White River Township Fire Department

Senior Staff Meeting Minutes August 17, 1998

Meeting called to order at 0843 hours. Present: Chief Dutton; Division Chiefs Pell, Cassin and Brown; Administrative Assistant Kim Clawson

1. The Awards Banquet has been set for January 30, 1999 and will be held at Valle Vista. We will provide a van with a designated driver and we will try to arrange for a block of rooms at Lees Inn for those who wish to take advantage of this. When it gets closer to time, Kim will issue a poll to determine if this will be utilized.

2. Chief Dutton directed Chief Cassin to review all recent changes from the EMS commission. We will need to re-write the contract between this FD and Community South to include those changes. We also need to check to see if South will accept Paramedic testing from another hospital. If not, we need to see if the other hospitals will accept Paramedic testing from South. We don’t want our Paramedics being tested twice!

3. Rumor has it that there will be a Firefighter I/II class and EMT class starting here within the next month. Chief Cassin was directed to confirm or deny this rumor and report back to Chief Dutton.

4. Dr. Fried signed the necessary documents to make PMT a reality. Brian Griffith is making arrangements for ambulance repainting. Hopefully things will be back to normal around September 1. Chief Dutton stated that he will not have M52 doing inner facility transports at night and disturbing our crews. He will get with Wayne Fletcher on this. PMT will be turning our weight room at station 52 into a bunkroom. Their ambulance will be parked outside.

5. Discussion on uniforms. Sandals may be worn on station, after hours, but absolutely not in public! Shorts may be worn if working out or mowing the lawn, but absolutely not in public AT ALL. The “85⁰ rule” is no longer in effect and will be removed from the current policy. Shorts may also be worn around the station after 5pm. No turnout gear will be allowed inside restaurants from now on unless the crew is responding there on a run. This is for obvious hygiene reasons. Effective immediately, any time the crew is out in the public, whether on a detail or for food, they are to be in their Class B. Chief Cassin will make the appropriate policy changes.

6. Chief Dutton directed Chief Cassin to obtain prices for software packages that will allow the Fire Prevention Division to scan preplans into FireHouse. We will also need to hold training sessions for battalions on using the laptops. Chief Dutton directed Chief Cassin to review and update his ‘wish list’ for the supplemental budget ASAP. Chief Dutton will also be contacting all division heads for changes to their ‘wish lists’.

7. Chief Dutton announced that a lot of the recent vehicle repair expenses could’ve been prevented if proper preventive maintenance had been performed. Chief Pell will make sure that all PM schedules and price lists are compared (especially between Dave Cook and Stoops).

8. Chief Pell gave an update on the Aerial committee. Chief Dutton directed him to get the requested statistics to Brian Bosma’s office and reminded him that specs were due by 8/31/98.

9. Chief Pell mentioned that he will be posting the cadet advisor position opening and will be conducting interviews shortly thereafter. He wants to get the program back to the mentoring program it is supposed to be. Once cadets are cleared to ride the engines they are going to need to have physicals on file.

10. No further new business. Meeting adjourned at 0950 hours.