Some heated discussion brought the Catoosa County Fire Resource Committee meeting to an end Thursday night.

“We won’t work on a committee that Marlin Thompson (Post Volunteer Fire Department chairman) is on,” Catoosa Fire & Rescue Chief Chuck Gass said to Committee Chairman Dewayne Hill.

Gass had just informed the committee his organization made an open records request for the e-mail communications between former Catoosa Manager Ron Brown and Thompson. Gass said the e-mails show Thompson and Brown were working together for at least a month prior to the Board of Commissioners Retreat in late June where consolidation of the county’s two volunteer departments and the hiring of a new chief were discussed.

“Either we were left out intentionally or unintentionally,” he said.

Gass asked two weeks ago whether Thompson had written the job description for the proposed new fire chief. Thompson said he didn’t.

Within the e-mails was one including a list of requirements for the new fire chief sent by Thompson to Brown, Gass said.

“This is not what that is,” Thompson said. ”I provided info that was requested from off of websites and other things like that. A copy of a document off a web page, I copied and pasted that from a website to a Word document and sent it to him.”

Chief Bruce Ballew of Fort Oglethorpe Fire & Rescue asked Thompson whether he did it knowing it would be sent out later for a job description.

“No, I was told it was for a project….a consolidation project,” he said.

Catoosa County Chairman Bill Clark brought together interested parties to discuss proposed consolidation of the Catoosa County Fire & Rescue and Post Volunteer Fire Department initially Aug. 2 after both departments requested meetings with commissioners after media reports of consolidation and hiring a new fire chief surfaced following the commissioners’ retreat.

Commissioner Hill chairs the committee, which includes Ballew, Thompson, Gass, Catoosa Deputy Chief Jim White, and alternates Merv McDonald from Post Volunteer Fire Department and James Dycus from Catoosa Fire & Rescue.

“What do you guys suggest we do?” Hill asked. “If you turn it over to the commissioners, we can make a decision, but I would like to have the committee’s input…”

“It’s good to get the problem out now before we move on with business that we need to be looking at,” he said.

Hill said he will discuss the issue with commissioners and see what the next step should be.

Prior to the flare-up, the committee lightly reviewed a list of fire related topics from how consolidation could affect insurance ratings to what types of services the commissioners want to deliver to taxpayers.

Chief Ballew emphasized the committee needs direction from the commissioners as to what form of consolidation they want, so the committee can provide information working towards those goals.

Hill said from his impression commissioners are looking at countywide consolidation.

Hill scheduled another committee meeting in two weeks.