Minutes of the Meeting held On March 2, 2005
Attending Members: Ron Snow (Chairman); Mary Ester Putnam; Victor Christensen
Also Present: Steve Robinson (Fire Chief), George Cropper (Treasurer) and Beverly Udell (Secretary/Clerk)
Absent Members: Gerald Schiefer (VC); Ryon Gardner
Guests: Fred Pendleton
The meeting followed the previously posted agenda.
1. General Business: a/b. Welcome - Pledge of Allegiance was said at 6:00 PM and the meeting was called to order at 6:03 PM by Chairman Ron Snow. c. Pine Valley Business Permits Reviewed: None. Discussions ensued about how no one had ever seen a Building Permit for the Neilson house. Victor commented that he also never saw a BP for an addition he had made. Ron will call the County regarding why the permits are not being seen by the PVSSD Board members.
d. Board Member Reports: Every one is thrilled with the new gravel around the fire station and post office. Ron reported that Gerald Schiefer had ordered and paid for the gravel himself. Lee Carlile brought in a tractor to spread the gravel. Ron suggested that the PVSSD might want to reimburse Gerald for his costs. Mary Esther suggested that maybe the PV Dinner Committee could pay for part of it as well.
Mary Esther shared that she thought the ATV sign at the Chapel needed to be moved. Ron told how he had received a phone call from Qwest. Apparently one of the ATV signs had gone through a phone line when it was planted. Ron called Dave Patterson regarding who should pay for this.
Approval of the Minutes: There were no minutes for the February meeting.
The motion was made by Vic to vote George Cropper in as the new Treasurer at a pay rate of $250.00 per month. Beverly Udell was also voted in as the new Secretary/Clerk making a monthly rate of $350.00 per month. They will be paid on a quarterly basis. Mary Esther seconded the motion and all were in favor. At next month’s meeting (April); the Officers will need to be voted upon.
Review of Check Process – All bills and items needing payment will be run through Mary Esther prior to payment by George; this process can be done by George and Mary Esther via phone or in person.
Beverly shared all of the angles that were tried to get the PVSSD Committee its own P.O. Box at the PV Post Office. Due to the fact that the PVSSD doesn’t have its own physical address, we are not able to get a P.O. Box. Therefore we will combine with the Fire Department’s box. Beverly received a key from Steve Robinson (for Box #10). Beverly will check the box at least twice a week and sort through the mail. Steve will place a 3-tiered shelf on the fire department desk and Beverly can designate a shelf for each Ron (as Chairman), Steve (as Fire Chief) and George (as Treasurer). Any secretarial type mail, Beverly will just keep and deal with accordingly. It was discussed that for obvious safety reasons, checks should not be left on these shelves. Any checks will be recorded by Beverly (if they are PV fee payments) and then turned over to George.
Beverly then gave an update on the annual PV fee letter. She has been working with Vicki Frei on a new PV data base. The old data base was lost due to a virus on Julie Cropper’s computer. The new data base has lots of bells and whistles that hopefully will give us everything we want for years to come. They are still building the data base and the bugs are being worked out. Unfortunately, Beverly’s demonstration to the Board of those data base special features failed (so much for modern technology). It is a huge job to input all of the information, so Beverly requests that everyone be patient while she is typing everything in. Beverly passed around a copy of the 2004 letter and the rough-draft of the 2005 letter. Additional verbiage for the 2005 letter is requested from Steve Robinson (Chief’s Update) & Fred Pendleton (PV Historical Advisory Committee Update).
Bi-Law Update – Board members have viewed the proposed bi-laws. Dave Patterson will be invited to come up in April for the signing.
Beverly handed over the bill for the PV web site that came from Vicki Frei.
Fire Chief Report: Steve reported that we have been the blessed recipients of more grant money from the State. During the first call with the State, Steve was told that all the grant money had been expended, but then he received a second call back basically giving us everything that was asked for. The total came to $6400.00 worth of equipment. The paperwork for this needs to be completed by the 30th of April. It’s a 90/10 match, with the 10% being paid for by “In Kind” work. This means that the PVSSD won’t have to pay any extra money for this equipment. The equipment has been ordered and is starting to show up already. One of the items is a “Pumpkin” since the Fire Department doesn’t own a Water Tender.
Steve shared that the County instituted a program – 1st responders (as we are) all need to do 1000 sandbags in emergency preparation. 425 bags have already been obtained and sand has been delivered. We can use these bags for ourselves or acting as mutual aid. Bags are .13 cents each and they are bio-degradable. Some members of PV have had their basements flooded. It is predicted that Spring run-off will be bad because the ground is already so saturated and leach lines are overflowing. Beverly Udell, Gae Robinson and Bob Covington all attended Wildland Fire Training. All passed. Gae also attended an EMT class on 12-point leads.
More Wildland gear still needs to be ordered to bring all firefighters in compliance with code. Fire training will be held on the 2nd Saturday. The Thursday training had been canceled due to the plugged sewer lines at the Fire Station. Due to this there will be a Rotor-Rooter bill. Steve bought $208.99 in equipment (i.e. car chains, etc.)
EMS grants that had been applied for have been granted. It comes to $2020.00 which is for training and an AED.
Steve received a letter from the State. We might receive a grant for AEDs. Steve was encouraged to pick out a public place for an AED – maybe the church would be a good place? Training for use of these machines will be in July. We need to mount ours on the wall in the Fire Station in order for it to be accessible at all times. In the case of cardiac arrest, you only have 8 minutes to respond in order for it to be of any help.
Treasurer Report: George gave a list of the bills that have been paid year-to-date. On the “delinquent” list (of PV fees) from the County, they have dedicated $6,200 that they said were overpaid. The County is going to supply us with an analysis report of what was overpaid.
George passed out a copy of the State Auditor’s Newsletter. He gave the assignment for the Board to all read it cover to cover (. The State Auditor’s training will be held on March 31.
George also mentioned that there is a copy machine at their house that Julie previously used. It belongs to the Service District. He plans to bring it to the fire station for use there.
Fred Pendleton didn’t have anything to report about the PV Historical Advisory Committee.
2. Citizen Requests – None.
At 7:00 PM, Vic motioned for the meeting to adjourn. Mary Esther seconded. The next Board meeting will be held on Wednesday, April 6, 2005.