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Fire Wards Meeting

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Alright good evening everyone. Today is Monday, June 29th. Time is six thirty PM, and this is the Boston Board of Firewards meeting. If you could please stand for the pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Okay. We'll start tonight with the first public comment. There's really not a whole lot of public As we move on, we have no appointments, and this meeting was supposed to be for next Monday, July sixth, but I had asked have it moved to tonight for a couple of reasons as we get going. the board of selectmen, I guess we're gonna have a meeting either here at the library, I'm not sure where it's gonna be. It's, it is here? Okay. They're gonna do a hearing in regards to naming the station McDonald Station. So I wanted to kinda get ahead of that before that meeting that they have. So I think everybody here has seen the proposal that will be put on the museum side of the McDonald station, who hasn't seen that, is that right? What do you see? What the lettering looks like? It's basically six-inch letters above the windows that just says McDonald Station. we also posted, not posted, we also hand Hung his picture in the hallway, Dan McDonald, so that was another request. So I guess we're here to discuss that. Does anybody have anything they wanna discuss in regards to putting the letters up on the building? Because next week, the idea is to have a hearing, because from what I understand, the signage that's on the current building is kind of over what was supposed to be on the building. But because it went through the board of selectmen when they approved the plans, it was okay. But in order for us to put any additional lettering in, because we've already exceeded the allowable Real estate foreclosures that we have to have a hearing for the town. That's why they're having a hearing next Monday so that the townspeople can speak on behalf of putting the letters up on the building So who asked the area in the Select Board? Select Board requested the bill. Yes, they requested the area. just per the RSA, I'm not sure is the exact RSA that it was a nine, I can't remember the exact RSA, but I did read through it, but it's, it's good to have it here and, and make sure everybody's on board with that. So I have no problem with that. But I just wanted us to make sure that we're all in agreement to doing this so that I can just let the board know that the board of lie words are on board with it. Yeah. Well, it's not our problem. It's not our building, so we're kind of, we really have no say in that. But they just requested that we are on the same page. Yeah, so if we all say no, we approve it. Yeah. Yeah, I have no problem That's public company, so that's exactly right. Painted on, right? What's that? Painted on? No, they're the same letterings, the same company trying to solicit a personal loan. Personal loan. That's the metal building that was a possible issue. This is going on this, the loading section area. There's no issue. So just to keep things Go ahead. Does anybody have any discussion about that? Are you, is everybody okay with having letters, McDonald's station on the side of the building? I'll make the motion that we- Accept the lettering as proposed. Okay. Before you vote on that, can I just short one comment? There's a push for bigger letters, just so you know, and capital. Letters. Well, they are capitals in the plan with the six inches, oh, okay, but there's been a push for bigger letters, just so you know. So, yeah, what you're voting on, you said as proposed was the six-inch letters, yep, but they may end up being bigger, just so that so that you know. As per the select board's recommendation, maybe. Maybe that will change pricing or change everything. So I propose that we, as, as proposed Before the six-inch letters. Well, who's pay- who's paying for that? It's private funding, so it doesn't really matter what the cost is. I, I don't see why we're voting on this anyway. This is, I, I think we, we can have an opinion, but it's not our building. So the select board oversees town buildings. So- I think it's in their hands, and the public wants to do it, and the select board supports it, and I'm, I'm okay with it. Yeah. I agree with that. So I guess we, we won't even put it to vote, we just everybody's on the same page, nobody has an issue with it. So. And then the funding is, it's private funding, so- Whatever happens next week as far as the hearing and what the select board approves it's on them. But they're, you know, it's not like the private funding, they're gonna give them a check. Really, we have to go, you know, we would have to go in front of whoever the private- Investors would have to go in front of the board and give them the gift of the letters and stuff. So there's no check being handed over, so it's basically like, "Here's the letters, here's the contractor that's gonna do it, will you accept them putting on the board?" So there'll be m- no money changing hands. So. So, alright, everybody's good with that? So the next thing we have going is The chief physician job posting. Now it has been posted, the resumes are starting to come in they go directly to our human resource manager, which is Marilyn So she's been collecting them. I think we have three applicants, so I'll be sending those off to you guys. But as far as you know, looking for- The new chief and vetting him and things like that I would ask that either Tony or Mark or both of you guys kind of take the reins on that. Okay. That's fine. Just for- You know, purposes of, you know, where we actually work for the fire department, so we wanna kinda have it so it's, you guys do it. So if you're good with that I'll have her share the files with you. we have until August 1st, and that's when the, the deadline is. That's the deadline for applications. It's a deadline for applications, so I don't think this is the first time that you guys have done this. I'm sure you've done several Interviews and things like that, so you guys can put that together and form a board and all that stuff. And obviously with Brian's Kind of input as well. Well, no, you have to be out of, out of it, okay? Which I don't know if this person, I just can't work with the community, that just can't work. But you can help. I don't know if that means I can't collect the paycheck there. That's all I care. Yeah, I think that's all it is because it can't be, yeah, it's the retirement. Maybe it's not. So- I can voluntarily, voluntarily help with no money, yeah. So, alright, is there any more discussion on that? Well, I think we need to figure out what parameters we're gonna use and what we're looking for. I mean, the job posting is the ba-bas So when we look at preferred qualifications, we put some values on those, and that's how we can move it down. We have to figure out how many people we wanna max bring to either assessment center or the college What was done in the past, or what's going on? So we brought in other members from other departments and we sat in and we gave oral reports to the chiefs and stuff like that Yeah, that's not a problem. I just didn't know if we wanted to look at doing an assessment center as well, but if you want to just stick to one of those, that's one of those, you know, look at Just make sure they're good candidates and not waste their time or our time. Well, I think, yeah, 'cause I mean, you can, you can get the, the resumes out, but that doesn't give you any insight into who the person is. Right So we start that way, come up with your preferred list, and then, you know, if we wanna do an assessment center, we can, and there's a cost to that, 'cause you don't have to bring assessors in. but if you just wanna use an oral board, that's fine. I think it depends on the, the quality of the candidates, obviously, but if we've got experienced people, that, that should be fine. I would think we're okay with the oral board, because we don't really have any money. Yeah, if we can, if we do an oral board and then- A second oral board for the members who get through the first one. With us, I think it's probably, for this town, it's probably the best, is more than enough Well, I think what we, we could do is you, you know, your outside board, they make recommendations on how long we wanna have, how many we wanna have moving forward. You don't wanna have too big of a group. No. So if they, you know, they can narrow it down to three, maybe four, then we have a, a town-wide order like that. We may only have that for applications. So, well, that's fair, but, you know, the idea is that you don't want to have too big a pool, right? Okay. Well, we'll, we'll play fair as we can. Yeah, we can work on it, and we can put a, you know, a list of you know, things that we're looking for, or, you know, if we need to. I mean, you, you saw what the Well, what you, what you do is you take the desired qualifications that were in the job posting And then that's what you're looking for. If there's anything above and beyond that, you can give them some points for that, but that's not really what you're looking for. We are able to fix the R&D. Part of that, because it said exempt slash per diem on that job posting. So I've had people talk to me going, "Well, it's a per diem position or is it exempt?" They, they get confused. Yeah. No, it's not pretty. Yeah, I'll, I'll, I, I did fix it, just whether it was reposted, but it's been posted so many things and shares all over the place, so it's all over the place, so it'll be hard to get after I think it was found on Facebook posting, and that's where we first found it. Well, I mean, it depends on, I think you said something like, "Oh, I gotta fix that," or "Take a second," and I don't think you did. I did, but I'm not sure if we got-- Yeah, be honest. So I'll, I'll check that later on, but in a couple days. So Marilyn's basically saying that they're requesting, she's saying we'll get back to you after the first, so they're not like sending it in saying, "Is there any updates?" So she's going back with, we'll get back to you after the first, yeah. Yeah. So that's how we left it with her. So in the first phase, we'll, we'll go through the applications and whether we meet out, we should be notified that they're no longer right. But I, I'm just trying to look at the timeframe and all that and basically if we- Make oral boards the first set. Around the second week in August, we should be able to go through all the resumes and backgrounds. And if we need to have like a work session in between, you know Yeah. Well, let's see how many applications we get first. Hopefully we get a lot to read through, but- Yeah. Right now it's you know, it's tough out there. August, August might be a tough time to set up an outside hold for, right? Yeah, summertime and then you get into the fall. Or at least make-- I, I, what, what I'm concerned more about is that we don't go too long before we notify who's in before- Oh, yeah, yeah, I don't think we can, we can, we can do that. Yes. So the candidates that will be coming to the oral board should be notified by, say, the twelfth of August. All right. Any more discussion on that? All right. So I, I put interim fire chief in place, so we have to come up with a plan of how we're gonna And Brian had a spreadsheet, I, I started a spreadsheet of different duties that I was thinking I really didn't get much time to get back to it, but I think he did probably something a little bit more extensive. Yeah, I just took some of the projects that I'm currently working on and then some of the things that I do day, day to day, I'm kind of put a list down. I mean, we, we do have Ashley now, which works out pretty good 'cause she's, you know, she can certainly handle payroll and some of that stuff. but we need someone that's a point person, that's sort of the authority, given the authority by the board of fire boards to act in, in the interim position to sign off on some of this stuff. So, so this spreadsheet that I have, and I'm, I'm up to fifteen pages of stuff, but it's It's, it's like a bible for whoever's stepping in, so it gives them some guidance in how I do the things or how things are done now you know, some of the important links and where to go to and, and things like that. So it'll it's just a guiding document to get, get everything going. How you plug and play, it's up to you guys, but I think you do need to appoint someone in, in the position for a period of time. All right. So I don't know what your thoughts were on that. Well, we weren't able to look at any of the stuff, so I think maybe if you, if we can get it yeah, I, I think fired up on that. Well, I think you're gonna get somebody in that position that'll sit down with you for You know, there shouldn't be a lot of crossover and figure out what the priorities are. you know, you don't wanna start anything that some projects can probably be put on hold. You're just trying to keep the ship afloat Well, the plan was to finish out the majority of the projects and close them, right? So the more, majority of the grant projects and the grant stuff that I was working on it, it's coming to an end It's coming in close, which is, which is good. Good. So, so now the complicated things will be on whoever's plate that ends up with this. so that, that'll work out fine. It's the day to day having a person there for the members to answer to to deal with scheduling issues or calling us if or whatever it may be and then the invoicing on a day to day basis, you know Ashley preps it, gets everything going, ready to go. She just, and then it's, here you go, you just have to sign off on it, right? And make sure that we're, we're doing the things we need to do. So the day-to-day is where we're really gonna kind of need that, that point first. Right in the, the next item. What's that? Oh, station update. Let me just say. Oh, yeah. No, I know, I know, I know. Okay, so it's gonna be ongoing, so you have a plan? I, I put a list together of things that we did the last time we had to go through this, like, you know, finance budget, building- You know, Chief Fire, which we, you know, apparatus, grants, that sort of thing. I think some of the stuff the officers can, can help us out with as well. for DM scheduling, PR, I think Rick's helping out a lot too with that type of stuff as well, right? So okay I mean, it's up to you and what you guys wanna do, but I, I actually would, would recommend Rick. he is here on a regular basis, day in, day out, meets with the outgoing shift, the oncoming shift they all know, they know Phone number. he's, he's become the point person right now. I-- there's duties that can be split up. I'm not saying dump everything on Rick, right? but he, he might be a great choice for you guys. Is that something you can do though? We've been doing it for what, almost two years now. I, I mean, I, I, I helped Frank out, I'm, I'm representing the safety committee as part of the fire department, even when Frank was here, and then that's been going on I'm going for a while. I've been kind of keeping these guys especially on weekends when they don't have nobody around, I come in, I, I'm always checking with them or if they're leaving Thomas Callen here. They got my number. What about your your current job? That's the only thing I- Oh, I've been doing it with my current job. Okay. And, and still have been, you know, 'cause there's, there's times that I come in here and sit in your office and- I get away from my house, I bring my computer down here and I work in here, so I'm around, you know? Yeah? No, it's not a bad bug. We're trying to find someone who's, who's already here. He, he's already got that foot in the door, he's already, you know, taking on a leadership role, he's looked to as a, as a mentor and someone to go to and stuff like that, so I think he, he might be a great choice for it. I was concerned about the same thing as you, I know his- That's one of the concerns, yeah. But for whatever reason, he's always here. Well, I mean, if, if I I think if that's something you wanna do and you have the time to do it, I have no problem with that. I don't either. I'm not interested. I don't think anybody is. It's, it's a lot, and I, I just- Yeah. And if you need help, just let me know, I can come down and give you a hand. But I can't do something every day, you know? Well, you, I mean, you would have, you can ask all of us for help, you know what I mean? So that's the nice thing about this group, everyone's willing to help, right? Like, I'm not disappearing off the face of the earth No, I, I didn't realize that. But we need someone here, right? Yeah, that's the problem. Somebody needs to be in charge. There's no way I can be here doing it because my, my business is just way too busy for me. I think personally, when- When we do this, let's look at the orga- organizational chart too. And I know we've moved from two stations to one station, and at least try to get- At least try to, try to get- Let's update that a little bit, and that gives a lot of other guys, you know, who's in, who's doing what now. And now that we have two captains in the same house, things like that, it's just kind of minor stuff, but on the- On the fireworks- There is talk in there. Right. On the fireworks end of it, this is what we need somebody, a point person. Yeah. I guess we get down to the- It, the weeds, the, the officers, I think there's a, the officers can take a lot more on than, you know, than, well, I shouldn't say that, I'm not gonna speak for any officer. oh, as, as long as you develop a plan, yeah, yeah, and then we can, you know? Yeah. And the, the operational stuff we can discuss during, during officer meetings. You know, right now we're trying to make sure that billings and financially and representation to the town, to the select board, we gotta have somebody do all that stuff. Yeah. as far as everyday work, we can, we can help with that. So you guys want to discuss any more about that? Whereas as a personnel, we should probably do that on a monthly basis No, no, no, we'll, we'll do that. But I'm just asking if you have any questions for him now publicly, if you wanna, you know 'cause we do have to go on public with a few more things, so. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. All right. So moving on to old business approval for minutes from six eight of twenty six. Our last firework meeting. Anybody wanna make a motion? I wanna make a motion. Second. Made by Tony, second by Mark. Questions? Comments. All right. All those in favor of accepting the minutes, signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay. Internal reports. All yours, Chief. so this month, we are at forty-two calls for the month, a variety of different things, including a person supposedly on fire. I knew that. I was up at camp and I saw that, I'm like, "Whoa, I didn't see that one." anyway so- Update on the DOE grant tomorrow's the last day to submit any invoices for new projects. I can find out there's a little discrepancy here, so I was told it was the end to submit invoices period. That's not the case. If we have any projects that are ongoing then we can submit invoices up until September 25th. If, if it was a new project or something that popped up and we suddenly said, "Oh yeah, we need to install a tank or something like that," we couldn't do that. So existing, what's that existing? Yeah, yeah. So tomorrow, tomorrow morning by six AM, I promise, I'll have the final recs coming through and be submitted, and we will- I've spent all the grant funds gone, like not even a dollar left. Nothing, nothing's gone. As a matter of fact, I'm, we do have some soft costs available, and I'm going to try to make the architect and the clerk of the works hold Because they've been working for free since January they, they ran out of their line items Mark ran out of his contract, and they didn't want to abandon the project, so they stayed with us, so that worked out pretty good. So I- I'm trying to finagle a way to get that paid. coming up this month in July, obviously we have the fourth of July, that detail's all filled and ready to go. the post testing is scheduled for July 15th, and Captain Seagin is Spearheading that program. we have radio program upcoming that we have to update. There's two frequencies that were recently changed. Capital Area and Amherst Fire Department both changed their frequencies, so we have to update all of our radios. and then there's, there's a request of the officers to look at the matrix the codeplug matrix and, and adjust it based on our radio vendor. He's talking about the change. I reached out to Department of Homeland Security for our EMPG grant reimbursement, we've spent all that money and looking for my fifty percent back, and they said something to the effect that it's all on hold due to the summer I can't even figure out why and it will be opening again soon to be able to get reimbursement. So we're still owed roughly thirty-eight thousand dollars for that grant that comes back into the Sawgrass funds to be able to carry us through through For some of the projects that we, we've already overspent on, so the ground ambulance data collection service, Laura will show you how we're trying to, yes. Supposedly the portal was supposed to open in June to file all of our reports, which we've been pulling together, and the portal's not even open yet. It's supposed to be open from June to August. And there's- Yep. That's a state thing, right? Yeah. Yes. And there's another glitch too because Jennifer Loza is leaving. That's- Sure, sure. Well, get, get everything you can, please try. Yeah, no time to lose. where should we go? So build it up. there's a race coming up in August, August 23rd, Millennium Running. We met with the, with the group It's a ten-miler in Dubois, so we've done these in the past. They were five Ks in the past. They've been different, different lengths, but they're requesting two ambulances and an RTV, and as well as two other mutual aid ambulances on the route. So one in Goshtown, Goshtown by that, two at the finish line for us, and I told him he could have one, the other ones for the community and so we're gonna get where to come down Hopefully, and they'll cover, they pay for all of this stuff, which is good, so it's a detail for us so it doesn't cost the taxpayers anything in using our equipment. So they want two of the finish line, huh? Yep. Yep, two of the finish line And they off, they provide doctors and they provide nurses and all kinds of people there at the finish line. Yeah, because Millennium Running had a try to get the rest of the finish line and then- There was like five other people that needed ambulance and there was none because everybody focused on the caribou forest. That was years ago when they first, when I first started. Yeah. It's a big, it's a big group. It is. All of the states are big. Do a lot of planning too, that I think I, I like, I'm not very good at. I guess I am. Yeah. Q2 payroll will be done on Thursday, so knock that out of the way before I leave. the open house went very, very well, thank you for everybody that that showed up and helped including our members and the phenomenal, phenomenal amount of help. I've heard nothing but positive things, so it looks good. that's all I have for you. On the radios, do, do you have like who's, 'cause I know you were chasing, still chasing who has what. Yep. Chris is putting together our inventory list, but Chris has all, so Chris knows who we're looking for, just 'cause I know you were kind of, yep. Hey, you know, fill this out. Yeah, okay. Yeah, so he had an inventory at one point, of course, right, when they got our fire service, it changes almost daily, you know, someone, hey, take this for you, and things get moved around, so he's going back Figure out where every radio is based on serial numbers and all that, and and then what he needs to get it in the program, right? He's-- There's different cables and different software for the different types of radio equipment, we're not standardized, which would be nice to have. Okay, so it's nothing, so basically that's out of your, yep. And remember, he's already updated capital area, several of the tranches, yes, he did my tranches, so, yep. So he, he did Yeah. Yeah. No, we're in good shape with that. Okay. That's it. Thank you. Alright second public comments. We don't really have public here, so with that being said, I'm going to request for non-public per our ERSA ninety-one A, Poland three dot Roman numeral two. A, B, C. Okay. Hello, hello. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. There's one thing that About the new director or whatever. All right. Welcome back from non-public. I would like to make a motion to seal the minutes of the non-public for- Ten years? Three seconds. Three seconds. Vokev, correct? Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. That being said, we want to talk about our interim chief. We have made a decision, and as far as the vote's concerned I'm gonna refuse myself from voting because I am a member. I will refuse myself as well. So I'll leave it to you guys to so same with So I make a motion that we point Rick, thank you, as interim fire chief not to exceed 30 hours a week at $1,500 compensation for a period of So we hired a chief for six months, up to six months pending negotiations. Motion is made by Mark, seconded by Tony. Three will vote, all in favor. Motion passes. Congratulations, Chief. Come on in, the water's warm. So no other business? Actually, I do have just one quick thing and then more discussion probably later, but With Brian stepping down, the emergency management director, there will be none. So I don't know if we want to think about- Who's deputy? So we have a four-person team right now. So Eric is our fire department representative, I was the director, and then you had Chief Rice and Kevin Lovelace. Steve Case and Matt are supposed to be the, the two from the police department. But again, it's a select board appointment, so I don't know what their plans are, where they're heading, but I think we should think about making A recommendation to the selection of someone that's capable, we just don't want to put someone that has no- Well, we got a couple weeks to come up with Right, but I just want to put it out there, just think about, do we know if-- Yep. So our next meeting will be July ninth at eighteen hundred hours here So with that, I'll make a motion to adjourn. Second, second. All in favor? Aye. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no