The W.V.F.D. Joint Fire District Board met for their regularly-scheduled meeting last week with all board members present. Chairman Dann Timmons announced that the township trustees re-appointed him to the fire board to represent the township as their elected official. Timmons also announced he had heard from the mayor of the village that fire board member Scott Garrett had resigned. Scott was the village’s elected official representative. The village council has appointed Phil Snyder to the fill the vacated position on the board. Board member Linda Rininger requested the resignation letter which no on had seen. Rininger asked Mr. Snyder to abstain from voting until the fire board received official word from Mr. Garrett. Snyder agreed to abstain from voting.
First item of business was to appoint a chairman for the new year. The board chose Ron Kilgore as chairman with Dann Timmons as the vice chairman. The clerk presented the expenditures, and bank reconciliation and the board moved to approve both. The temporary appropriation were established at $518,716 which the board approved.
In the chiefs report Fire chief Iwanyckyj reported that truck 2815 had a smoking cylinder, speed issues and other mechanical problems. The truck was taken to Sedensky’s Truck and Tractor Repair in Nelson Township. Mr. Sedensky was at the meeting to explain the issues it had and the cost to repair them. After some discussion, the board approved the repairs at an estimated cost of $4,800. Sedensky believes it can be repaired and back in service within two days from the start of the repair.
The chief announced that reserve firefighter John Hostetler had passed his test and he would like to promote John to regular fire fighter. The board approved the measure. Iwanyckyj also announced that a new medic has passed the test and they will soon have 4 paramedics on the roster. He also stated that in the last 7 months there was only one month where they had one EMS call with no responder and it was referred to neighboring EMS services. In other chief news, the suction units on the squads went down prior to the meeting, resulting in an emergency repair of $975. They were still in the running for a truck grant and they had the electric to the fuel tanks that they no longer use disconnected.
Mark Ellerhorst went over the new insurance policy with the board and explained their coverage. He also stated that although the premium was a little higher it was not a rate hike it was because of the purchase of the new ambulance last year. The board accepted the insurance policy.
The board adjourned to an executive session to discuss pay increase for EMS and officers in the department. After the board returned, they offered to increase the pay of on-call medic personnel and they will look at the budget and determine what they can do for the officers. The fireboard meets on the second Thursday of each month at 7pm at the fire station. The meetings are open to the public.
