield, joins me this week to talk about the Village of Richfield’s Public Safety Referendum. There are changes going on with Richfield’s Fire and EMS Department, and the referendum focuses on shoring up how these services will be covered by with these changes.
Jim will tell us more about that in a second. So with that, here are 15 minutes on the Village of Richfield’s 2024 Public Safety Referendum with Village Administrator Jim Healy right here on Fifteen Minutes with Fuzz.
Jim, welcome back on Fifteen Minutes with Fuzz. Happy to have you back. Thank you. It’s, uh, yeah, last November? Yeah, it was last November.
[00:02:33] Jim Healy: Thank you for bringing me back. I’m excited to be here.
[00:02:35] Fuzz Martin: Absolutely. Alright, let’s jump right in and talk about public safety. It’s a big topic, like, all throughout the United States.
Obviously, it’s hitting close to home for you in Richfield. It’s hitting close to home for us in Kewaskum. It’s hitting close to home all over the place. Can you start by giving us a background on the state of the fire department in Richfield, kind of where things are at right now?
[00:02:56] Jim Healy: Sure. So we are served by the Richfield Volunteer Fire Company, which is a private non profit organization, and they’ve existed for 125 years.
And on April 1st, they made a vote to dissolve themselves. And it was actually the day before our spring election. And so then we had to quickly decide, you know, how and in what manner we’re going to move forward, knowing that we’re going to be essentially doubling the amount of staff that we have here in the village presently.
And so, we sat and we talked with the board members from the Richfield Volunteer Fire Company. They said, you know, there’s no way for their organization to move forward. And, we explored our options and a decision was made to, become a municipal department starting January 1st or as soon thereafter as we can do.
And so right now we’re in the process of working on that transition, and, you know, we have to do things like hire a full time fire chief. We’re currently without a fire chief right now. So we’re doing that process and then working on, you know, getting everything in order so that there’s a smooth transition and there’s no interruption to service for our residents or, you know, the communities we may serve in the future.
[00:04:06] Fuzz Martin: Now, overall, and I kind of mentioned across the United States, one of the big issues is volunteerism, right? It’s hard to find People who aren’t so busy with their lives that they’re able to do some of the stuff, right? Is that one of the issues that led to this dissolving?
[00:04:24] Jim Healy: You know, for us, pre COVID, we had over 75 paid on call volunteers, and now we’re down to about 21.
[00:04:32] Fuzz Martin: Okay.
[00:04:33] Jim Healy: We have six full timers that work for us, and we do three duty groups, and there’s two full timers per duty group. The difficulty that we have is then staffing the other two individuals, whether they’re part time or paid on call, because, you know, quite frankly, most of those paid on call people have full time jobs of their own.
And like you said, their own competing interests and, things that they need to do. So it’s, yeah, it’s become a real. A real difficulty for us.
[00:04:58] Fuzz Martin: And is that both on fire and EMS? That, that’s, is there mostly on the EMS side?
[00:05:02] Jim Healy: I would say that, um, you know, we use the term kind of interchangeably with one another.
Because all of our firefighters are trained, in EMS. Whether they’re paramedics or EMT advances.
[00:05:12] Fuzz Martin: Gotcha, okay.
And it, like, going, you know, to that training, it takes a lot of training to become a paramedic. Right. It’s like hundreds and, you know, Like 140, 170 hours, something like that. It’s a lot of training.
It’s a lot of big commitment. And they kind of keep adding more on. So there’s not a lot of volunteers around and it takes a lot in order to do it. And God bless you, all of you who do that. We need more of you. And if you’re listening and you think, hey, I’d like to be a paramedic, talk to your local fire chiefs and they will guide you along the way, that path to getting there. So, I’m sorry, I’m digressing. Jim, coming up on August 13th, right? To help remedy this situation for the village of Richfield. You have a public safety referendum to help establish this municipal Richfield Fire Department and EMS. Can you tell us about, you know, what’s What’s on the referendum?
What can your residents of the village of Ridgefield expect on that referendum?
Sure.
So
[00:06:14] Jim Healy: the, the referesh, the referendum question that they will see is, is largely prescriptive by statute with the language that we use. So it, of course, it’s a lot of legal ease. Yep. And so we’ve been working hard to, to try to demystify that and, and have public information meetings in order to answer questions that the public might have, but we’re seeking 1. 25 million and that amount will help fund six full time equivalent firefighter EMS personnel, a fire chief, and then a single Washington County deputy sheriff to add to our community.
[00:06:48] Fuzz Martin: So, how big is the village of Richfield?
You’re a pretty large community, actually, right?
[00:06:53] Jim Healy: We are 36 square miles, and we have 11, 812 people.
[00:06:58] Fuzz Martin: Yeah, and the freeway cuts, like, right through or right next to, right?
[00:07:03] Jim Healy: Right, and, you know, we share borders to the south with the village of Lisbon, Germantown. Erin on the west and then the town of Polk on the north.
[00:07:11] Fuzz Martin: So you’re getting a lot of, obviously a lot of traffic flows through Richfield and adjacent to Richfield, right?
[00:07:16] Jim Healy: Our state trunk highways, you know, either 175, 167, or 164 are major arterials for, you know, the different labor sheds that we have. So, and so that leads to a lot of, a lot of calls.
[00:07:27] Fuzz Martin: I’ve been off the air. We’re talking about, from the two deputy sheriffs that serve your area already, they serve like 1, 200 calls, is that what the?
[00:07:37] Jim Healy: Yeah, we received a report from the Washington County Sheriff’s Department that the last two months they have 1, 200 incidents. And so, for, you know, two deputies, and that’s their responsibility, that’s You know, 300 per month per deputy, and you know.
[00:07:52] Fuzz Martin: That’s a lot of work.
[00:07:52] Jim Healy: That’s a lot of work, and that doesn’t leave time for investigations or writing reports or doing the actual police work or any of the administrative things that, you know, are now necessary as a part of community policing.
[00:08:04] Fuzz Martin: Sure, certainly. So, referendum’s on the ballot, let’s say that it does pass.
What is the The plan to hire this new personnel. How, how will that transition take place?
[00:08:15] Jim Healy: Well, it’s, you know, I’m not going to sit here and say it’s going to be easy because all around us, uh, Germantown went to referendum for, I believe it was 10 firefighters, almost all of Ozaukee County had, fire and EMS referendums.
And so I know Hartford was hiring a few people. West Bend always is seemingly hiring. And so. You know, there’s only a finite amount of these people with this sort of special skill set. And so it is going to be difficult and recruitment and talking about what we have to offer as an organization and , the residents that we serve, I hope will be a large part of that.
[00:08:49] Fuzz Martin: Sure. And maybe some of the volunteers currently on staff, maybe potentially as well?
[00:08:53] Jim Healy: We, we need every single one of the volunteers and the part timers that we have, we hope to transition over as many as possible.
[00:09:02] Fuzz Martin: So, are there any other surrounding community? I mean, we talked about the, those communities that are like, Lisbon and, some of those that, that touch your borders.
But, does your fire and EMS department, do they serve any of those other communities directly?
[00:09:18] Jim Healy: We do, we serve, the entire town of Germantown. Okay. And then, a few square miles in Polk, and I think it’s eight square miles in the town of Aaron.
[00:09:27] Fuzz Martin: Okay, cause I know a lot of the, you know, like, a lot of the different fire departments have contracts where they serve these different areas, so I was just curious as, as to how that works.
[00:09:35] Jim Healy: Right, I believe we, we are 36 square miles as a community, but I think in, in total we serve 49 square miles. With the fire company presently,
[00:09:45] Fuzz Martin: You had stated that the, the ask in the referendum is for 1.25 million Yes, sir. Dollars. What is the financial impact, on the referendum to an average Richfield Village of Richfield resident in this?
[00:09:57] Jim Healy: Yeah, it’s $63 per 100,000 of assessed value of your home. Okay. And so if you have a $400,000 home, it’s $252 and some change. Okay.
[00:10:07] Fuzz Martin: How’s the feedback been, currently on this?
[00:10:09] Jim Healy: Well, I mean, we live in Washington County, which is obviously very fiscally conservative. Mm hmm. And, but I would say generally the support that we have seen, has been, has been great.
And, we’re still working on rolling out information, we just had a community wide mailer that went out, advertising for our last two public information sessions that we have in July and in August, so, but for the first meeting that we had, we had about a 30 or 40 people there and hey for any government meeting 30 or 40 people who show up that’s pretty darn good.
[00:10:41] Fuzz Martin: Yeah, I would say so Let’s say worst case scenario because I’ve obviously it’s an election anything can happen. Yep in the event that This referendum does not pass. What are, what alternatives does the Village of Richfield have to, the, you know, public safety, I guess, with the, you know, you can’t force the, the fire department to not dissolve.
Continue to stay, yeah. Yes, there’s an, it’s just not on the table, right? So, what, what happens from there? Is it contract with another department, or how does that work?
[00:11:15] Jim Healy: Quite honestly, what the, the likely course of action will be is that, uh, We’ll continue to move forward and the board will have to make the difficult decision to borrow money.
Okay. Our, our community is, is not one that generally borrows Mm-Hmm. . But we are legally obligated by Wisconsin State statutes to provide fire and EMS service. Mm-Hmm. , as well as police service to our residents. And so, our job is to make the difficult decision and find the way to make it happen.
And unfortunately, what that means is, tens of thousands of dollars in unnecessary interest payments that. You know, we’ll have to be paid if, if it weren’t to pass. Okay.
[00:11:49] Fuzz Martin: Yeah, I mean, that is, obviously, 36 square miles of residence that you have to service if somebody’s house is on fire, if somebody’s having a heart attack, if somebody’s, slips and falls, then they need to be taken care of.
Right. And there has to be Some way to do that everywhere.
[00:12:09] Jim Healy: And 150 miles of road. I mean we’re primarily a residential community and you know, we’re starting to see you know, some changeover from you know, maybe the original homeowners who built your you know, your typical 1970s ranches and you know, some newer families are moving into the community and You know, they don’t know any of the history of our community.
They don’t even know that we have a private fire company. They just expect if they’re coming from a more urbanized area, like my neighbors came from Brown Deer, they just thought that they were municipal. And so, you know, kind of, you know, Closing the gap of that and, and talking about the institutional knowledge, that the fire company brings to our community, not only that, but all of the assets that come with it, I think is another real benefit.
We’re going to be getting all of their equipment, all of their properties. So, it’s, it’s really a gift, that will, will get us on the right foot, heading in the right direction.
[00:13:05] Fuzz Martin: Yep, certainly. Alright, one more time, what are the key dates and deadlines that the Village of Richfield residents should be aware of regarding voting on this referendum?
[00:13:15] Jim Healy: So, the last day to request an absentee ballot is August 8th. In person early voting is from July 30th through August 9th. And, we go from 8 to 4, we are going to be doing, on the last day of absentee voting, August 9th, we’ll be open until 5, but then we’re also, doing, voting on a Saturday, which is something that we haven’t done before, but, Sunday, August, or Saturday, August 3rd, from 8 until 12, we’ll also be having absentee voting hours for those who can’t make it in person, during our normal voting hours.
[00:13:47] Fuzz Martin: Okay. And then obviously, on, Tuesday, August 13th. That’s right. From 7 a. m. until 8 p. m. All right. Very good. So, let’s switch gears quick, because I know that’s a, this is a heavy topic for you that you are probably talking about all the time. But there’s other things going on in the Village of Richfield.
[00:14:03] Jim Healy: Tons of great things. ,
[00:14:04] Fuzz Martin: So, since the last time you were on in November, we talked about a few of the things going on. Have there been any other exciting developments or new initiatives going on in the village of Richfield since then?
[00:14:16] Jim Healy: I would say the biggest thing that’s been generating the most buzz in our community is the Richfield Farmer’s Market.
I know you had Judy on here to talk about, what’s going on there. I had an opportunity to go to it last week and, you know, I was surprised at the number of vendors that we have, the diversity of vendors that we have, and you know, now all we need is the vegetables to, to, you know, start producing and we’ll be ready to rock and roll.
[00:14:41] Fuzz Martin: I had reached out to Judy or she had actually reached out to me as well. The, there had been a lot of rain, but she had said that, it still had been steady, people coming, despite the rain, and vendors showing up, and, that’s great, and I, I know it was a big undertaking for her to get, get it off the ground, and, proud of her for doing so.
[00:14:58] Jim Healy: Yeah, it’s great, and, you know, we’ve got a lot of local farmers, and I think she told me that every agricultural producer that we have is from the village of Richfield. Oh, wow. So, it’s great that we’re able to support the local farming community in this new and different way. Yeah.
[00:15:11] Fuzz Martin: Very good. Any other upcoming events or community projects that those listening should not miss?
[00:15:16] Jim Healy: Well, the biggest thing that we got cooking during the month of August is Richfield Days. It’s the last weekend of the year. We’ve got the Mantz Brothers coming, playing Saturday night. We’ve got an amazing fireworks show, which is sponsored in part with Land and Stone Products, our local quarry in town.
We’ve got a, just a tremendous show, great entertainment, great music and food. So, encourage everybody to come out the last weekend in August and have a great time with their family.
[00:15:43] Fuzz Martin: Which, which park is that at?
[00:15:45] Jim Healy: Fireman’s Park. Fireman’s Park. 2008 State Highway 175 is the address.
[00:15:49] Fuzz Martin: All right, very good. And, Mantz Brothers, back when I was on the radio, the Mantz Brothers were I don’t know, I’m guessing they’re like five years at least younger than I am, but they were, had been going to the Mineshaft doing country karaoke.
I used to host country karaoke at the Mineshaft like every Friday night of my life from when I was like, I don’t know, 21 till I was like 31. I was so glad when the, the no smoking laws in Wisconsin went into effect, like, two years after I started that, and I was like, so thankful. Um, anyway, I met the Mantz brothers there, and then they, like, ended up in, like, Nashville and stuff like that.
[00:16:24] Jim Healy: They’re great. They’re doing really well. I had somebody who went down to Nashville, and they told me that they were at, Kid Rock’s bar down there, and, They were performing, and they said, From Richfield, Wisconsin. And they were like, What? Where?
Are there two Richfields? Yeah, but it’s great. They’re great to us.
They keep coming home. And, they’ve got quite the following. So
I can’t wait to see them perform.
[00:16:47] Fuzz Martin: Yeah. Well, tell them I say hi. I will. Alright, recapping. Village Richfield public safety referendum takes place Tuesday, August 13th, but in person absentee ballot is going on July 30th through the 9th.
Alright, very good. Jim, it was great to see you.
[00:17:04] Jim Healy: Thank you for having me. Anytime. Awesome. Have a good one. Alright. Thanks, fuzz.
[00:17:11] Fuzz Martin: Thank you again to Jim Healy, the village administrator in Richfield for joining me on this week’s episode. If you ever have an idea for the show, I want you to tell me about it. Do not be bashful, and there’s so many ways you can get in touch.
You can email me [email protected]. That is [email protected]. You could text me 2 6 2 2 9 9 fuzz. That is 2 6 2 2 9 9 3 8 9 9 or you can use the suggested guest. Form at fuzz. cc slash guest, that is fuzz. cc slash guest. You can listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or wherever fine podcasts are played.
New episodes come out on Tuesdays. Next week, Lori Prescott joins me to talk about the new Vortex Pickleball Club that is coming to West Bend, and I can’t wait for you to hear about it. So we’ll talk to you then, right here on Fifteen Minutes with Fuzz.
