Pack the House for Waterville Firefighters — Tues. May 20

The Waterville Professional Firefighters (IAFF 1608) are seeking funding to carry out their critical mission to the city and they need our support. On Tuesday, May 20th, the Waterville City Council will have its first vote on the 2025-2026 municipal budget. The Waterville Fire Chief has submitted a budget that will add eight additional full-time personnel to staff a third ambulance to ensure they are able to respond to emergencies in a timely manner.

"With only two fully-staffed ambulances, last year in the city of Waterville we did 5,704 calls city wide, including 4,403 EMS calls," said IAFF 1608 President Ryan Cote. "By comparison, South Portland did 5714 calls, so they did ten more calls than us in South Portland for the year, but they did it with 71 people. We do it with 32. The city of Waterville does 178 calls per person where the city of South Portland does 80 calls per person, so we’re doing more than double what they’re doing with half the people."

Cote said that with the recent closure of Inland Hospital, the department will be expected to make as many as 900 more trips to Maine General Hospital in Augusta. As a result, he said there will be times when there will be two ambulances going back and forth to Augusta, but nobody to respond to calls for ambulance service in Waterville.

"We’ve got people on firetrucks that we could put on an ambulance and send to those calls but now we’re taking the fire protection away from the city at the same time," Cote added.

IAFF 1608 members are requesting their fellow union family to “Pack the House” at the Waterville city council meeting on Tuesday May 20, 6pm to support a fully staffed third ambulance to cover the city. See you there!

Pack the House

Tuesday May 20, 2025

Location: 46 Front St, Waterville, ME 04901

Start time: 6pm