Windham – The WVFD Joint District Board met for their regularly scheduled meeting with all board members and fiscal officer in attendance. The board approved the minutes, the expenditures and bank reconciliation before moving on to the chief’s report.
Chief Rich Gano reported that the average response time in September was 3 minutes and 33 seconds. He also reported that there were 429 calls to date (October 1, 2018). There were 48 EMS responses, with 31 transports, 2 fires 4 accidents, 1 hazardous condition, 6 service calls, 1 severe weather and 3 false alarms. The false alarms are concerning because the fire department has to go out, reset the alarm and check to make sure it is indeed a false alarm, taking the firemen and trucks out of commission while attending to the false alarm. This brought up a discussion on how many false alarms can a facility have before they can assess a service charge on each additional call. The fiscal officer will look into the legalities of adding a service charge for excessive false alarms.
The chief recommended three candidates for possible employment. After further review of the applicants, the board approved the hiring of Brian Ross, Elmedin Beganovic and Daniel Legky. The board also stated that they would be enforcing an existing policy, which is that all paperwork must be turned in prior to working any shift. Any shift worked prior to paperwork completion will be unpaid.
Truck 2813 was backed into the ditch which costs the district $650 for towing along with $1000 in damages. The board wasn’t happy that the incident happened party due to not following protocol. Driver has to take remedial training before being allowed to drive the trucks.
The fire siren has to be relocated due to the fact that the current location is on village building that is no longer in use and the power has been cut to the facility The costs for the moving the siren and electricity is approximately $10,000 if place on a pole or $21,000 to have it mounted on a tower. Both costs are beyond the finances of the district. The chief will see if there are any grants to help out with costs. He will also look at other options.
There being no further business the meeting was adjourned.
