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HomeMy WebLinkAbout21.06.17 - Minutes, Emergency Services Advisory CouncilEmergency ,Services Advisory Council Washington County, Maryland REGULAR MEETING Date: Thursday, June 17, 2021 Attending: R. David Hays, Director, Emergency Services, Ex -Officio Kingsley Poole, Chairman, Citizen -at -Large Dick Hopkins, Co -Chairman, WCVFRA Dwayne Lunsford, Citizen -at -Large Ron Horn, Citizen -at -Large Gary Farrell, President, Funkstown FD, WCVFRA Joe Kroboth, Citizen -at -Large Scott Busldrk, Citizen -at -Large Bonnie Keltner, Administrative Assistant Guests: Randy Wagner, County Commissioner Absent: Dale Fishack, President, WCVFRA, Ex -Officio Roger Otzelberger, Jr., WCVFRA Tim Ammons, Citizen -at -Large CALL TO ORDER: • Chairman Poole called the meeting to order at 7:10 pm. Minutes: Bonnie will email the February minutes again to the council to be approved at the August meeting. Page 1 of 4 Washington County, Maryland Emergency Services Advisory Council Meeting Thursday, June 17, 2021 Old Business: Fire Company Audits Update — Dir. Hays • After the last Association meeting, WCVFRA President Dale Fishack spoke with DES Dir. Hays about the audits. He said they had good conversation with a couple of companies and even after the meeting they had more companies become compliant. As of this past Tuesday, June 15, Dir. Hays asked for an updated spreadsheet and UHY said that about 99% of the companies now are engaged in moving productively through this process. We will get another update this coming Monday. After that, we will be going to the companies that are non-compliant (which may only be South Hagerstown Fire Co.) South Hagerstown's books are all handwritten — nothing electronic. Dir. Hays spoke with their CPA, Scott Draper, and he is trying to get them to a positive place. One of the things that will come out of this audit, Dir. Hays believes, is where some of these companies can use some kind of help. Sara Greaves and Dir. Hays will make recommendations from information obtained from UHY on Monday of how to handle companies that are not compliant. The goal will be to present this info to the BOCC. Discussion followed. t Joe Kroboth recommends either the evening before or the morning of this meeting with tl e BOCC, that a phone call be placed to Chief Lohr and one of the commissioners place a call to Mayor Keller. If not, it will probably be rumored that "the county is picking on the city again." MOTION: On a motion by Joe Kroboth and seconded by Gary Favell, it was agreed that the ESAC recommend to the BOCC that they take enforcement action they deem appropriate for any company or corporation who is refusing to cooperate with the audit process. CARRIED ESRC Governance Model — Kingsley Poole & Dick Hopkins Co -Chair Hopkins talked about looking at what the actual function is for ESAC. We should have some type of governance model that would probably assist in the credibility of backing to DES. This is something that we should have. We came up with a motion for the SCBA, but it was not acted upon and effectively got lost. Joe Kroboth talked about a letter that the ESAC was going to send to the BOCC that says it is our recommendation that the BOCC task ESAC with developing a governance model for the commissioners to consider. Joe said he emailed it to the chair and co-chair and asked the status of that letter. Nothing was done with the letter. This letter needs to be sent to the County Commissioners, so they can decide if we should have a governance model or not. Joe also commented that another letter should go to the County Commissioners asking them to task us to do an apparatus study county wide. Page 2 of 4 Washington County, Maryland Emergency Services Advisory Council Meeting Thursday, June 17, 2021 Commissioner Wagner suggested to get our letter and get on the commissioners' agenda. Come to the meeting and ask the commissioners what they expect from this council. The council could also request a closed session agenda to speak openly. Joe wants to see performance data that shows how many calls stations have or have not responded to. There should be a Washington County standard operating procedure manual. • Chairman Poole will ask Chip Jewell to speak at an ESAC meeting. Joe suggested that Kingsley get in contact with Carroll County. New Business: Director's Report — Director Dave Hays • Dir. Hays sent his report out electronically to the council members before the meeting. He spoke about the fail soft event. Some issues were found with our own internal control processes on making sure the ECC staff knows exactly what to do when it happens. We are going to change some terminology, i.e. Condition A, B, C, & D and we plan to develop plain language terms for each of those conditions. We tried to figure out the redundancy. Our system has one master prime site; when that site goes down, we lose the capacity of a complete digital system and it becomes a conventional system; thus we have 10 channels (non -repeating). Several years ago, we knew that low band would die here and it would not be replaced. Low band is used by some volunteer companies and some volunteers at home. There is no hardware for low band in any fire or EMS unit. In order to get redundancy, the state has a 700MHz system that we plan to declare as our back-up system. The problem for fire & rescue communicating devices is we don't have dual band assess on almost anything we have. We have the AFG grant submitted for portables, which is our first effort to rectify this issue. We're hopeful this AFG grant happens, but if it does not, we will need the support of this ESAC group to petition the commissioners to fully fund the portable fleet and that will put us in the position of having 700 MHz resources for the field and the dispatch center can communicate with units on the 700 MHz system for the state. We have already approached the state radio control board and they have given us a "limited" user agreement which means we can establish up to 10 talk groups. Remarks for the Good of the Council • Chairman Poole will contact former Frederick County DES officer Chip Jewell to see if he will come and speak to our group about the Frederick County system. Joe suggested that Chairman Poole contact Carroll County about their recent conversion to a Department of Emergency Services. It is Joe's understanding that the volunteer companies in Carroll County requested this system. Page 3 of 4 Washington County, Maryland Emergency Services Advisory Council Meeting Thursday, June 17, 2021 • Dir. Hays asked Chairman Poole to reformat his agenda. Either before adjournment or in that area to put Work Session Topics if you have some or N/A if you do not. • MOTION: On a motion by Scott Buskirk and seconded by Ron Horn, it was agreed that the ESAC would start having regular meetings on the second Thursday every month. Work sessions (every other month) would be discontinued. CARRIED Adiournment • MOTION: With no other business brought forward, a motion was made by Gary Farrell and seconded by Ron Horn to adjourn the meeting at 9:05pm. CARRIED. No July meeting because several members will be away in July. Next meeting: • August 12, 2021, 7pm • Location: DES Downstairs Training Room Respectfully submitted by, Bonnie Keltner, Administrative Assistant Washington County Div. of Emergency Services, Kingsley Poole, ESAC Chairman, & Richard Hopkins, ESAC Co -Chair Page 4 of 4