White River Township Fire Protection District

 

Pre-Meeting Report for November 4, 2004

 

Compiled October 25, 2004

 

 

 

  1. Building construction updates. 

 

    1. Station 51 (new building)
      1. The building team has met to go over the rough-draft plans that were delivered by Senefeld and Associates at the last FPDB meeting.  These plans needed some major work so the team is re-drafting some sketches to be delivered to the architects for a re-draw.  Once these plans have been re-worked and accepted by the team, they will be made available to the board for review.  Unfortunately, this is going to push the project back another month or so, but it is of the opinion of the team that we would rather get it right and take longer in doing so than push it through with errors or omissions.

 

    1. Station 52 (addition)
      1. The building plan has been revised to fit within the allotted budget amount.  The plans have been finalized by Senefeld and Associates and are ready for the next step.  Legal counsel should have an opinion regarding the bidding of non-union wages at the meeting.

 

    1. Station 53 (minor improvements)
      1. To date, all projects (with the exception of the upgrades approved last month) have been completed at Station 53.  Special thanks to Lt. Jeff Smith for overseeing all of the projects and coming in at or below budget on each assignment!

 

  1. The health insurance committee will meet on October 26th and should have a report on their project at the next meeting.

 

  1. Chief Tibbetts and Lt. Mark Hart will have a presentation regarding the industry Merit system and how it works.  They will also have a recommendation on how to proceed from here regarding all of our current and future full-time positions.

 

  1. Chief Tibbetts is working on the internal appointments for the Training Chief and the vacancies below that will be created when whoever that is moves up.  He plans on having all of the names at the next meeting.  As soon as this is done, the trickle down of promotions is going to leave us one engineer short.  With no one else on the list, we will need to conduct another hiring process.  This process should be started immediately since it takes 6 to 8 months to complete.  We would hire one right away and then keep a “list” of those who scored a 70 percent or higher.

 

  1. With the arrival of the new Battalion vehicles, we now have two “pool” cars that are shared between fire prevention, maintenance, and other pool users.  However, when the new Chief of Training takes over in January, this will leave only one pool vehicle.  With the size of the department as it is, one pool car is simply not enough.  This issue is compounded whenever a Battalion car is out of service for an extended period of time and that person is using the pool car.  This leaves nothing for the other 3 individuals to use in the course of their daily jobs.  Because we came in considerably under budget on this year’s staff vehicle project, we saved enough for the purchase of another vehicle.  This would be issued to the Chief of Training thereby leaving two pool cars for use by the others.  We would still continue to replace vehicles on the two-per-year rotation, based on a four-year cycle in order to maximize the salvage value as well as maintain safety standards and reduce costs on maintenance.  Chief Tibbetts will have more on this at the meeting.

 

  1. One of the last major capital projects for the year is under way regarding the replacement of the grass rig.  The vehicle won’t actually be replaced; it will just become a utility vehicle to be used primarily by the maintenance division and for towing the large trailers.  The new grass rig will be designed to be a true grass rig allowing it to be more functional than the current vehicle.  The request to quote and the specification package should be ready by next month’s meeting (December).

 

  1. The minutes from the October 5th District meeting are available for viewing on our website, or by following this link: http://www.wrtfd.org/downloads/minutes/fpdb/2004/1005.htm

 

  1. The agenda for the November 4th District meeting is available for viewing on our website, or by following this link:  http://www.wrtfd.org/downloads/agendas/fpdb/2004/1104.htm

 

  1. This agenda will be updated as needed.  Copies will be available the night of the meeting.  The September newsletter is available for viewing on our website, or by following this link:  http://www.wrtfd.org/downloads/newsletters/2004/Oct04news.doc