KING — What was scheduled to be a fairly brief, run-of-the-mill King City Council meeting on Monday night turned out to be anything but that.

With media cameras from local news stations rolling, King volunteer firefighters turned out in full force to make their feelings known. During the public comments section of the meeting, they addressed the council regarding their present status and inadequate funding and equipment.

According to King Firefighter Bill Tedder, King firefighters were given a letter in late March which spoke of budget cuts and asked the “part-time, paid, on-call personnel,” as Tedder called his fellow firefighters in King, to return to their volunteer status. Tedder noted that the firefighters had been receiving a small stipend for 30 years.

King City Manager John Cater stated on Tuesday that the fire chief had indeed requested the fire department’s paid-on-call-volunteers (POCVs) to volunteer to be unpaid volunteers through June 30. This request did not affect full-time personnel and was attributed to the chief’s efforts to stay within the budget for the rest of this fiscal year.

According to the television news reports, the POCVs were fired. Cater responded: “That is not true. Only I can authorize a firing, and I did not authorize any personnel action for or against any fire department personnel.”

In fact, according to Cater, neither he nor the King City Council directed the fire chief to ask the POCVs to be unpaid volunteers as a means of handling budget issues.

King Fire Chief Randy Williams said that he was unaware beforehand of what was going to take place at Monday night’s regular monthly meeting. “I and the full-time staff here were isolated to prevent us having any part in this,” he noted. “It was just a situation of extremely tight budgets ... and budget cuts.”

The POCVs who initiated the unannounced media event at the council meeting took the opportunity to express not only their disapproval with the volunteer request but also to express disapproval about other issues that have been bothering them since they became part of the city of King.

It was almost 10 years ago that the POCVs voluntarily turned over their services, station, trucks and equipment to the city of King to better serve the citizens of that municipality. Expressing disappointment with some results of that arrangement, Tedder told the council that the firefighters need to see a better plan for the fire department and yearly budgets that allow for adequate protection for the residents of King.

“People’s health, lives, property, businesses, schools and homes ... count on us to be there,” said Tedder. “Our department is a necessity! Not a luxury!”

The disgruntled firefighters asked for more funding for vehicles, equipment and manpower. They also requested that the council have a response to the firefighters’ concerns at the next council meeting, which is scheduled for June 1 at 7 p.m. in the council chambers at King City Hall.

Already Cater says he is looking into the matter and will report his suggestions to the fire chief.

Meanwhile, Chief Williams had this to say about the protest by the firefighters: “They’re just trying to hold together an organization they’ve put so much time and effort into over the years ... I don’t think they meant harm; they meant to help.”