Attendance: |
|
| Mary Ellen LePage, President | Ron Cross, Member at large |
| Anita Holser, Secretary | Nelson O'Connor, Member at large |
| Walt Eastwood, Vice President | |
| The meeting was called to order at 12:15 pm at the LePage's. The minutes of the last meeting were read and approved with minor modifications. |
| Chargers
Nelson reported that the solar chargers have still not been set up on the trucks at the lower firehouse. Bob Bowman will be contacted to see if he can hook them up. |
| Brush
Mary Ellen said that the clearing along Loma Chiquita had been completed. The chipper that had been brought up to mulch the cleared brush was unable to handle the load, so there is still some piles of brush along the road that need to be cleaned up. |
| Keys and Gates
Mary Ellen said that we got new locks and some of the old keys wouldn't work with them, so we have had to replace several of these incompatible keys. POST wants to take over maintenance of the lower gate. Mary Ellen had brought the subject up at the Road Association meeting this morning, but residents from the lower road who were present did not support the idea. If POST maintains the gate, it will decrease our expenses. They have two local people who could be contacted for problems with the gate. We discussed the possibility of designating our own local residents to also be delegated this responsibility. The vandalism of the lock at the upper gate has decreased recently. We think this is because the sherrif talked to residents placed at the gate within minutes of the last vandalism. |
| Old Engine
The old engine we replaced was sold to the Sveadahl Volunteer Fire Department. They will repay us over the next year, as funds become available to them. |
| CLVFA in the News
Nelson mentioned that the CLVFA was prominently mentioned in the Pinnacle magazine recently. We will try to get a copy of the article on the website. |
| FEMA Grant
Mary Ellen had talked to FEMA about putting the repairs to the white truck on the grant, but they refused, saying the grant was specifically for fire gear, not maintenance. Mary Ellen suggested we use some of the funds to buy new boots for the firefighters who want or need them. We also need some more wildland gear. Nelson said that next year we should try to get a grant for new radios for the trucks. The current radios do not work very well. |
| ID Badges
Gordon Rupp dropped in with a prototype CLVFA ID badge. It looked professionally done, and costs about $10 each. We discussed the advantages of having photo id badges, what layout we want, and what information to put on the badges. Walt made a motion to allocate up to $10 per badge for each firefighter. Ron seconded the motion and it passed unanimously |
| Verizon
Verizon has mentioned that they may be willing to donate a large amount of money to the CLVFA in return for running a fiber optic line through our community. The line would run down Loma Chiquita road for quite a distance, and require work to the road and through several resident's properties. Mary Ellen suggested that the majority of this should be used to benefit the community residents most affected, those living on Loma Chiquita Rd. The largest community concern on Loma Chiquita the past few years has been road improvements. She suggested a 90/10 split, 90% of the funds going towards road improvements, 10% to the fire department itself. There was discussion about what kinds of improvements we would be interested in, problems with earlier projects, suggestions put forward by other community members, and the best way to implement. Nelson made a motion to allocate 90% of the funds to road improvements on Loma Chiquita and Chy Roads, 10% to the CLVFA. Ron seconded the motion and it passed unanimously. It was decided that we should relay this intended use of the funds to the community. Anita volunteered to put together a 'Statement of Intent' to lay out specifically how we intend to use the possible donation from Verizon. The wording should include the 90/10 split, oil and screen up to 2 coats the length of Loma Chiquita, repairing the oil and screen on Chy, possibly asphault sections of Loma Chiquita, and perhaps a new electric gate, if there is enough money left. The possible benefits and costs of electric gates on Loma Chiquita were discussed. The gate on POST property is expected to be under $10,000. If we can locate a gate closer to power, it may be less expensive. We may be able to salvage the existing gate, move it down by Ron's, and electrify it. We would also want a light over the gate to illuminate the area, increasing safety. This location would mean that a few residents currently inside the gate would now be outside of it. |
| The meeting adjourned at 1:45 pm. |
| Respectfully, |
| Anita Holser
Secretary |