Ochopee FCD Advisory Board Minutes 09/10/2012 Vf
OCHOPEE FIRE CONTROL DISTRICT 2
ADVISORY BOARD MEETING
HELD ON SEPTEMBER 10, 2012 BY: °°°°°,...............
The following were in attendance:
Alan McLaughlin, Fire Chief, Ochopee Fire Control District
Caleb Morris, Captain, Ochopee Fire Control District
Ronald Gilbert, Chairman, Port of the Islands,Advisory Board Member
Tony Davis, Port of the Islands Advisory Board Member
Frank Hawkins, Port of the Islands Advisory Board Member Fiala
Hiller i/
McBeth Collins, Everglades City Advisory Board Member Henning
Coyle r.
The meeting came to order and then roll call of the attendees.
The meeting minutes of 8-13-12 were signed with no changes.
OLD BUSINESS
DOF, SAFER& FEMA Grant Updates:
Chief McLaughlin —The DOF Grant was approved and will be used for foam. We have applied
for the SAFER Grant it is a 100%funded. Under the new hire stipulation of the grant it is 100%
funded for two years and we do not have to retain any of those individuals after expiration of
the grant. We have asked for $918,000 for six people and that includes salaries, benefits and
FSLA overtime but it does not include uniforms. It does include personal protective wear but
not uniforms. We have applied for it and it should open up again late in the fall. That would
give us two additional personnel per shift which would virtually eliminate our overtime and our
job banking for two years which is $45,000 of our budget. It also allows us just about 100% of
the time to comply with the NFPA 1720 assembly requirements for the District.
Tony Davis—You said two people per shift would that be traditional type firemen.
Chief McLaughlin- Yes Firefighter EMTs just like we hire. The employees through the grant are
not FTEs through the county they are more or less contract Firefighters. They sign a document
when they are hired that their employment is for the term of the grant.
Macbeth Collins—They are like a free agent.
Misc. Cortes:
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Chief McLaughlin—Yes, in fact the question came up if they could join the union which he did
not believe they could because they are not County employees they are contracted and paid
through the grant. They are not entitled to regular overtime because that is paid with tax
dollars and there is no provision in the grant for that. The only overtime they cover is FLSA
overtime which is 53 + 3 in a work week which is part of their salary. He feels we will have
some relief in the budget approximately$20,000 in overtime and $30,000 in Job Banking every
little bit helps. It will be less of a burden to the County they will be able to lessen the amount of
in lieu of tax funds that they are giving us to keep our budget going.
Ron Gilbert—We never did hear anything from the insurance company.
Tony Davis— He called the insurance company again last week but he has not heard back from
any one yet.
Chief's Report: We are experiencing the same number of calls there has not been any changes.
The monthly report for training prevention is in the report. We had one on site pre-application
for the Copeland Plant but that is for the exception they are upgrading the well. The Mayor just
needs a letter stating that they were exempt from having hydrants out there. We did 389 hours
of training with a record of 299 for all individuals for the month. He went over the call load on
the report. The 1-75 calls in the report were down which is highly unusual. That concludes the
Chief's report.
NEW BUSINESS
Tropical Storm Isaac:
Chief McLaughlin —We survived Tropical Storm Isaac quite well we did double up for three or
four hours on Saturday to hold over the shift so that we could pack up items. We rented a
truck to carry the items so they could be taken away to a safer spot. We kept a shift over late
Sunday night anticipating a change in the storm direction which did not happen.
Ron Gilbert—Did you have any flooding.
Chief McLaughlin — We had some flooding in Everglades City and in Goodland. Even though
Goodland is not in our District we were asked to take a look. The south end of Everglades City
experienced some flooding. We have received some FEMA reports that the Mayor of
Everglades City has applied for compensation. The FEMA adjusters have already been down to
assess the area.
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Ron Gilbert—The prevailing south wind kept the water up here a long time.
7rcte
Chief McLaughlin — With the high tjn(e it kept pushing it in. We were at the Plantation bridge
and high tide was supposed to be at noon about 20 minutes after high tide it was still roaring
under the bridge. We survived it well and we have turned in paper work regarding our
expenses during the storm. We purchased approximately $74 of lumber to get some
equipment off the ground and rented a moving truck that did not come out of our budget the
rest will be overtime.
Ron Gilbert— Have you ever considered making this the main station here because of elevation.
Chief McLaughlin—Yes.
Ron Gilbert—And?
Chief McLaughlin— It is not politically acceptable at this time.
Ron Gilbert—Safety wise.
Chief McLaughlin — We have talked about moving the administrative office only down to this
building here and that will depend on the building in Everglades City as it continues to age we
are still having rat problems in the attic. If we get flooded again like the last time we will have
to consider some alternative. The other thing is if we get the man power in we don't have
any where to house the people unless we open our side up. The ultimate goal is to see if
Everglades City could get a grant to replace the fire station. It is tough being on an island in a
flood plain. The building needs to be elevated.
Ron Gilbert—You had water in the station during Wilma right?
Chief McLaughlin — Yes and we received the low end of the storm surge we had about ten
inches in the station. At Lost Mans Pass the buoys registered 16 feet of water that would have
put us to the second floor. During Donna they had 16 feet of water it was up to the roof tops of
the houses. Actually the waterlines were recorded at City Hall and it would have been over our
roof. It did not flood in Ochopee during Donna.
McBeth Collins— He said during Wilma was the highest he had seen it in Everglades City but his
parents would probably say Donna was higher.
Chief McLaughlin — He spoke to Sammy Hamilton he said the water was at the bottom of the
second floor that puts it at 16 feet roughly.
McBeth Collins—He said it was waist deep he had never seen it waist deep before.
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Chief McLaughlin - We have a contingency plan because we know it floods here and usually a
category three hurricane will bring in at least 16 foot of water. All of the office files and
important items are evacuated out of the station. If we are going to get a straight hit from a
hurricane then we would go up to 1-75 and stay at the rest station until the storm moves on.
Going to town would be a problem if we went to the EOC we might not be able to get back out.
Ron Gilbert—Wilma was a category three.
Chief McLaughlin —Yes, Donna was a little stronger. He received an e-mail from Jim Simmons's
daughter Carol that he had become ill while visiting them. She said he was in intensive care and
that he might not be coming back. He obtained the address of the facility where Jim Simmons
has been admitted in case they wanted to send a card to him. We went through our first
budget review last week three of the board members approved it one did not and one board
member was absent. We are assuming at the next meeting there will be more. But we don't
anticipate the budget changing. We actually did very well this year with our budget but we
won't know until the end of the year. We have at least twice as much in our savings this year
than last year. We are finishing up some of the items that have to be repaired. If we have
$60,000 in carry forward this year we will see that in the 2014 budget. We do have some
projects coming up in this next budget year. We have some issues with equipment and we
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pave been some grant money to resolve the problem but we are going to look at
�Ae Cq'esome different avenues..--1Irgot the go ahead to pursue a loan to refurbish the marina at Port
of the Islands. He is in the process of tracking down who in the County would handle this issue.
We have two trucks coming off a lease purchase which is $45,000 a year and we are paying
$16,000 a year leasing rooms for fire personnel at Port of the Islands. If we took a loan out for
7 years we could cover it. The expense would be same as carrying forward the lease purchase
and the lease at Port of the Islands. Potentially we could do this with no change to the budget.
We are in the processing of pursuing that it will get us moving on this facility it looks like that is
the only way it is,�oing to happen. ,
Frank Hawkins — Have you considered remodeling the Station at Port of the Islands so that it
could be the storm command center.
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Chief McLaughlin — Yes, but the only concern I would have/debris and where we would put
the vehicles obviously we would not be able to get them all inside. It would also depend on the
wind velocity. If it were a category two we might split our resources up. This time we split
some of our resources we kept some people at Port of the Islands and some at Ochopee. We
can't put everybody at Ochopee.
Frank Hawkins— Is a backup generator included in the building plans?
Chief McLaughlin—Yes.
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Ron Gilbert—Actually if Everglades City gets shut down you could operate out of here.
Chief McLaughlin — Another justification for this station is if the building at Everglades floods
out we have Dlar where to go. We can use Ochopee as a fall back but it would be difficult to
operate out of that station. The premise would be as soon as we get this station done it could
be our fall back. We could move our administration to the Port of the Islands station and the
crew could stay at Ochopee. The building that the Everglades City Fire Station is in belongs to
the City of Everglades not to the District we are just renting it for a dollar a year under an MOU
that was installed in 1992 which is going to expire this year.
Frank Hawkins—Wouldn't the Port of the Isles Fire Station be first in restoration with LCEC?
Chief McLaughlin—Said yes, because this is a primary site facility.
McBeth Collins — With Hurricane Wilma we were the first with power restoration in Collier
County.
Chief McLaughlin — With Wilma I was without power for seven days and eleven days with
Charlie and I was in the City of Naples.
A motion was made to adjourn the meeting it was seconded and passed the meeting ended.111/
Ronald Gilbert, Chairman
Ochopee Fire Control District Advisory Board
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