We had our meeting last night and here’s what happened: Our Attorney presented the changes that were made to the proposed fire code. Next up, the VFD presented their concerns with the proposed code. The Rescue Squad presented their concerns after that and generally echoed the concerns of the VFD. I suppose that if I were to boil down the concerns of the volunteers they would fall into two broad categories:
1. The volunteers believe that there should be a vote of all parties in the public safety committee in order to enact new SOP’s or other policies. Currently the career chief would be required to consult the volunteers when proposing new SOP’s but there is no real vote. Wrapped up in this idea of a vote in this committee is really the idea of more control for all parties. More control would address some of the other concerns presented (in my view).
2. The second issue has to do with the budget. The proposed code calls for a unified budget of all organizations after 3 years. The volunteers would be more comfortable with seperate budgets.
After the volunteers presentation and some Council discussion, I proposed that we have the staff draft a version of the code that included the notion of a vote and present it for discussion (but not a vote) next Monday night. This would give the Council a clear choice – vote or no vote in the public safety committee. The other Council members felt as though it was too soon for that. The career chief also indicated that he felt he was due some remarks on the volunteer’s remarks.
At this point, the Council decided to schedule another work session on the 14th to have more discussion and to hear from the career staff. I’m not available that night so I’ll have to wait to hear what goes on.