While members of the Shenango Valley Intergovernmental Study Committee have tentatively accepted a plan to maintain fire service as it already exists in their communities, how those departments would be funded has not been determined.

Comments from volunteer firefighters seemed to confirm the fire subcommittee's belief that maintaining the volunteer forces in Hermitage, Sharpsville, Wheatland and Farrell would lead to a rapid decline in those departments, and the new community's government would have to move toward a new structure, most likely a combination of paid and volunteer firefighters.

"You're not going to consolidate five municipalities and keep the fire service as it is today," said Chairman Tom Lally, a Sharpsville councilman.

But, the subcommittee felt it had no choice, he said.

The stage for such a recommendation was set early in the committee's history, when former Sharon Mayor Robert T. Price said his city will never agree to anything short of a paid, full-time department, and Hermitage Commissioner James "Pat" White responding that his city will never agree to joining one.

Lally said the subcommittee's inability to find a consensus led to its recommendation, even though it would likely evolve very quickly away from the five separate departments.

"This is the subcommittee's recommendation," he said. "That doesn't mean it's going to work."

Paul Chlpka, fire chief of the Patagonia Volunteer Fire Department, said he wouldn't stay a member of a volunteer fire department in a city where others are being paid.

"That borders on the stupid and I'm not stupid," he said.

Bob Szabo, deputy chief of the Hermitage Volunteer Fire Department, said the community could never afford to pay firefighters to do what volunteers do for nothing.

"Your services would never be as good as they are now," he said.

Addressing committee member Patricia Woodings' charge that the fire departments offered no helpful suggestions on creating a consolidated department, Szabo responded that his department believes in the mutual aid agreements that allow departments to cross borders, when requested.

"We will go anywhere, anytime, and do anything," he said.