The meeting was called to order at 1800 hours with the following members present: Larry Tyler, Randy Cooper, Scott Ricci and David Bishop. Pledge of Allegiance and a moment of silent prayer were followed by the administration of the oath to all present.
SPECIAL PRESENTATIONS: Civilian Service Awards to several people who assisted a friend in the water after a shark attack. Promotions of Firefighter John Balzer to 2nd Class and Firefighter Chad Brunner to 3rd Class.
CHANGES TO AGENDA: Add Balzer Promotion to Special Presentations.
PUBLIC COMMENTS: None.
CONSENT AGENDA: Commissioner Tyler motioned to approve the consent agenda; seconded by Commissioner Ricci. Motion carried.
COMMUNICATIONS: Thanks from Island Community Center for bringing Santa on the fire truck.
OLD BUSINESS
1) Citizen’s Academy: Commissioner Cooper stated that it will be advertised in January and the attorney provided a waiver of liability to include with the application.
2) Interlocal Agreement with Manatee County for Collection of Plan Review Fees: Still pending with County.
NEW BUSINESS:
1) Station #2 Remodel: Chief Price noted that it’s time to begin the process for the remodel of Station #2. The Commissioners agreed to go ahead with establishing a citizen’s committee.
OTHER REPORTS: Chief Price stated that he has a meeting next week with Congressman Buchanan to discuss all issues of interest before the next legislative session.
We received a call today from Homeland Security regarding the FIRES grant request for replacement of most of 800 radios for all county fire departments. This is preliminary but we’re hopeful.
Chief Price met with the new President of Whitney Bank and their investment people to see if there was anything we can do to improve our investments. They determined we’re getting the best return we can within statutory guidelines and we’re receiving about 25 more basis points than most.
Tomorrow we will change to web-based Fireprograms; this will enable the Inspectors and firefighters better mobile access and be available on any device such as IPads which we’re evaluating now. They are much cheaper than the Toughbook computers we currently use. Fireprograms handles all our incident reporting, inspections, training, hydrants and fleet maintenance.
Bayshore Technology is almost set to start monitoring. They’re getting their software on board and have set up a better connection to Station 2. Station 1 will be next – this changes us from wireless which was susceptible to lightning and power surges to a more secure connection. They will be making some recommendations for better redundancy and other things that will improve our situation since we no longer have our own IT person on staff.
Captain Sousa has completed the study for the Candidate Physical Ability Testing. We put some of our firefighters through the test to establish a correlation to validate the test so we’ll get the IAFF license.
Chief Price noted that we are working on expanding our annual report to include more than just our emergency call statistics.
Chief Price updated everyone on Inspector Davis by saying that he’s recovering well and working with his doctor to determine his return to work. The Chief had discussed with our Medical Director, Dr. Soler, to change our guidelines to have a heart catheterization done whenever an employee’s cardiac calcium score is above normal.
COMMISSIONER’S COMMENTS: Commissioner Ricci asked about our bank balance and whether we compare banking services. Chief Price explained that we have frequently checked with other banks to ensure we’re getting the best rates but that also has to include other services such as electronic transfers and direct deposits that have additional fees. Regarding our balances, it varies with the time of year due to our tax receipts which come in several large deposits usually from December through April.
Commissioner Cooper asked if the meeting with Congressman had any connection to the FIRES grant issue? Chief Price replied that the timing of those was coincidental; the federal government has been pushing for better interoperability between agencies and therefore, grant request for radios are looked at favorably.
Commissioner Tyler thanked everyone for their work on the dinner; he thought it was very nice and the other Commissioners echoed that sentiment.
Commissioner Ricci asked what our plan is for succession of the Chief and Deputy Chief positions since they’ll both be retiring in three years? Chairman Cooper appointed Commissioner Tyler to begin that process.
NEXT MEETING Regular meeting on 1/19/12 at 1800 hours at the Administration building.
ADJOURNMENT: Meeting was adjourned at 1904 hours.
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Chairman Secretary
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