Fire Department
City of Corunna residents and property owners,
Just over one year ago, the City of Corunna was asked by Caledonia Charter Township to partner in disbanding the current Corunna-Caledonia Fire Department in favor of initiating a new contract for fire service, for the two municipalities, with Owosso Charter Township. The elected and appointed officials for the City of Corunna declined the proposal. The City of Corunna then offered four alternate proposals to Caledonia Charter Township in order to keep the current partnership in place. The City of Corunna's most recent offer was an all-inclusive 1.0 mill proposal. Unfortunately, our efforts to keep the partnership together failed.
Therefore, I am excited to announce the City of Corunna will continue to provide quality fire service protection to the residents of Corunna. The new fire department will operate under the new name Corunna Cavalier Fire Department or the CCFD.
The City of Corunna will continue to provide services to the residents of Corunna with our existing equipment and personnel. In addition, we intend to provide long overdue pay increases and benefits to our hardworking loyal firefighters, lieutenants, captains and chief. The fire department will benefit from the full resources of the City to support the fire operations. In addition, as a disadvantaged community, we will now be able to apply for much needed grant monies we were unable to qualify for in the past. We hope for these grants to help us plan for a public safety facility to help us build for the long-term needs of our community.
The City will reap some cost savings by serving a much smaller geographic region and by reducing the number of fire runs by ⅔ of our previous annual run numbers. In addition, a top priority we hope will result from the smaller geographic region will be to improve our ISO (Insurance Service Office) rating. This would benefit the property owners of the City of Corunna by reducing the homeowners insurance rates in the community.
The City will be asking for additional support from the City of Corunna property taxpayers and tax-exempt beneficiaries to shore up our older equipment and will eliminate various fire run fees in return.
The City of Corunna will have sole ownership and responsibility for fire department facilities, equipment and apparatus, and the department will benefit from the full faith and credit of the City of Corunna.
Although we regret the loss of $120,000 in operating revenue from Caledonia Charter Township, we congratulate Owosso Charter Township in securing the $240,000 contract with Caledonia Charter Township and wish them a successful partnership.
Mayor Wayne LeDuc
City of Corunna