Fire: the Walkerton Lincoln Fire Protection Territory, since July 1, 2010

TERRITORY ESTABLISHED BY RESOLUTION 2010-1 · TOWN CODE § 30.078 · THE TOWN AS PROVIDER UNIT

The territory test comes back positive, and in the town's own code: Walkerton is not served by a town fire department alone, nor by a township department — since 2010 it has been the provider unit of a fire protection territory. Section 30.078 of the Walkerton Town Code (Resolution 2010-1, passed 2010) records that the Town Council, acting together with the Trustee and Board of Lincoln Township, established the Walkerton Lincoln Fire Protection Territory under Indiana Code 36-8-19, its territory being the entire town and the entire Lincoln Township of St. Joseph County, its fiscal provisions effective July 1, 2010, the Town as provider unit, and a Fire Control Board directing the territory's property. The department the territory funds — the Walkerton Fire Department, or Walkerton Fire Territory — stations at 504 Washington Street and answers, by the town's own fire page, some 150 fire calls and 550 EMS calls a year across the town and township; the ambulance billing that volume generates sits in the clerk-treasurer's office, as the clerk's entry records. The department's strength is given in directory listings at twenty firefighters and eleven EMS personnel. Its command is this section's weakest-sourced seat: the CountyOffice directory names Chief Kenny Eggleston and Assistant Chief John Paschen, and no town page, minute, or State schedule reached names the chief — the names are printed at directory strength and carried as GAP-WKGOV-5, settled by the territory's own records and the Fire Control Board's minutes. Two false scents are printed as failures so they are not followed again: a "Lincoln Township Fire Chief Brandon Chiarello" belongs to Berrien County, Michigan, not to this township; and a federal register entry for a "Lincoln Township Volunteer Fire Department" at Walkerton sits under LaPorte County, not this one.

Sources:

1. Walkerton Town Code, § 30.078 (Resolution 2010-1), American Legal Publishing code library: the territory's establishment under IC 36-8-19, its bounds, the Town as provider unit, the Fire Control Board, and the July 1, 2010 effective date.
2. Town of Walkerton (walkerton.in), fire territory page: the department at 504 Washington Street and the call volumes.
3. Indiana EMS Commission minutes (March 22, 2013), in.gov: the "WALKERTON-LINCOLN FIRE TERRITORY" already operating under that name.
4. CountyOffice directory listing, Walkerton Fire Department: the staffing figures and the names of Eggleston and Paschen — directory strength only, flagged in place.