Fire Company Consolidation Meeting Minutes

Note:  Several times over the last several weeks, these pages have contained news story and commentary on the merger talks taking place between the Parkesburg, Atglen and Pomeroy fire companies and the 8 municipalities they serve.  These talks, which began in 2010, are moving quickly toward a single consolidated fire fighting organization with the eight municipalities, including Parkesburg, footing more of the total cost of fielding and maintaining an all volunteer fire fighting force.

Beginning with these minutes from the July meeting, Parkesburg Today will publish details of the discussion to both educate and keep our readers informed.

Western Chester County Fire Company

Reorganization Committee Minutes

                                                           

Tuesday, July 19, 2011 (Approved on August 16, 2011)

Meeting was called to order by Brad Sinrod at 1905 hrs

Attendees: Brad Sinrod, Ray Stackhouse, Leo Scaccia, Willard Marsh, Bill Winters, R.P. Scott, Gene Ratcliff, John R. Ford, Barry Edwards, Jim Reagan, Ray Campbell, Steve Webb, Danny Tribbett, Frank Haas, Ed Haas, Tom Scott, Stephanie Silvernail

Excused: Tony Sirna, Larry Constable, Rich Klinger, Chuck Persch, Brian Gathercole, William Kochel

New members: None

Special Guest: Russ Guthrie

Approval of June Minutes: Approved as written by the group with three grammatical changes.

Handouts: Agenda, June minutes, Items developed by Russ Guthrie including CD of June presentation, If you want a CD of Russ’s presentations, call or e-mail Ray and he will get you one. The material is too large to send through most e-mails.

Old Business:

Received: Copy of payment invoice from Atglen Fire company to Russ Guthrie amt of 250.00 dollars, Payment of 4,500 dollars from Chester County EMS Council to Russ Guthrie. The only township still outstanding is Atglen boro, who has commented that the check has been approved/written and is being sent to Russ.  The next round of 250.00 dollars is due at the September meeting. Total given to Russ as of tonights’ meeting. 6,500.00 dollars

All municipalities have accepted and have presented signed resolutions.  All fire companies have completed MOU’s

Russ has Power point slides that outline current run district, representatives of each municipality, fire companies and business/citizen reps. 

All members present had time to review. There were no changes, yet several positions are still open.

New Business:

Russ Guthrie will be running each meeting from this date forward. Brief minutes will be kept and copies of material and power point presentations will be available for members to review.

There was discussion to shore up and tie down the representatives of each municipality and fire companies

There was a service map review.

Open discussion on Fire Administrator role in initial set up of organization.

Open discussion on Fire District Board Makeup continues.

Russ displayed a potential/possible budget with numbers he does know. As numbers become more exact, we will know true budget for new organization. Russ feels his numbers tonight are very accurate but will still need some information for final budget.

Russ explained 10 tables to the attendees and has handouts available if you would want one. Please see Leo at the next meeting.

At this point, other than a few number changes, Russ states that his job of investigation is complete. He asks that before the next meeting that all municipalities and fire companies take a straw poll to see if the members are in or not in and to make the final decision to move forward with the consolidation. He asked also that the group needs to decide if we would chose process one with an “authority” versus the simple consolidation process number 2.

He applauds the efforts and willingness of the group to make this happen with little difficulty. The August meeting, he will ask officially if all parties are in agreement with moving forward. Members are urged to attend or have representation for potential vote. From the group, the sense is that we will continue to move forward.

Russ will be meeting with East Fallowfield Township on September 13 during their work meeting. All entities are invited to attend for information gathering and dissemination.

Wrap-up, round table. The “quarter” was passed and in general, all members were happy with progress tonight and the plan for the future meetings.

Next meeting will be August 16 at 7pm at the Huston Center at Brandywine.

Meeting adjourned at 2100hrs by Brad Sinrod.

Respectfully submitted: July 21, 2011

Leo Scaccia

Secretary

Thanks to Parkesburg Fire Commissioner Ray Stackhouse for making these notes available.