FIRE COMMISSION
Thursday, May 18, 2006
Members
Present:
§
Father
Bruno, David Palmer, Alice Van Tasel, Carl Rohrbach, Chief Bill Meier, Fire
Marshal Walt Summers
o A first check has been
issued for approx. $108,000 to pay for the chassis of the new Tanker
Truck. The work on the upper body and
equipment will begin soon. Delivery is
still expected for the fall.
·
The
2006-2007 Budget was passed. We are
looking forward to begin the acquisition of the “Service Truck” and the Hertz
Equipment, which were approved in the budget, as soon as possible.
·
The
2005-2006 budget remains tight primarily because of fuel costs. The BOS has been approving transfers between
line items and the chief remains confident that we will reach the end of the
budget year within our current budget.
·
The
School Department owes the Fire Department approx. $3000 because of “Fire
Watch” expenses. New State Law mandates
that any school activities (plays, dances etc) that may involve combustible
material requires the presence of a “fire-watch”. All contracts for future school building and activities should
include a clause regarding Fire Watch.
·
We
had a serious equipment failure this week.
The “radiation fans” on the Rescue Truck failed requiring an expenditure
of $1000.
·
We
had an additional problem with the boilers in the Fire House recently. WE were forced to expend $590. to fix the
problem. The Chief has met with
representative of our service contractor and asked them to develop
recommendations and pricing to finally resolve the boiler issues. The chief has asked that these
recommendations be associated with some sort of guarantee.
·
The
Fire Commission was grateful to the staff for the development of the “Quarterly
Activity Report”. It included valuable
statistics that we will be able to review on a periodic basis to spend trends
etc…
·
A
revised Zoning Ordinance Proposal was distributed by Mr. Summers and discussed
by the Commission. The intent of the
ordinance is to assure that all new developments have access to water via “city
water”, dry wells or cisterns. The focus of the discussion was the appropriate
size of the Cisterns that will be required via the ordinance. While the proposed language calls for a
minimum of 3000 gallons with final approval required from the Fire Chief. The Deputy Chief sent the Commission a
letter recommending that the minimum be raised to 10,000 gallons.
The other question, which was discussed, was who would be responsible for upkeep and filling of the proposed cisterns. The FC intends to work closely with the planning department on this proposal. If a satisfactory compromise cannot be arrived at the FC may propose a Town Ordinance to deal with the need.
·
The
Fire Marshall distributed a proposal for a “driveway ordinance” for the
Commission’s review.
·
Concerns
were expressed about the “fire lanes” at the High School. Signs being placed by school custodians have
been moved and ignored. The Fire
Marshal and the State Police will work together during the coming weeks to deal
with this problem.
·
The
Fire Commission approved by unanimous vote the hourly statement submitted by
Mr. Sommers.
·
The
position of Fire Marshal remains unresolved.
Now that the new budget has passed we hope to begin discussions with the
BOS soon to get the funds and approvals needed to move to a Full time Fire
Marshal and a replacement Firefighter.
There
was no new business.
The
Meeting was adjourned at 8:20
The
next Fire Commission meeting will not be held on June 15th. We have scheduled a Special meeting on June
12th