S.A.F.E.R. Board of Directors

OFFICIAL MEETING MINUTES SOUTH AREA FIRE & EMERGENCY RESPONSE DISTRICT Board of Directors Meeting Tuesday, May 11, 2021 @ 18:00 A. Call to Order The meeting of the South Area Fire and Emergency Response District Board of Directors was called to order at 18:00 by SAFER Chairman Al Opall. Members Present Board of Directors – Langenhahn, Opall, and White were all present, Maloney and Schaefer were absent and excused. Also present: Town of Rib Mountain – Administrator Rhoden; Village of Weston – Director of Finance Trautman – via GoToMeeting; Ruder Ware Law Firm – Attorney Robert Reinertson; SAFER – Deputy Fire Chief Finke and Administrative Assistant Latimer, Fire Chief Savage was absent and excused. B. Correspondence/Comments from the public on issues related to the SAFER District None C. Consent Items Board of Directors approval of prior meeting minutes from April 13, 2021. Motioned by White to approve prior meeting minutes from April 13, 2021. Second by Langenhahn. Motion carried unanimously. Board of Directors approval of expenditures and receipts from April 2021. Motioned by White to approve expenditures and receipts from April 2021. Second by Langenhahn. - White said $7,000.00 for repairs on Car 11? - Deputy Chief Finke said Car 11 shouldn’t have been at the body shop. Car 21 was at the body shop to get a headlight fixed. The crew attempted to do it themselves at the station and quickly realized it was much over their heads and we took it to Sanders. Car 11 needed a bunch of work on the water pump, couple wheel bearings, brakes, stabilizer links and one other thing. Car 11 is older and has 130,000 miles on it. Motion carried unanimously. D. Business Items Discussion and possible action on early payoff of SCBA Loan with KS State Bank. - Deputy Chief Finke said we discussed this along with Dunbar and Trautman and they agreed with us, and we have the money in the bank because of the early sale of some of the equipment, Rescue Truck and Tender. We have some additional funds in the bank and we would like to pay this off early which is for our SCBAs that we purchased two years ago. It is a 5-year lease agreement that we can payoff early. It would save us about $15,000.00 of interest if we pay it off now verse make the payments over the next three years. This will come off of our Capital plan for the next three years. - White asked so the balance is $121,400.29? - Deputy Chief Finke said that’s if the payoff would’ve been in by May 1st. So, the payoff will be slightly more than that. Latimer had reached out to them today to get an updated payoff, but they want to know the exact date, and she sent them the date and they didn’t get back yet. Action: Motioned by White to approve paying off the SCBA Loan at KS State Bank in the amount to be determined. Second by Langenhahn. Motion carried unanimously. Discussion and possible action on Track Changes to the SAFER Charter. - White said after the last meeting I had went through again for version 4. So you can see all the changes incorporated in the version so far. Action: No action required. Discussion and possible action on Exhibit A. - White said as far as I know that’s the only Exhibit A that’s valid. - Deputy Chief Finke said that’s what we agreed upon last meeting. Action: Motioned by White to accept the information provided under Exhibit A dated January 1, 2014 stating the values for the Town of Rib Mountain $1,380,742.51 and the Village of Weston $970,865.33. Second by Langenhahn. Motion carried unanimously. Discussion and possible action on Appendix B – 1. - Deputy Chief Finke said #4. Exterior Maintenance, says the Town will be responsible for all snowplowing, snow removal, snow shoveling and lawn care. We actually do all of that. - Rhoden said I think that was the hang up last time. The former Village President had an issue with it being we didn’t have to do it on Rib Mountain’s end, but on the other side they had to do it. That’s the way we’ve had it all along and I think that’s why this ended up not getting signed. - White said this is Rib Mountain’s lease to SAFER? - Deputy Chief Finke said correct. The Town does not do it, we do all our own snowplowing, but the Town if they are down in the neighborhood and we have ice in the parking lot, they will swing through and spread some sand. - White said what is the solution to that? - Deputy Chief Finke said if we want to keep it the same between the Town and the Village, and the Village wants us to plow and mow at Station 2, that’s fine. Or if the Town wants to come plow and mow at Station 1, that’s fine. We have a truck with a snowplow. - White said if you take a look under article 11 for the Village, Weston shall be responsible for all snow plowing, snow removal and snow shoveling. - Deputy Chief Finke said that’s what Chief Savage and myself said the last time, we don’t care. Whatever you would like us to do is fine. - White said I would think you would want it that way so the crew doesn’t have to do the shoveling. - Rhoden said but the Town is not going to. The Town will continue to let SAFER at Station 1 do it. - White said ok, so you need to change the Town lease. I would assume that would come from the Town of Rib Mountain, not from the SAFER Board. - Opall said I would assume so. - Deputy Chief Finke said where it talks about Nonroutine Maintenance, the threshold in the Town’s contract is $2,000.00 and the threshold in the Village contract is $3,000.00. - Rhoden asked does it have to be the same? - White said it doesn’t make any difference to me. - Rhoden said but that’s what happened and that’s why this never got signed. - White said both of these will have to be brought back to the Town of Rib Mountain and the Village of Weston for the modification on those two points. Then essentially the SAFER Board of Directors would sign it as lessee. - Rhoden said are we able to take this lease agreement and have it taken to our Town Board for our approval? I’d hate to go through this process and again, this is why all this got hung up. Do it separately and get it approved by our Board and then bring it back here to the SAFER Board. I just don’t want it to be where we put the time through our legal counsel and Town Board and then find out no, the Village doesn’t like the fact that the Town makes SAFER do the snowplowing at Station 1, or we’re going to have an issue with the $2,000.00 maintenance. I would hate to go back. - Opall said I find them kind of minor items and it’s been working so far with no hang up. I know your point that down the road a $1,000.00 might mean a lot. - White said I don’t know if these lease agreements effect the Charter that much, to be honest with you. Because the document mentions them, it’s probably a good thing to have them there and signed.  Action: Suggested by White to defer action on B – 1 until we get it straightened out between each lease. Discussion and possible action on Appendix B – 2. - Discussion taken place in above Business Item. Action: Suggested by Opall to defer action on B – 2. Discussion and possible action on Second Amendment to the SAFER Charter 2021 v4. - White said if we present this to our municipalities, I think the tracked version would be good so they can see exactly what changes have been done. The first question out of a few people are going to be “what did you change?”. Action: Suggested by Opall on no action taken until more Board Members can look at the Charter. Attorney Referral. - None. End of Month Budget review. - Deputy Chief Finke said the budget looks really good, we’re under budget as far as expenditures go. We are running well ahead of budget as far as revenues go. It is not reflected in here yet, but we did just get a deposit put in for another $115,000.00 from EMS revenue last week. The only budget line as far as expenditures we can foresee some issues is Outside Contracted Services and that is primarily LifeQuest, and that is simply because we have significantly more EMS revenue than we anticipated, meaning we have more costs with our billing company than we anticipated. - White said for clarification, they take their money before they send it to us or do we send them a check back? - Deputy Chief Finke said they take it out of the money they send us. Other than that, nothing significant budget wise, unless anyone has any questions. - White said I see Data Center Fees are at 118%. - Deputy Chief Finke said we need to check that one, and all those costs come in right at the beginning of the year. That’s our cost annually for ESO and software that we use for patient care reporting and fire reporting. - White said the other over 100% is Part Time Wages – Overtime. - Deputy Chief Finke said we’re still short staffed and we have a couple part time employees that take all the overtime that they can get. Unfortunately, that is a little unavoidable at this point. 18:43 Motion by White to adjourn to closed session pursuant to Wisconsin Statute Section 19.85(1) (e) Deliberating or negotiating the purchasing of public properties, the investing of public funds, or conduction other specified public business, whenever competitive or bargaining reasons require a closed session: Contract negotiations with Joint Service with the Village of Marathon and Fire Contract for the Town of Marathon. Wisconsin Statute Section 19.85(1) (g) Conferring with legal counsel for the governmental body who is rendering oral or written advice concerning strategy to be adopted by the body with respect to litigation in which it is or is likely to become involved: Pending Litigation. Second by Langenhahn. Roll-call vote: NAME: Aye Nay Langenhahn X White X Opall X Motion carried unanimously. 18:53 Motion by Langenhahn to return to open session. Second by White. Roll-call vote:  NAME: Aye Nay Langenhahn X White X Opall X No action taken in open session after returning from closed session. E. Staff Reports Report from Deputy Fire Chief - Deputy Chief Finke said we had the fire on Packer Dr., which Opall I know you said Fire Chief Savage briefed the Town Board on. I’ll quickly go over what I know about it, fire originally came across our phones with the address and it just said Dump. That was our dispatch information, and every time a truck goes in route then our phone goes off again and then there started to be more information. The fire is still under investigation, one building started on fire and that structure burning was fully involved when our initial engine arrived. They attempted to protect multiple structures right next to the burning structure and the fire spread very quickly and winds were gusting close to 30 mph that day. The initial building that started on fire collapsed, and it collapsed out which put it right next to the next building. Multiple buildings were involved and the majority of them are destroyed including the contents. It did go to five alarms, there where many fire departments, basically every fire department in the county except for two were represented there, including a couple from outside of the county. It was a very large incident for us, a quarter of a million gallons of water, two minor injuries to firefighters, both from mutual aid agencies. There was a house saved that was very close and that gentleman is very appreciative. - We did make an offer to four individuals for part time positions and two accepted, those two will start their training on Thursday night. One is a local person and the other is moving soon, but currently lives in Door County. - Our UTV that we purchased awhile back, the skid for the back of it is finally done and will be put on tomorrow and then in-service. - As you know we have two ambulances ordered, one of them should be done in the next 4-6 weeks. The other one unfortunately is unknown, the chassis got cancelled from Ford. - Call volume remains high, and we’re still over 100 calls up from this time last year. - We have a training burn coming up next week, possibly Wednesday. - Music festivals will be coming up that we do ambulance standby on. We’re going to be renewing our contract with Chippewa Valley Music Festivals and they do Country Fest and Rock Fest. We did have a contract in place with them last year, but obviously we all know what happened last year, and we’re going to carry that contract over for this coming term. F. Remarks from the Board of Directors to set the next meeting date as well as discuss items for the next meeting agenda. - Next meeting scheduled Tuesday, June 8, 2021 at 18:00 at Village of Weston Municipal Courtroom. - Langenhahn has nothing. - White has nothing. - Opall has nothing. G. Adjourn Motion by Langenhahn to adjourn. Second by White. Motion carried unanimously. Opall adjourned at 18:53