The blended EMS and fire service model that's being proposed for Chatham-Kent makes sense to Owen Sound's fire chief.
But putting the two services together under one umbrella didn't work out in his community.
Doug Barfoot says that doesn't have to be the case in Chatham-Kent because in his mind, there are a number of significant differences between Owen Sound and C-K.
"You guys are all one government -- there's just one upper-tier government," says Barfoot. "Here, there's an upper-tier and a lower tier... there's issues there that we had to deal with, but you guys don't have to deal with that down there."
But that wasn't the only issue.
"What we had going on in Owen Sound was completely new and there were all kinds of hurdles to cross," says Barfoot. "What was trying to be done in Owen Sound is different than what they are trying to do down in Chatham, so for whatever reason it just didn't work out in Owen Sound, but they are working on a different playing field in Chatham."
Barfoot also recently spoke with Chatham-Kent's Fire and EMS chief Ken Stuebing during a conversation that was facilitated by BlackburnNews.com and is interested to see how things work out if council decides to go with a blended service model.
"Indications are that the firefighters and the management are all on the same page and they're heading toward the same goal," says Barfoot. "If they get there, all the best to them -- I think there's merit to what they're trying to do and hopefully they can get there and they can try it and it will work out for everybody."
Owen Sound's fire department took over EMS services there in 1999, but by 2004, the two services had separated.