The meeting was called to order at 1800 hours with the following members present: Larry Tyler, Jesse Davis and Randy Cooper. Pledge of Allegiance and a moment of silent prayer were followed by the administration of the oath to all present.
SPECIAL PRESENTATIONS: Promotion of Firefighter Paul Hopkins to Lieutenant.
CHANGES TO AGENDA: Chairman Tyler stated the two items under New Business will switch places.
PUBLIC COMMENTS: Al Robinson asked if the $3.9 million in Capital Reserves is cash in the bank? Chief Price replied that it is.
CONSENT AGENDA: Commissioner Cooper motioned to approve the consent agenda; seconded by Commissioner Davis. Motion carried.
COMMUNICATIONS: Thanks from family of original founder of West Side Fire District for access to scrapbooks. Thanks from two patients of two different rescue calls who were revived.
OLD BUSINESS
1) Citizen’s Academy: Commissioner Cooper reported the program just needs some finishing touches to be ready for launch. He will soon be doing the Academy with Manatee Sheriff’s Office.
2) Manatee County Property Appraiser Refund: Chief Price reported that the State Attorney has completed his opinion but it won’t be released for a couple of weeks.
3) Interlocal Agreement with Manatee County for Collection of Plan Review Fees: Chief Price reported that the draft from Manatee County is coming soon. The County requested this agreement.
4) Hazmat Interlocal Agreement: Chief Price stated that he received the draft today and now all the Fire Chief’s will review the changes the County made to the original draft.
NEW BUSINESS:
1) Preliminary Budget Draft: Chief Price presented the first draft of the 2011-2012 budget saying that he now needs direction from the Board to finalize it. It includes a 1.7% cost of living adjustment and only a few salary adjustments based on the county-wide study. Chief Price reminded that we have not had COLA increases for two years, all employees had to start paying something toward their health insurance, we reduced some benefits in the health plan and FRS employees now have to pay in 3% for their pension. Due to new GASB requirements, some categories will change names to bring us into compliance. He is directing as much funding as possible into Facilities in order to build the budget for remodeling Station #2. It has a roof leak now and the estimate to replace the roof is $30,000; however we’ll just patch it until the building can be remodeled. The only other item that changed is Contract Services and that is due to our IT person resigning. We are hiring him back as a subcontractor while searching for either a replacement person or IT management company. We may need to keep him on subcontract for a while because of the specialty systems such as I-Mobile and station alerting. After some discussion, Chairman Tyler asked the Commissioners their opinions on the 1.7% COLA and they all agreed with that proposal.
2) Appoint of Commission Seat: After advertising the vacancy, we received 6 applications from Mike Mulyck, Bob Kelly, George McKay, David Bishop, Al Robinson and Denis McElwaine. They were screened for eligibility by the Supervisor of Elections office, then Commissioner Cooper and Deputy Chief Pollock interviewed all but Mr. McElwaine who is out of town for the summer. While Commissioner Cooper felt that all are qualified, he recommended David Bishop to fill the seat. After some discussion Commissioner Davis motioned to approve David Bishop, seconded by Commissioner Cooper. Motion carried. Chairman Tyler thanked Commissioner Cooper, D.C. Pollock and the candidates who participated and encouraged them to run in the next election.
OTHER REPORTS: Chief Price noted that Julie, our bookkeeper is out on medical leave for her second hip replacement but has kept up her work via online access from home. Also Firefighter Tom Owen has returned to duty after breaking his femur.
Regarding the incident with the burn injury to one of our Reserve Firefighters, the manufacturer now has a safety device, an automatic valve for the trucks to prevent that type of problem and we’re installing them on our trucks.
Deputy Chief Pollock reported that the Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) is holding classes here for the next few weeks. Also we have ten new Reserves starting this week; this adds a great safety factor by increasing the number of firefighters on truck.
Firefighter Lauricella noted that the Manatee County Honor Guard is going to Marco Island for two days to present the colors at the Florida Fire Chief’s Conference.
COMMISSIONER’S COMMENTS: Commissioner Davis asked if our radio rebanding was done and if it went smoothly? D.C. Pollock replied that we are done and all is fine.
David Bishop was sworn in as Fire Commissioner.
NEXT MEETING Regular meeting on 8/18/11 at 1800 hours at the Administration building.
ADJOURNMENT: Meeting was adjourned at 1855 hours.
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Chairman Secretary
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