The Wabash Township Fire Department Association on Thursday filed a motion to dismiss their case against Trustee Jennifer Teising.
The case was filed last month in an effort to stop the trustee from moving forward with her plan to let go of the fire department’s three paid staff.
Wabash Fire Department Association President Mike Dwyer said after the judge found they didn’t have standing to bring a lawsuit against Teising, the association found a new attorney.
“After talking to her about it and discussing it internally it didn’t seem like it made sense to keep forward with that existing case,” he said.
On the last day of Wabash Township’s contract with its three paid firefighters Dwyer announced that the association’s remaining volunteer staff would not be responding to calls unless Teising agreed to keep the paid firefighters employed.
Teising declined. Since then, Dwyer said volunteer firefighters have slowly begun responding to calls again.
“I got seventeen people on the roster and fifteen of those are actively responding to runs,” he said. “There was a little while for that week after that there was only one or two people that were responding on runs.”
Dwyer said he still strongly disagrees with Teising’s reasoning behind firing the three firefighters and the association is understaffed as a result.
“If you looked at all the volunteer fire departments across the state, Wabash Township is now probably going to be number one or number two most busy volunteer fire departments,” he said.
When asked if the association might bring another case against Teising, Dwyer declined to comment.