Pine Valley Special Service District Meeting (PVSSD): Minutes of the Meeting held On January 6, 2009

Attending Members: Mary Esther Putnam (Chair); Dall Winn; Spence Beckstrom; John Nichols

Also Present: Gerald Schiefer (Fire Chief); George Cropper (Treasurer); Beverly Udell (Secretary).

Guests:  Jamie Udell; Fred Pendleton; Linda Nichols

Absent: Jeff Gardner

 

1.  General Business:

a/b. Welcome – Meeting was opened by Mary Esther (Chair) at 5:00 PM and the Pledge of Allegiance was said.

c. Minutes: The Minutes from the meeting held on December 3 and December 17, 2008 were read by each Board member individually.  Dall motioned to approve both sets of Minutes as corrected, Spence seconded that motion and all else approved.

d. Pine Valley Building Permits Reviewed: N/A

e. Officer Elections:  Dall nominated Mary Esther to continue as chairwoman for another year. Mary Esther accepted that nomination. Dall motioned and Spence seconded that motion.  Mary Esther is the PVSSD Chair for 2009.  Mary Esther nominated that Dall continue as co-chair for the 2009 year.  He accepted that nomination.  Mary Esther then motioned, John seconded and all else were in favor.  Dall is therefore the co-chair for 2009.

f. Pine Valley Survey – Fred Pendleton: The Board thanked Fred profusely for the months and months of work, which resulted in a magnificent job he did on the survey. * Fred said it was interesting to him to see if the opinions in the valley have changed in the 5 years since the last survey was conducted.  * 600 letters were sent out, with 165 responses back.  The previous survey (5 years ago) had a better return, but Fred thinks it is because that survey was sent out in with the annual fee billing, versus this years was sent in with the Dinner Committee invitations.  Every single person has to return an annual fee (making it more precedent to them to also return their finished survey at the same time), which is different than the dinner letter in which they only need to return a response if they are coming to dinner. *  Of the respondents, 15% were full-timers, 29% summer residents or part time and 56% were weekenders only – this is about the same as last time.  Of those that responded, a full100% answered the question regarding how important historical preservation of the valley is, with 89% of those saying it was very important and the other 11% answered somewhat important.  There was not one person who stated that it wasn’t important at all. * 98% responded on how important it was to them that the meadows remain the same, with 83% who said that is was very important, and the other 15% said that it was somewhat important.  Again, there wasn’t any who said it wasn’t important at all. (See a copy of the survey report for further results.) * Mary Esther asked Fred if a copy of the survey results had been sent to the County Commissioners.  Fred stated that he thought the Board might want to write an explanation letter to go with it. * John’s observation was that this proves what we already knew – we all bought homes in Pine Valley because of the quiet rural atmosphere.

g. EMT Report – Jamie Udell: Jamie spoke to the Board about needed supplies for the EMT’s.  She also told that Ty March gave them some of the small supplies to help out and that with some of the smaller stuff, we could get replacements off of the Enterprise Ambulance each time we used something of ours.  Since we technically are under Enterprise Ambulance domain, and they charge the patients for the supplies, we can recoup some of our supplies that way. * Jamie and Beverly passed their EMT Intermediate class and are currently waiting to take the State exam. * Once Jamie and Beverly earn their “Intermediate” status, Ty will also provide medications for our department to keep on the EMT vehicle.  Beverly and Jamie would need to have IV kits.  These medications can not be administered by a “basic” EMT because they need to be given via an IV.  The medications would be the type given if someone was in a diabetic coma or if someone was having a heart attack.  Jamie also said that we are in need of a 12-lead AED, which would be much more beneficial once we are able to administer heart medications.  The 12-lead would tell us which type of medication we could give based on whether or not the patient is in V-tac, V-Fib or Asystole – the AED’s which we currently have do not tell us that, they only tell us whether or not it is okay to shock.  Beverly added that with our aged population in Pine Valley, that it is only a matter of time before we have call-outs for dealing with heart attacks.  Dall said that he would look into Steve’s old reports to try to find out where we might look into applying for an EMT grant. There also might be a grant available through Dixie Escalante Electric. * Jamie said that she and Beverly have volunteered to go through the CPR teacher’s certification training in Cedar City (date yet unknown.) Ty was looking for people who would be interested in doing that so there would be more instructors in the area.  If Jamie and Beverly because CPR instructors, then they could teach CPR to the CERT team members at no cost to the Valley. * Dall told Jamie to make a list of the supplies she felt were needed and to go ahead and make the purchases. * Someone asked Jamie about our servicing Central and Gerald answered that we are under mutual aid with them.  Jamie added that since we are part of Enterprise Ambulance, we needed to help where Ty wanted us to.  Currently we are committed for Central, and down highway #18 to the Beaver Reservoir (though we could feasibly be called to Brookside.) and of course Pine Valley.  Jamie and Bev. also went on an emergency run in Enterprise, when a callout came while they were testing down there.  * Jamie told how much Ty tells us how much he appreciates the Pine Valley Fire Department and their aid during EMT emergencies.  He thinks our department is awesome and would gladly do anything for us because we help him so much.  Ty said that even something as simple as having our trucks stationed at the main road to give directions is an amazing help during an emergency. * Ty is planning on doing a EMT-Basic training in Enterprise sometime in February or March, and Gerald would like to send at least four more people from Pine Valley to be trained. * Ty will also come to Pine Valley on Feb. 14th to do a mini first aid and CPR class during fire training.  The P.V. CERT team members will also be invited.

Board Member Reports:

Mary Esther:  Glen Mack gave a $10,000 donation to the Fire Department, on behalf of the Edith D. Green Foundation.  We are extremely grateful for his generosity! One of the things that he specified that he wanted a portion of the money to be used for is metal badges the fire fighters and EMTs.  Beverly will get a ‘thank you’ note sent to him. * Mary Esther e-mailed a reporter from the Spectrum about our snow issues during Christmas.  She thought it might make a great story.  * There have been 2 more cars slide  off Deadman’s curve because of the ice and snow.  There really, really needs to be gerders put up there before someone dies. * Beverly said that she was very, very thankful for the snow plow taking care of their road during the snow storms (Bob Herpel’s plow truck with Jim Soltis driving, plus Gilbert Jennings with his backhoe.)  After she and Jamie had to walk out the dirt road with their heavy EMT bags during the callout on Christmas day because of the storm, she said that having the road being plowed makes all the difference in the world in an emergency.  It was horrendous on Christmas trying to dredge through snow up to their knees, carrying the heavy packs, in order to reach the road to be picked up by the fire truck.  Thank you to Bob, Jim and Gilbert.

Spence:  The Pine Valley Local District is definitely moving forward, though we don’t yet have any details in regards to who the Board will be.  Dave Patterson is preparing a charter. * The question came up about Beverly and George’s positions as secretary and treasurer for the new local district, and they were asked if they would accept the additional responsibilities of that district in addition to their jobs with the PVSSD.  John suggested they receive something on the order of $100 over what they are currently making to take of the local service district job.  Everyone conquered that it was premature to make any decisions because they didn’t know yet how the local district would be set up, or who the Board will be.  Beverly and George will think about the offer, so that when the Local District is indeed ready to go, they would be ready with a decision.  Mary Esther will look to see if she has a copy of Beverly and George’s contracts on her computer.

Dall: We have given a copy of the plan to Gilbert Jennings man for review.  We also need to give a copy to both Bevin Kilpack and the Regional Forestry Office in Cedar City since the fire station is on Forestry land. Gilbert thinks we need to reserve a “right of refusal” for sub-contractors because there are people in Pine Valley who can do that type of work and have offered to help.  Dall and Beverly will get together for the writing of a letter.

John: John has been trying to get a hold of Bevin to discuss with him the issues up at the reservoir and other Forestry areas during off season times: people being stuck in the snow, sledding accidents, drug use, etc., all that Pine Valley has to respond to.  John will try to set up a time that the whole Board can meet with Bevin.

Fire Chief – Gerald:  See attached report.  Grant looks great for 2009 – if we get it, we will be rewarded up to $37,000. * In 2008 we had volunteer hours of: 321 incident hours, 736 EMT hours, and 4579 total volunteer man hours with trainings included EMT, Firefighter, CERT.) * There were 32 emergency callouts in Pine Valley in 2008.  While it feels like most of them are in the middle of the night, in reality the peak time for callouts is in the middle of the day (with 4:00 PM being the highest). When we think about it, it makes total sense that more occur during the daytime because that is when people come up to Pine Valley to play.

Treasurer’s Report – George:  See attached report.

Beverly: Asked for Board Member input for the annual fee letter that she needs to prepare.  She hopes to get the letter out in February.

2 –   Public Comments: N/A

Spence moved for the meeting to adjourn at 7:10.  All were in favor.

 

The next Board meeting will be held on Wednesday, February 4, 2008 at 5:00 P.M.