Fire Instructor I Training

  Sunday, February 7th 2010

I will be leaving for one week to go to the NYS Fire Academy in Montour Falls to take the Fire Instructor 1 course.

I will be gone for a week but will have access to voice mail and email - all urgent issues please see Commissioner Waite.

Any questions, please just let me know.

posted by spackmann in Activities at 10:03 AM (31 day(s) old)  Permalink

Acting Chairman Through April 2010

  Sunday, January 10th 2010

I will once again be serving as acting chairman of the board of commissioners while the current Chairman is away on vacation.

There was substantial support from the officers and other members of the Board to support me for the actual Chairman position, and while I am very honored by this, I can not in good conscious take the position with my current workload.

I know that there has already been some big discussions around cost-cutting measures. The Board has been discussing this for a few weeks now and at the January workshop, we will be discussing some options we have been researching for a few months now - and I hope that this movement continues forward through the rest of the year.

Any questions, please contact me.

posted by spackmann in Activities at 8:24 PM (59 day(s) old)  Permalink

District Year-End Monies

  Friday, November 27th 2009

As is the norm with municipalities, when the fiscal year comes to an end, any unspent funds are usually directed to savings acounts or to other projects. The GFD has an annual "year-end close of the books" meeting to expend any remaining funds and to wrap up business for the year (this year's "year-end meeting" is on December 30th at the Greenfield Center firehouse).

As is always the case, there is a lot of discussion about what we should focus on for year end monies. Generally what usually happens is that Commissioners field requests from officers for funding for various projects that were either (1) denied throughout the year (due to a variety of reasons - which could be financial) or (2) are "outreach" projects which aren't necessarily given a priority funding - but are "nice to have".

For this year's focus I would prefer to address the following:

1. Apparatus Equipment Mounting: one of the things that came out of the apparatus consultant survey was that we need to do a much better job of mounting equipment in our trucks - whether it is in the cab or compartments. The labor required to redo the mounting is fairly large per truck, and the mounting parts aren't the cheapest either - considering their NFPA design requirements.
   
   As this is a safety issue, this should be given priority funding - and I'm pleased to see many of our officers already working on this task, in preparation for the year-end meeting.
2. Hose Replacement: this was the first year the fire district (finally!) tested hose across the district and we found a vast amount of the district hose inventory failed the testing, and had to be removed from service.
   
   Granted that not all this hose has to be replaced all at once, we can put it on a multi-year replacement schedule to help soften the expense - but we certainly need to replace the priority pieces - the one's that failed on our trucks for example. Naturally, I'll be looking to our officers to make that determination, and we'll try and accomodate that listing.
3. Fire Police Radios: with the county transition to higher-band radio frequencies, the GFD has already purchased some high-band radios, and we have discovered that they are actually much cheaper than their low-band counterparts. I have worked closely with the fire police over the past couple of years and I have discovered that they have been under-funded for many years.
   
   Their radio inventory is quite old and antiquated, and unfortunately, has taken a second place to other funding priorities - and this simply must be stopped. Communication when you are standing in the middle of a road is essential to our firefighter's safety, and the radios that are currently utilized by our fire police are half-broken, unreliable and are in need of replacing.
   
   I see no reason that we can't start replacing the fire police radio inventory this year.

Naturally this is not a complete listing and priority items identified by our firematic officers will of course get consideration.

In any case, I wanted to start the creative juices flowing, and to shed some light on what my preferences for year-end monies would be.

Any questions, please just let me know.

posted by spackmann in Opinions at 8:21 AM (103 day(s) old)  Permalink

Happy Thanksgiving!

  Thursday, November 26th 2009

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!

I wish everyone the very best this Thanksgiving!

posted by spackmann in Events at 8:30 AM (104 day(s) old)  Permalink

Training Laptop Anti-Virus Installation

  Wednesday, November 25th 2009

At the November Commissioner's mtg we discussed the (*finally*!) delivered training laptops.

I will be installing anti-virus and configuring the laptops this weekend, in preparation to issue them to each fire company.

I'll post back here when that project is completed. In the meantime, any questions, just let me know.

posted by spackmann in Activities at 8:04 AM (105 day(s) old)  Permalink

2010 Budget Followup (Decrease in Taxes)

  Tuesday, November 24th 2009

I am very proud to see the 2010 budget with a decrease in tax rate.

You can view the approved 2010 budget online here:

1. http://www.greenfieldfd.org/documents/Approved%20Budget%202010.pdf

Unfortunately there were very little people who actually attended the public budget hearing - but those who did attend were a little concerned with the "perceived" 4% raise of the 2010 budget.

I use the word "perceived" here in quotes, as it was simply that - "perceived" 4% raise. The fact is, that while the budget grew in size 4%, the tax rate in the tentative budget was actually the same.

The Board later decided unanimously to cut a little more - which actually resulted in the tax rate going down for the 2010 budget.

Any questions, just let me know.

posted by spackmann in Opinions at 4:36 PM (106 day(s) old)  Permalink