Getting a handle on the issues requires listening.

And Jeff Coleman, running for the GOP nod as lieutenant governor, did just that in Warren County Wednesday night.

He met with fire and EMS first responders at the Spring Creek Volunteer Fire Department.

Coleman said he’s been hearing about population decline as well as a “red alert” on the fire services.

“There’s a collapse of the unpaid infrastructure,” he said, stressing the importance of getting people to think about what it means to be a citizen.

He acknowledged that the number of firefighters has dropped from 300,000 in the 1970s to to 30,000 now.

“The impact of that is devastating,” causing “layer upon layer of problems. Part is the deterioration of civil discourse.

“What I found,” he said, “is that there’s a big demand for solutions” but a “very low understanding of what the problem actually is.”

Those in attendance raised the key issues — lack of staffing and volunteers, burdens and challenges related to training and the need for a sustainable funding stream — and Coleman did much more listening than talking.

Todd Steele with EmergyCare said EMS doesn’t have a champion at the state level. Commission Ben Kafferlin said that EMS does have some “friends but I can’t think of anything (that is) ‘this is their thing.'”

He asked specifically about needed shifts in the volunteer culture as well as where, if elected, he should be “applying the energy.”

“I don’t think we’ve scratched the surface on understanding, ‘Why is volunteering collapsing?’ How do you revive that without just lecturing people?”