The city of High Springs issued an apology to Alachua County Fire Rescue (ACFR) and Chief Harold Theus this week after using false information to criticize the department during its Aug. 28 commission meeting. 

Mayor Tristan Grunder told Mainstreet the apologies came after he received a letter on Wednesday from Ryan Lowery, president of the Fire Rescue Professionals of Alachua County, Local 3852. The labor union represents 319 firefighters between ACFR and Newberry Fire Rescue (NFR). 

Lowery’s letter, also posted to Facebook and emailed to county commissioners, said that “multiple inaccuracies and unwarranted personal attacks” made during the meeting were not factual. 

He refuted misinformation from High Springs Fire Department (HSFD) Chief Joseph Peters regarding ACFR’s procedures, response time to city fires and transparency about the financial impacts of the new Fire Station 21 on the city.  

The City Commission used the information to vote on budget strategies that avoided reducing HSFD personnel or eliminating the department altogether to address a $723,000 deficit in the 2025-26 fiscal year. 

“Local 3852 does not wish to see anyone lose their job and empathizes with the difficulties involved,” Lowery said. “While we respect Chief Peters’ commitment to his personnel, we will not tolerate his defense being built on misinformation and unfounded criticism of the brave men and women of Alachua County Fire Rescue.” 

During the meeting, Grunder called ACFR’s proposed reductions in mutual fire aid to the city a bad-faith negotiation and said Theus likely intended to buy out HSFD with Station 21.  

But he told Mainstreet that after Lowery’s letter shined a light on his staff’s misinformation, he immediately apologized to ACFR and Theus for the comments made from the dais based on it, and that Theus had accepted. 

Grunder said not being able to trust staff with critical financial decisions on the line left him angry and disappointed.  

He said he hopes the apologies and publicly addressing the issue during the city’s next regular meeting on Sept. 8 will show the city isn’t turning a blind eye to its mistakes.  

Grunder said the commission is looking to see if it can change any of the budget decisions it voted on and that City Manager Jeremy Marshall would investigate the misinformation from staff to decide on repercussions for city personnel. 

“If anything in High Springs, we are honest, and if we make mistakes, then we’re going to address them,” Grunder said. “We’re going to have some very honest and some very hard conversations. We’re going to continue to have them in order to get this right for the citizens and for city staff.” 

Grunder said that while nobody wanted to cut the fire department, how the commission voted to address its budget likely would’ve been different had it been given the correct information. 

During the Aug. 28 meeting, Peters said if HSFD shrunk to four firefighters on a call instead of its current five, as proposed, it wouldn’t be able to effectively maintain the industry’s “two-in, two-out” rule requiring two firefighters inside a structure fire to have two others ready to rescue them.  

He said crews would have to wait as long as 15 minutes for ACFR to show up before it could execute a rescue. 

However, Lowery wrote in his letter that there are exemptions for the two-in, two-out rule when a fire is in its earliest stages or victims could be inside a structure. He also said ACFR crews usually carry five personnel on scene with a 24-hour rescue unit capable of interior firefighting that arrives faster than Peters claimed. 

“In the past two years, there have been 11 building fires in the city of High Springs, where, naturally, High Springs was the first to arrive,” Lowery said. “The average arrival time for any additional apparatus not belonging to High Springs was less than 4.5 minutes, not the 10 to 15 minutes claimed during your meeting.” 

Lowery also denied that the county hadn’t been transparent with High Springs about the relocation of Fire Station 21, as suggested at the meeting. He said the city was informed over a year ago of the move, which was also stated in its fire contract with the county, signed by the current commission. 

In the contract, HSFD and ACFR agreed to pay one another $865.50 per call when each department responds for the other.  

City Commissioner Katherine Weitz emailed the Alachua County Board of County Commissioners (BOCC) last month after the city heard it would receive around $197,000 in mutual fire aid from the county instead of the $300,000 it’d budgeted for.  

The county based the number on data from Station 21, which is able to provide more county services in areas previously relying on HSFD. Weitz asked the county to wait until it could base the reduction on a full year’s worth of data, but was denied a meeting with the BOCC.  

“The county has been clear that [Station 21] was coming for quite a long time,” said Alachua County spokesperson Mark Sexton. “We fully intend to keep responding in the city of High Springs and when High Springs responds in the county, we will pay for that. We just don’t need as much service at this point because of Station 21.” 

During the upcoming Sept. 8 meeting, the City Commission will discuss its fire contract with the county, set to begin Oct. 1, and a letter it directed the city attorney to draft objecting to the county’s negotiations during the Aug. 28 meeting. 

Grunder said the letter likely won’t be necessary anymore, knowing the information was false. 

In an email to Mainstreet, Marshall acknowledged the support ACFR had given HSFD free of charge, which Lowery mentioned in his letter, including 10 donated fire department radios valued at $6,000 to $8,000 each, medical supplies and waste disposal, Advanced Life Support services since 2019, and Comprehensive Fire Prevention Services and training. 

He said the city takes full responsibility for letting emotions cloud statements that should’ve been fact-based during the Aug. 28 meeting and that the county’s continuation of its contract is fair and equitable for all parties involved moving forward. 

“We understand that public safety demands professionalism, trust and unity,” Marshall said. “Our shared goal is, and always will be, the safety and well-being of our residents. It is in this shared mission that we must move forward with mutual respect and cooperation.”