Posted on: August 12th, 2012

Notes on the GH Fire Board Meeting of July 19, 2012 by Gretchen Diefenderfer

Next Board Meeting will be Thursday, August 16, 2012, 7:00 p.m. at the Community Center

President Donal Maloney called the meeting to order.  Present were Donal, Rick Geesaman, Treasurer Gary Siemer, Adriana Galue, Secretary Dave Sturtz, Fire Chief Chris Finn as well as citizens Leslie Finn, John Sand, and Gretchen Diefenderfer.

 

Donal move that the minutes be amended to include the date, and they were approved.

 

Donal reported that he has met with the department’s lawyer, Dick Lyons, about how the board should operate.  The lawyer offers a class in Effective Board Management, and Donal recommends that they take it, which was positively received.  He’ll check on possible times.

 

He checked on the terms of the board members, they are correct, and the transparency notice has been updated.  Donal, Dave, and Adriana have 4-year terms from 2-12 to 2-16.  Rick and Gary have 2-year terms from 2012 to 2114.

 

The minutes have to be open to inspection, available to the public, and copied to anyone requesting them.  Dick Lyons suggested that the secretary sign, scan and then post them as public record.  Presently they are all on drop box and board members can access them.

 

Regarding DOLA (department of legal affairs) on Special Districts, we have a decree/order of formation, which was filed in State District Court.  Kyna, the lawyer’s paralegal, will get the board a copy for the files.

 

The cistern agreement has been sent to the lawyer for final approval and should be settled soon.

 

Regarding Robert’s Rules of Order, the attorney suggested their adoption as a guideline, in order not to be completely restrictive.  Dave moved that they adopt the 2 page summary of Robert’s Rules of Order that Donal handed out at the last meeting  as a guideline for operation of Fire Board Meetings and it passed unanimously.

 

Regarding public input at the meetings, Dave suggested that it hadn’t seemed to be too much of a problem, and that it would be ok to have a rule to go to if they were getting bogged down.  Donal would like some kind of time frame, which could be extended for any important matter at the president’s discretion.  It was moved that all meetings have a period for public comment of 10 minutes or longer at the president’s discretion. Also, any member of the community can go to any board member and ask to be put on the agenda.  It was suggested that if someone wanted to discuss painting all the fire trucks purple, they probably wouldn’t be put on the agenda.  So there would be 2 options for public input and it was expressed that the board definitely feels that it’s part of their job to respond to the public.

 

It was clarified that part of the Chief’s responsibilities would be the scheduling of the building and signing the liability agreement.  The Chief would decide if any use should go before the board for approval.  Chris said the town meeting has a standing agreement, so there is no problem there.  There is a copy of the calendar posted at the Community Center and Chris has a copy at home.  Chris didn’t feel he has time to post the calendar on Google as well, and Dave Sturtz volunteered to do this.

The Chief is also to be in charge of the website – he has volunteers to help with this – Matt Sturtz and Steffi Wilson.  Chris said that both Sunshine and Fourmile have firefighters do it.

 

Donal expressed that the board is working to clarify the duties of the board and the Chief.  The Chief is responsible for the day-to-day running of the department and the board will be clarifying the levels of delegation and accountability over time.  Donal proposed a motion to put both the scheduling of the Fireboard and the administration of the website as part of the Chief’s responsibilities and, with some discussion, this was passed

 

Chief’s Report –  Chris reports that the dept. got a big thank you from BCARES for the donation of our old radios/packsets, and the repeater downstairs.

The mechanic is coming this weekend or next week to check the trucks.

Boulder County now has new software to track lightening strikes – this will help pinpoint (within 200’) locations in case of smoke reports.  It’s not perfect, but should help.  Chris will print out reports and put them on the desk downstairs.  He notes that Porphry Mountain gets a lot of strikes in our district.

SafeSite – per the last email, OEM is working on getting it to be part of the Town Meeting although Chris thinks there may be liability and workman’s comp issues.  OEM owns the shed with emergency supplies behind the Firebarn, and Chris thinks it is a problem that the Fire Department doesn’t have a key to it.  According to Emily Rose, the Gold Hill School cannot turn down any organization requesting the use of the school.  He hopes for more clarification on these issues before the next board meeting.

We have had lots of smoke reports and Chris encourages people to continue to call them in.  We will always go check

 

New Business

             Communications – Adriana asked for protocols for improving communications.  She expressed frustration about not getting any response to her questions or requests for input while working on the website.  She sent many emails requesting input as well as an invoice on 6 -26 and received only vague rumors that it is not ok to pay board members for work, except within some restrictions.  Donal replied that they apparently made the decision to pay Adriana for the website work in ignorance of the rules around that and he did not want to reply until he knew more.  Adriana stated that, at this point, it is not about getting paid for her work – she realized that a mistake was made and she is no longer asking for payment, but for improved communication – she requested that her emails and telephone calls be responded to.  In the absence of any response, she confirmed that she did shut down the website.  Donal said that he is still clarifying issues with the lawyer, but that the lawyer did say that Adriana should be paid.  Adriana asked that in the future, she would like to be told where things are and Donal responded that he was trying to be careful but will try to communicate better.

 

Website – Right now we do not have a website.  Before work on the new one began, the old one was up, but not functional.  Adriana cancelled the hosting because she had paid $179 for this out of pocket and received no response to her invoice.  Kathleen has a copy of her invoice.  The framework for the website is all there, and can be reactivated if the hosting bill is paid.  She is no longer asking to be paid for her work – this has all been too much unnecessary stress – but she does request to be paid for her out of pocket expense for transferring the domain name.

Rick expressed that the board made a verbal contract to pay Adriana and that she should be paid her 24 hours of work at $35.00 per hour plus expenses.  A lot of discussion followed about paying for all or part of the work Adriana did – she stressed that the old website was crashed, she set up the new one, loaded everything and tested the email list, made it possible to send out pictures, etc. to the email list, which had been a problem for Chris, posted the transparency notice and contacts, but is not asking to paid for her time, just to get this over with.  Eventually it was moved and seconded to pay Adriana’s invoice, including her out of pocket expenses – Rick added that it’s the right thing to do.  Adriana said that she’d be more than happy to train whoever wants – it’s easy to use and that’s why she chose WordPress.   Donal said that the lawyer stressed that it is within the legal realm, and Donal felt like they’d all learned lessons.  Adriana will submit a more detailed invoice as requested.  This can be taken out of contract labor. Chris added that, as a taxpayer, he didn’t like it.  Gretchen added that she had visited the website and they did get a great website out of it all.  Adriana said that it might take a week to get it up and running again and she will get with Matt Sturtz. The motion passed.