At the Falcon Fire Protection District board meeting Jan. 21, with all members present, board president Mike Collins said the Cimarron Hills Fire Protection District Board of Directors would like to extend the intergovernmental agreement between the two districts beyond the March 31 deadline, to Dec. 31.”Some concerns were raised about who was getting the better deal, Falcon or Cimarron Hills,” Collins said. “As far as I’m concerned, I think it’s a 50-50 split. We’re benefiting very well from the agreement, and the two fire departments are working well together.”Fire Chief Trent Harwig summarized the year-end call statistics. “The Falcon fire department responded to just over 1,800 calls last year, with a district-wide emergent response time of 12 minutes,” Harwig said, adding that the Falcon and Cimarron Hills departments ran 3,300 alarms together under the IGA.Dino Ross, the district’s attorney, said a bill has been introduced in the state Legislature that clarifies the types of medical services fees fire districts can charge. Ross said he would prefer a bill that eliminates all restrictions on the fees.Harwig expressed concern that the cost of health, auto and homeowners insurance would go up but also said the ability to impose impact fees on growth would be a positive.”Your taxes pay for basic services. What we need to do is put in something that preserves those essential services,” Ross said.New fire stationHarwig reported on the status of the new fire station in Woodmen Hills. He said he attended the Woodmen Hills Metro District’s board meeting and formally requested conveyance of the tract of land at Stapleton Road and Meridian Ranch Boulevard.There were a lot of questions on the aesthetics of the building, Harwig said. “We do intend for it to look like other commercial properties. We promised to have neighborhood meetings when the project gets further along,” he said.Harwig also said that he and Dan Kupferer met with county planning. “We were told the lot is already platted and zoned for a fire station, so it will not go through a development process,” he said. He also noted that the county will allow an exit from the fire station onto Meridian Ranch Boulevard.The site will have an entrance to the back of the building on Royal County Down Road, but that road will not be used to exit the fire station, Harwig said.”Some would have liked an exit on Stapleton Road. That’s not going to happen because that road is slated to be a six-lane road when it’s completed – a major arterial,” he said.”Noise is a big concern. We’ll have to educate our firefighters on when to use sirens.”The board discussed the request for proposal to design and build the new fire station, voting to separate the civil engineering part of the project from the RFP. They also voted to accept an approximate $20,000 bid from Kupferer’s company, Land Development Consultants, for the civil engineering.”We can be doing the plot plan and the civil engineering at the same time the bid process goes through. That would save us a couple months of work,” Harwig said. LDC was never compensated for its work on the site that was abandoned when Lowe’s backed out of the new fire station deal.Mystery e-mails, etc.Board treasurer Dena Bramhall attempted to resign as treasurer, saying that she didn’t feel comfortable with reports that don’t provide the in-depth details of every expenditure. The board convinced her to remain as treasurer by making sure she has access to the information she needs.The board approved a resolution specifying where meeting notices will be posted: Diamond Shamrock at the intersection of Old Meridian Road and Highway 24, Big R on Highway 24, fire station No. 1 and the district’s Web site, www.falconfirepd.org.They also decided to investigate the cost of having an online forum at the district’s Web site, where people can submit questions to the board and be able to view all of the answers to all of the questions.An e-mail sent by Bud Kucera came up for discussion. Dick Stuart described the e-mail as “the work of quite a few people.” Both Kucera and Stuart are former board directors; Stuart is a former volunteer assistant chief and Kucera is a former volunteer chief who is currently paid for vehicle maintenance.”The general consensus was that we would present it to you and see what you did with it,” Stuart said. “That can be taken as a word of caution. It can be taken as a word of advice. I know there’s a lot of people watching to see what you guys do.”Board director Richard Martin described another e-mail sent by William Gatti. He said the e-mail was “an attack on me for using the phone for teleconferencing to the board meeting.” Gatti said the e-mail was just a statement.”There is nothing illegal about attending by teleconferencing,” Ross said. The board can set parameters concerning how often and under what circumstances teleconferencing is used, he added.The contents of both e-mails were not disclosed. The board decided to put the e-mails on the agenda for its next meeting on Feb. 18.Gatti’s wife Claudia asked about the deputy standing in the back of the room. “I’m just wondering why and at what cost this is to us?””The deputy is here at the request of a couple of board members for personal safety,” Collins said. “I believe the cost is around $100 a meeting.”
