New Training for Fire Fighters

Anita Weston, Reporter

Rich Civic Times 

GARDEN CITY. January 17, 2013. There will be a Fire Fighter I class starting next Wednesday with the second class period being held on either Thursday or Friday.  It will be four hours two nights a week.  There should be five from Woodruff, three from Laketown, six from Garden City and some from Randolph.  The Hazmat class won’t be held until near the end of March.  This is being done because there is a 2013 deadline for operations certification. 

Dan Kurek, Garden City Fire Chief, gave a copy of the bid from John Cox to create a web site for the fire department.  Web sites are constantly changing.  Cox said he would make it easy to add information to the site and make it easy to use.  Cox himself is a fire fighter and is aware of what would be good to include on the site.  He estimated that it would take about three months to get the page up and running smoothly.  The Board directed  Kurek to get a second bid so that the members would have some type of comparison in order to make a good decision.  Kurek said he would have another bid for the next meeting. 

An outside agency needs to once again go over the District’s financial statements.  It was decided that the same accounting firm that was used last year will be contacted to see if they would be willing to once again take care of this item.  The cost last year was $3,500.  The firm last year indicated they would hold the cost the same if they were used for two to three years.  Tiffany Wahlberg, secretary, was asked to get in touch with this firm. 

The Ladder truck was difficult to steer and needed power steering fluid.  Kurek was able to get that fixed and also get the truck fully certified.  He had the certification paperwork for the Board members to look at and be aware that this truck was ready to roll. 

The RKI Eagle II had to have the PID board replaced.  It is now running really well.  That means that all the equipment is up and running.  

The Board requested that Kurek make sure that he starts all of the vehicles at least once a week during this cold weather to make sure they will always start. 

There were ten responses this month.  There was one flooded basement, a propane leak, 1 fire pit inspection, 1 short term rental that needed to be visited twice, and 5 medical assists. 

Kurek indicated that the fire department has chimney rods and brushes so that citizens can check them out and clean their chimneys thereby avoiding chimney fires.  They are available for free.  They just need to be checked out and returned within 24 hours. 

Kurek reported that the schools do not have any CO detectors.  They are not required by law.  Fire detectors, however, are installed in the schools because they are required. 

Kurek will be at the yearly IAA Conference held in Wendover this next week. The county pays for lodging and travel for this conference.   Kurek will stop in Salt Lake City on his way home to attend a time management seminar there. 

The Board Members again were most concerned about time cards and Mr. Kurek sticking exactly to the 40-hour week.  It was noted that since he will be teaching the Fire Fighter I Class, which requires 8 hours of class each week.  It might be difficult for him to keep within the 40-hour week. 

Mr. Negus, a Board Member, noted that perhaps compensation beyond the 40-hours would become too expensive.  He thought that perhaps the Board might want to consider going back to making the fire chief position a salaried one.  He asked the Board Members to think about such a move.