An Open Letter to Millcreek Supervisors Jim Bock, Kim Clear, and Kylie Morris
Dear Millcreek Township Board of Supervisors:
It is time for the Board of Supervisors to take control of this situation.
For months, Belle Valley Fire Department has raised serious concerns that the Millcreek Township Fire Department has strayed from the original intent when the Department was formed in January 2023. It was clearly stated at that time that the paid Department would "supplement" the volunteer departments.
When the Board of Supervisors adopted Ordinance 2023-1 creating the Millcreek Township Fire Department, it expressly recognized Belle Valley, Kearsarge, West Lake, and West Ridge as the Township's volunteer fire departments. The ordinance further provides that "[t]he governance of the individual volunteer departments...will not usurp or otherwise affect the conduct of the volunteer departments as presently exercised by their duly elected officers."
However, in an Erie Times-News article published Sept. 1, 2026, Fire Chief Mike Cliff was quoted discussing what would happen if Belle Valley signed the proposed agreement. His words could not have been clearer: "Say they (Belle Valley) sign an agreement, we will work toward a merger and a plan to fully merge into one department."
The article further reported that the proposed merger "would make all Millcreek fire departments into one company." Chief Cliff also described moving paid staff into Belle Valley's station and using Belle Valley's apparatus to provide fire protection.
That is not preserving an independent volunteer fire department. That is describing its eventual absorption into a single Township fire department.
It appears that Belle Valley's fears when it declined to sign the 2023 agreement that would have required Belle Valley to turn over all of its assets to Millcreek Township were well founded.
The Supervisors cannot reasonably tell Belle Valley, its firefighters, and the residents we serve that the Township intends to preserve the volunteer departments while the Township's own fire chief is publicly describing a plan to "fully merge into one department."
If Chief Cliff misspoke, then the Board needs to say so publicly and immediately. If he did not misspeak, then the Board needs to explain why its stated position is different from the position being publicly advanced by the person responsible for the Township's fire operations.
Either way, the Board has a responsibility to resolve this contradiction.
More importantly, the Board has a responsibility to stop allowing this process to be driven by threats, pressure, and inappropriate public statements.
Belle Valley has spent decades building a fire department staffed by volunteers who live in this community, know this community and have repeatedly demonstrated their commitment to protecting it. Our members have invested countless hours, their own money and enormous personal sacrifice into building an organization that serves Millcreek residents.
They deserve better than being pressured into signing an agreement while simultaneously being told that doing so will put them on a path toward a merger.
And the residents of Millcreek deserve better than a back-door transformation of their fire service.
If the Township wants to discuss cooperation, improved coordination, shared resources or other legitimate ways to strengthen emergency services, Belle Valley has always been willing to have that conversation.
What Belle Valley will not accept is being pressured into an agreement that can later be used as the vehicle for dismantling the independent volunteer fire departments.
The Board of Supervisors needs to make its position unmistakably clear:
- Are the independent volunteer fire departments being preserved or are they being consolidated?
- Does the Board support Chief Cliff's stated plan to "fully merge into one department"?
- If not, will the Board publicly reject that plan?
- Does signing the proposed agreement put Belle Valley on a path toward a merger?
- Who, exactly, is setting the Township's policy on the future of fire protection: the elected Board of Supervisors or the appointed fire chief?
These are not unreasonable questions. They are questions the Township itself has created through its words and actions.
The Board of Supervisors is elected to govern Millcreek Township. It cannot outsource that responsibility to its fire chief.
If the Board truly intends to preserve the volunteer fire departments, then it is time for the Board to say so clearly, direct its administration accordingly, and stop the effort to pressure those departments into submission.
And if the Township's actual objective is consolidation into one department, then have the courage to say that publicly and honestly.
But stop telling Belle Valley one thing while the Township's fire chief tells the media something entirely different.
Belle Valley is not going away. Our volunteers are not going away. And we will not participate in a process designed to eliminate the department our community has built and supported for generations.
The Board of Supervisors needs to decide what it actually wants for Millcreek's fire service.
Then it needs to take control of the process and act accordingly.
Respectfully,
Belle Valley Fire Department
