John Scarffe, Nederland. The Nederland Fire Department Board of Directors drew straws for Board elections during a regular meeting at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, March 4, 2020, at Fire Station Number One. The Board also followed up on procedures and guidelines being written by Fire Department members and heard Fire Chief Rick Dirr’s presentation on his activities since complaints have been lodged against the fire department. 

Election for new Board members will take place on May 5, and the polling place will be at Station One in Nederland. Three terms are up for grabs with Secretary Raymond Willis, Treasurer Nicholas Brodsky and Joe Evans not running again. The Board has four nominees, so they moved forward with the election during the meeting. 

Candidates were required to have a lot drawing as to who is first on the ballot, and they did not have to be present. The number one position on the ballot went to Todd White, number two to Patrick Richardson, number three to Ian Irwin-Powell and number four to current Board member Beth Davis. Mail out ballots will be printed and certified before the election.

During public comment, Nederland area resident Kayla Evans said that about a month ago she was approached by Board Chair Henry Zurbrugg to run for election on this board. He said they wanted an Evans on the Board. 

The other Evans on this Board, Kayla’s brother Joe Evans, should have been removed, she said. Kayla decided not to run for the Board because she has a lot of friends on this Board. As a person in this community and someone who has sat on a lot of boards, she said she has the responsibility to speak about what has come at her. 

Evans said she has spoken to a lot of people on the Board. and they have a lot of conflicting opinions. She has read the entire Fire Department handbook. 

“I think this fire department is magnificent, and it’s fucked up. It’s not my job to fix it,” Evans said. “Everybody in this room is a friend or acquaintance of mine, but it’s not working correctly. This fire department starts from the Board and then the chief and puddles down from there. 

“If it works right, it’s wonderful,” Evans said, “and if not, it’s a cluster poop. You’re not respecting each other and there’s no accountability. It is imperative that this board look at this as to how do we run this efficiently when property and lives are at stake.”

The handbook has not been updated since 2014, Evans said. She asked why it hasn’t been updated, and she couldn’t find anything in this book for a grievance and paper trail. 

“I love you guys, but you’re not as professional as you need to be. The noise is getting in the way. I say this from the bottom of my heart,” Evans said. 

Evans said the department has to have a grievance procedure and needs an alternate to come on this Board. “It is not the good old boys club. You have a vehicle that has a windshield that hasn’t been repaired in a year. That’s not how you run a fire department in a municipality when lives are at stake. It really boils down to the Board needs to be more efficient.” 

Chair Zurbrugg responded that Evans’ points are fair, but he added that it’s not easy if we sit here for ten years and no one shows up at the meetings, and then in the past two months all these issues show up. 

“We as the Board and Fire Chief have discussed paths forward to figure these things out and there is a way forward. There has been progress. If there are issues in the membership, they need to come to the Board, and the Board is trying to deal with this and find out what’s broken and why is it broken. 

“My wish was that if issues came up that they would have been addressed in a timely manner. It would have been helpful to understand these things. We understand it now, and there is a path forward,” Zurbrugg said.

Also during public comment, Fire Department Member Ian Irwin-Powell updated the Board on progress with writing Standard Operating Procedures (SOPS) and Guidelines (SAGS). During the February 5 Board of Directors meeting, the Board asked Fire Department members to form a committee addressing complaints brought against the Fire Department by member volunteers. 

Irwin-Powell represented the Fire Department members group at the January 8 meeting and at the February 5 meeting. Zurbrugg said the Board had received an email from Irwin-Powell outlining the membership’s top four issues: the Department needs a process for implementing SOPS and SAGS and a standardized format for continually improving SOPS; the Department needs a process for formalizing training to enhance safety; vehicles are often left with no process for returning the vehicle for service, and vehicles are not being maintained up to standards; the Department also has a lack of volunteer response at night.

At the March 4 meeting, Irwin-Powell said they have been making progress on writing SAGS, especially in training, and they have about 10 in progress and two training which take longer. “It takes more time than we’d like,” he said, but the team has identified a number of SAGs they’d like to work on. 

Irwin-Powell said he would like to set aside a time to get together with everyone and make sure we’re on the same page. He said he had comments and rebuttals from the last Board meeting. 

The use of word “noise” created friction in membership, Irwin-Powell said. At the February meeting, Zurbrugg said he talks with members of the public and the Department, and Board members always hear a lot of noise. They have to decide whether people have real issues. 

On March 4, Irwin-Powell said the members fear retaliation for talking directly to a Board member. “We have been lead that, when we go directly to the Board, it is not allowed and we will be fired. From what I’ve heard, you shouldn’t brush it off as noise, which is disrespectful.

“No one has faith in trying to resolve matters with the chief,” Irwin-Powell said. Complaints were ignored. I talked to the shift managers, and they had no resolutions. 

During action items, Zurbrugg said that at the last meeting, they talked about forming a committee to work on SOPS and SAGS. Irwin-Powell said people are writing SAGs. 

Once written, they give them to the shift captain and then to Chief Dirr. He hopes to make more progress next month. It’s a good start. “I think things ae moving in the right direction.”

During Chief Dirr’s report, he agreed that he is working with Irwin-Powell on SOPS. They will sit down together next week and see what shift officers look like, but they are making progress. A number of drafts have been uploaded. 

The Department has received 59 calls so far for the year, Dirr said. They recently had a CPR call and family members drove the victim, but they ran into the building by the Police Station. The patient didn’t survive, but the Police Department got positive feedback from the shop owner because the crew went in and cleaned it up.

Dirr has been in conference calls from people with the state regarding the Covid19 outbreak. He has ordered gowns, masks, swabbing, and ambulance decon procedure. He has an upcoming conference call in case responders get ill. 

“If we have a potential exposure, I’m working with when we get contacted whether positive or negative.” They could have to isolate someone of suspected being infected for three days. Dirr said he is actively working with the state and sent out state guidelines to membership. 

Dirr also updated the Board on grants, training, recruitment with two new applicants, inspections, radios, ambulance licensing, capital projects for new vehicles, and went through the entire list of vehicles and their maintenance.

The next meeting of the Nederland Fire Department Board of Directors will be on April 1, 2020, at Fire Station One, starting at 7 p.m.

(Originally published in the March 12, 2020, print edition of The Mountain-Ear.)