Thursday, March 28, 2024

Chelan Fire commissioners plan town hall meeting by month's end

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CHELAN - Last Thursday, March 28, Chelan Fire and Rescue (CFR) Board of Commissioners had a meeting regarding the district’s Long Range Plan.

“The Long Range Plan’s main focus is looking at the next five years, but also keeping an outreach for the next 20 years on large projects,” said CFR Chief Tim Lemon.  Commissioners covered different agenda items including staffing, apparatus and funding the morning of the meeting.

In terms of staffing, Commissioners would like to hire two more firefighters to bring total staff numbers up to nine. This would allow CFR to have three firefighters per shift,  Chief Lemon explained. This would ensure at least two people would be on duty “if someone is on vacation or sick leave.” However, the district’s ultimate goal is to have four people on duty at the fire station and one on-call. At the moment, CFR is relying on “qualified volunteers to supplement career staff,” and are only guaranteed to have one career staff on duty. Fire Commissioners recognized that building the career staff is going to take time, yet within the next five years they want to hire two more individuals.

There was also discussion on the apparatus replacement fund. “With the failure of last year's levy, we really don’t have much surplus money to be able to move over,” said Chief Lemon. Commissioners were presented with a program that is being developed that evaluates apparatus use, repair and maintenance cost, among other things and helps deliberate when it needs to be replaced. “That will help us align what rigs need to be replaced sooner and plan for that,” says Lemon.

Another huge item that was addressed at the meeting was funding. Lemon mentioned that CFR has not received any authorization funding from the public since the last levy lid lift was approved in 2006. He says that CFR continues to operate from the 2006 fire levy lid lift and one percent of new construction money.

“We discussed fire levies and going back to the public to ask for funding, an increase in our budget up to $500,000,” Lemon stated. The rate amount would increase to .21 cents per thousand dollars, yet nothing has been decided. Commissioners are planning on holding a town hall meeting sometime this month, to inform the public on their plans.

Chelan Fire and Rescue welcomes a new member to the staff, Karla Mendoza. Mendoza will take the place of Administrative Assistant Faye Barker who retired after 30 years of fire service. Baker’s last work day with CFR was on Friday, March 29, 2019. Mendoza will start full-time on April 8.  
 

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