Minutes
of the
St. Clair County Fire Chiefs Association
May 27, 2010
Meeting was called to order at 7:04pm by President Saunders
President Saunders thanked St. Clair Special Emergency Services for hosting the meeting. Solvey fluorides provided the food for the evening
Motion was made and seconded to approve the minutes as presented. Motion passed.
Treasurer’s report - The chief’s checking account balance is $8,709.76. Motion was made and seconded to approve the treasurer’s report. Motion passed.
President Saunders introduced Chief Pete Stehman from Collinsville Fire Department. Chief Stehman is doing a project on residential sprinkler systems and passed out a survey that he had the members fill out.
President Saunders introduced Dave Fellows, Region 8 Representative for ILEAS. Dave will be the liason between ILEAS and the chiefs association/MABAS Division 32. He gave a quick overview of some of the assests that ILEAS has. Dave is also the representative for the public works administration and gave a quick overview of some their programs.
EMA – Randy Lay will be appointed EMA director at the end of June. EMA will be working on a project of mapping the tornado sirens in the county and will try to find money to assist with sirens in the county. EMA will also be looking at policies for activation of the sirens.
CENCOM/911 – Marty Bausano inquired if any departments needed 911 promotion items for fire prevention week. Email Marty for items needed. Issues are being found with the CAD system with the mapping portion and the 911 office is working to try and find a solution to the issues. The 911 office will be sending out data information on flash drives to allow departments to see and verify their boundary lines. Boyer fire protection asked 911 for information concerning which fire protection district takes care of addresses. At this point, 911 will be referring Boyer back to each individual department. The issue of reducing the call types is going to be addressed by the CENCOM group.
SWIC – Fire Apparatus Engineer for summer semester has been cancelled. Lee will be working on the IFSAC certification over the summer. Flyers for fall semester will be coming out soon.
OSFM – No report
SCSESA – The equipment is available to view once the meeting is adjourned. O’Fallon Underwater Search and Rescue was introduced. OUSART is working with SCSESA and will now be dispatched by CENCOM. Brandon Meadows gave an overview of what OUSART does. OUSART mostly takes care of static water dives and is not trained in swift water at this point.
STARRS – Waiting for budget approval from Homeland Security. Microwave tower project is just getting started and will link counties together across the river. A STARRS communications plan is also being worked on.
Tactical Interoperabilty Communications Plan – A kickoff meeting was held two weeks ago and work on the TICP will move forward.
Paging System – Coverage issues still exist with the paging system in certain areas of the county. Ideas are being researched and the ETSB has been asked to test the system with a spectrum analyzer. Permanent solutions are being explored
Lee Smith and Brent Saunders have been appointed to the interoperability governance board. A communication committee is being appointed to address issues of fire departments and PSAP’s to work with the ETSB. Any person interested in being on the committee needs to talk with Brent Saunders.
Discussions have been held about adding 4 more fireground talk groups on the 800 mhz system. The fire service has asked that a usage plan be developed before these talk groups are installed or begin to be utilized. Brent asked about template planning for the radios before programming as well and that is being looked at.
The ETSB has re-evaluated the backup plan for radios and it appears a number of radios are available and they will be distributed to fire departments who have very little in the way of 800 mhz communications capabilities.
Chief Lanxon thanked the departments that assisted with the multiple alarm fire yesterday in Belleville. Belleville fire department was commended for their actions and for their workings with area departments.
Chief Vaughn with Scott AFB retired last week and a new chief will be appointed soon.
Resource Manual – Work on the resource manual continues. We are still waiting for 5 departments to finalize their questionnaires. The website to enter the information has been turned off and all submission are now being done manually.
The IAFC and the IFCA will be hosting a Beyond hoses and helmets class October 23rd and 24th in Teutopolis Illinois. Information was sent out.
ID Cards – No Report
Vendor Showcase – Will be at Mid-America at the September meeting.
New Business:
Narrowbanding – Discussion was held concerning the issue of narrow banding on the county wie basis. Recommendation was to form a committee to begin looking at this issue and be ready to help fire departments as needed.
ICS 300 & 400 classes are being set up for November. Information will be sent out when plans are finalized.
Affton Chemical has joined the chiefs association
Motion was made and seconded to adjourn at 8:20pm. Motion passed.
Minutes
of
MABAS Division 32
May 27, 2010
The March meeting of MABAS Division 32 was called to order at 8:20pm by President Saunders.
Motion was made and seconded to approve the minutes of the March 2010 as presented. Motion passed.
Treasurers Report – Checking account balance is $4,600.00. Motion made and seconded to approve. Motion passed.
The MABAS Staff assistant visit scheduled for June 16th.
Washington Park is working on getting paperwork to join the Division.
GPS – The GPS data for engine house locations has not yet been corrected. The recommendation was to hold off on distributing the units until such time as the data has been corrected.
Chief Brett Walker from Brooklyn passed away. Arrangements have been made. A moment of silence was held for Chief Walker.
Motion was made and seconded to adjourn at 9:02pm. Motion passed.