Village of Concord may offer to fill residents' pools for a price -- after village president was chastised for filling his pool without permission

Filling pools with local fire hydrants in Concord should no longer invoke strong public retribution if one fire board member has his way.

Kevin Lovitt said filling pools could instead be a way for firefighters to get much-needed hands-on training with the hoses and potentially profit the village.

“I’d like to see our village adopt (a new policy) and say we’re not going to tell anybody they can’t do this, but we’re going to set up parameters and you’re going to pay for the services and the village would make out on it,” he said.

Lovitt said he plans to bring up the idea at the Aug. 17 fire board meeting.

His brother, Village President Mike Lovitt, filled his pool with village water without permission in June — later paying $68.82 for the water.

“Was he wrong? Yes. I stood right there and said, ‘Don’t do this, it’s going to blow up in your face,” Kevin Lovitt said.

“What pisses me off is all these people have turned on my brother,” Kevin Lovitt said. “And he and (former village president) Paul (Colburn) and some of those board members have worked hard to clean a lot of things up in the village of Concord. My brother never broke a law or violated an ordinance.”

Colburn objected to Lovitt’s use of a fire hydrant, having paid $660 for his pool to be filled just a week earlier. He said the past two years the Concord fire chief and public works supervisor told him residents cannot use hydrants for personal use.

On Tuesday he called for Mike Lovitt and other involved councilmembers to step down. Wednesday, he said he’d be satisfied with a “fair” monetary agreement and the creation of a new policy.

“What I would like to see is I’d like to see (Lovitt) pay the amount I paid — that’s all I want,” he said. “If I was to get the money from it, I would donate it to some charity in town because all I want is justice, not money.”

He said a new policy should specifically outline what local fire hydrants can and cannot be used for by residents and what the penalty for violating the policy would be.

“To be honest with you I think it’s something our community could make some money off of and we don’t have to charge the fees that other (pool servicers) do,” Colburn said.
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As published in the Jackson Citizen Patriot on July 28, 2011