White River Township Fire Protection District

*** Pre-Meeting Report for April 2, 2003 ***

Compiled March 28, 2003

1.  Earthtek work at station 53 is completely finished and the final payment was made to them March 27th.

2.  Brian and Paul have approved cutting a check for $3318 to Future Construction, which was also done March 27th.

3. Chief Tibbetts is continuing to work with J.L. Fox on the remaining repair items at Station 52.  Most of the work has been completed though.  The new carpeting was installed in all areas except the upstairs bunkroom and the rear sliding door was sealed up with brick and a new window installed there.  The crews moved back into the building on March 18th and all systems were operational later that day.  Some of the still outstanding issues include:  finishing above the exterior doors and windows on the East side where brick did not line up correctly, caulking the brick joints, interior wood trim around the round window, replacement of two complete window units, a couple of pieces of cove base molding in the bunk room,  thermostat repair on a bay heater, Plymovent repair to in-service status, removal of leftover brick and limestone, and replacement of foam insulation around water piping in the bay.  The masons returned to work on the brick color problem and spent an entire day re-washing the entire South wall with an acid solution. The color distinctions are less noticeable now.  Chief Tibbetts is working with the masons on a reduced labor price since workmanship was so poor on the project.  The fire department is withholding a $100,000 payment to J.L. Fox until all items are completed satisfactorily as per Brian Bosma's office.

4.  Station 51 storm damage repairs have not yet been started.  J.L. Fox appears to be dragging their feet on this issue.  The massive tree pile across the street from Station 51 was finally cut up and burned over last weekend with the help of the on-duty crews and several civilians.  This pile was the remainder of the storm debris cleared from the parking lot of Station 51 as well as Runyon Road.

5.  Multiple originals of the supplemental agreement were given to Corporation Board member Tony Slusher at the last meeting, with direction to have them signed by all board members, and returned to Kim with a copy of their 2003 budget attached.  Kim is still waiting on this, and once they have been given to her, she will attach the Schedule of Service Charges for Fire Protection Services.  One original w/attachments will stay in the District files, one original w/attachments will stay in the Corporation files, and the rest will be sent to Brian. 

6.  Brian and Tricia have revised the Safety Document, as approved at the last meeting.  It, along with the Benefits Policy for career personnel will be posted by April 2nd on the website.  The rest of the policy manual is still being updated by the various department heads and will be posted as they become available.

7.  Certificates for career employees have been completed at Brian's office and will be available for Paul's signature at the April meeting.

8.  As most of you know, we are now doing all of the bookkeeping in-house.  It has taken a full week just to sort out the incredibly unorganized boxes sent to us from Curt Coonrod's office.  The computer files are not that much better.  The goal is though to have a preliminary report of the department's current financial picture available at the April meeting.  

9.  Nick Alford and Jeff Smith both passed all of their hiring requirements including PERF acceptance.  All of their paperwork has been completed and both are ready to begin work on or around April 1st.  Nick will become the Station 51 Lieutenant on the B-shift and Jeff will become the Station 53 Lieutenant on the C-shift.  With the hiring of these two Lieutenants, the department has now achieved a major milestone in that all of its base officer staff is now in place.  Everyone should be congratulated on all the hard work that it took to get this point in our venture!

10.  The committee formed to investigate the current accounting firm situation at the last meeting will have a report available of its findings at the April meeting.

11.  Be sure to check out www.wrtfd.org for regular news stories on the main page of our website as well as access to many of the departments documents by accessing the employee page.  Simply use your username and password that you submitted at last month's meeting to gain access to that page.  Note:  your username is the first letter of your first name and then your last name, all in lowercase.  For example, mine would be 'scassin'.  The March newsletter is also now out and is a valuable source of news regarding in-house items.  It is available for viewing on the employee page (if Kim didn't already send you a link in the e-mail).

12.  The new tactical unit committee is currently meeting on a weekly basis and is now working with three different manufactures on the design and specifications portion of the project.  No real news to report as of yet on this endeavor.