The township's firefighters' unions will start knocking on residents' doors asking them to sign petitions calling for the consolidation of the township's nine fire districts into one force that would protection to the entire town.
The resolutions call for the dissolution of the district the taxpayer lives in. It's part of a process to absorb or dissolve a district, which takes a petition to the township council from 5 percent of a district's voters.
On Monday, in announcing the plan, the unions gained the support of local politicians, including Assemblymen Wayne DeAngelo and Dan Benson (both D-Mercer), who live in Hamilton and signed petitions at a public event at the Rusling Fire Co., home of District 3.
The union's plan, though, is to have fire District 3 be the surviving district, instead of starting with a brand new district, a move opposed by at least three other districts.
At the event, the presidents of the two locals of the Firefighters' Mutual Benevolent Association (FMBA), Nick Buroczi, who represents officers and Mike Kiernan, who represents rank-and-file firefighters, both reiterated their stances that the township needs one fire district.
"We believe the residents of Hamilton understand the need to for us to move forward," Buroczi said. For too long, he said, the issue of consolidation has been stymied by governmental paralysis.