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Board meeting cancelled, continuing the situation that saw 14 volunteer firefighters abruptly resign

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FAYETTEVILLE, Ala. – A meeting of the Executive Board of Directors of the Lay Lake Volunteer Fire Department scheduled for Sunday afternoon, Jan. 26, was cancelled due to a lack of a quorum. That continues the stalemate that saw 14 volunteer fire fighters resign from the department.

After a Thursday board meeting, those firefighters resigned amid claims that the board acted unethically, undermined the current fire chief, and brushed over concerns related to leaked security footage from inside the fire station.

The Lay Lake Fire Chief, Yancey Brown, was unable to attend the Thursday meeting due to his work duties. On Friday, Brown said, “I was going to refrain from commenting, but as the issue continues to become viral across social media and news outlets, I believe it is in my best interest to make a comment.”

Brown relayed details of the history of the fire station’s video surveillance of the grounds.

“The Fire Chief at the time was the only member of the department with access to the camera system, or at minimum, that’s what the department was informed.”

An upgrade in the video system lead to other changes. As acting chief at the time of the upgrade, Brown said that he was given access, but also informed that three to four others also had access to the cameras.

Brown said that private conversations were being audio and video recorded with three to four people having ease-of-access to monitor at any time.

“It was recently brought to my attention that a video of a member of the department being reprimanded had been saved to a personal device and shown to other people outside of our organization.”

Brown said that story has made the rounds of not only the department volunteers, but apparently was shared outside the department as well.

“Several members had discussed their extreme discomfort and distrust in who they believed had leaked the camera footage and had expressed their willingness to resign if the issue was not mitigated,” said Brown.

When his work duties interfered with his attendance at the Thursday board meeting, Brown requested that the meeting be rescheduled.

“As Chief, I recognized the concerns of my members and intended to address the issues head-on at the Board of Directors meeting held on Jan. 23,” Brown explained. “However, my work schedule conflicted with the date of the meeting. I asked that the meeting please be rescheduled so I could be present to maintain order and to represent the department members and their issues to the board. I was informed that it was too inconvenient to reschedule, and that the meeting would still take place.”

It did and led to the mass resignations.

At that board meeting, it was decided that Chief Brown would no longer be allowed access to the surveillance video system, nor would he be allowed to post to an established social media account that was designed to keep the community informed and up-to-date regarding calls, road closures, and weather hazards as well as to showcase department accomplishments and more.

Brown added, “I had called an emergency executive session to order with the Board of Directors that will take place over the weekend. I intended to discuss the actions and decisions that took place in my absence that cost us nearly all of our members – valuable, dedicated members regardless of their certifications. At this time, Lay Lake Fire has four ‘active’ members left on the roster including myself pending the result of the meeting.”

That meeting, scheduled for Sunday at 3:00 p.m., was cancelled when remaining board members said they could not attend. The situation remains at an impasse.

In the meantime, Brown said, “I have worked hand in hand with Fayetteville Fire to facilitate the on-boarding of nearly every member that resigned from Lay Lake to ensure these members’ training and dedication don’t go unused, and to ensure that adequate Fire and Medical response can still be offered to the community via Mutual Aid request if necessary. Lay Lake Fire is still operational but with a much, much smaller active roster.”


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