Notes from John Sand

The Board of Directors of the Gold Hill Fire Protection District held their monthly meeting Nov. 17, 2011, at 8 PM, in the community room of the Fire Station. Attending were Dave Steinman, President; Leslie Finn, Treasurer; Dave Sturtz Secretary; Darrell McConnell and Ben Blaugren, Board members; Chris Finn, Fire Chief and John Sand, community resident.

– Kris Gibson gave a report on the activities of the Front Range Roundtable. Specifically, since the Fire Improvement District ballot issue was defeated, the Roundtable has requested that each of the mountain fire districts submit a letter reconfirming their commitment to the Western Boulder County Healthy Fire Initiative. All members of the Board agreed and Ben said he would take the responsibility to review the draft letter Kris had written and send it off to the Roundtable. Kris also agreed, at the request of the Board, to continue as the representative of Gold Hill to the Roundtable (next meeting Dec. 15; meets quarterly), with the understanding that she will bring to the Board any decisions which she feels are beyond her authority to make.
– Budget for 2012: the Board unanimously approved  the budget which had been presented to the Board in October, with a few minor changes.
– Open operation: Ben strongly stated his position that all operations and communications of the Board should be open to all residents of the Gold Hil Fire protection District, and that the Board should be open to responding to all reasonable requests for information. Minutes of their meetings will be sent to all by email who request them as soon as they are available, and they will be posted on the GHFPD website. Typically the minutes will be sent and posted in the week before the next meeting, so that topics contained therein will be fresh in the minds of the readers.
– Community participation at Board Meetings: concerns were stated that the orderly conduct of business by the Board was interrupted at the October meeting by citizen   attendees. Dave Steinman suggested that a time limit might be  allocated to speakers, such as is done at Boulder city council meetings. The Board felt that that was unnecessary, that the Board President could exercise his authority to control the conduct of the meeting. It is expected that, in a small community like the Gold Hill area where all have a common interest, attendees to the meetings whould respect the Board members and other attendees.