Marion County Firefighters given praise following burn project

Marion County commissioners heard from local firefighters at Monday’s meeting and how their task force scored high marks as part of a burn project at Quivira Boy Scout Ranch in Sedan.

Lester Kaiser, Lincolnville fire chief, said as volunteers they were graded on their performance with the highest marks given for attitude.

In addition, Erik Johnson, whose home unit is the Colorado River Fire Rescue stated the Marion County firefighters were prompt in arriving and in duty areas.

“The crew boss for the students advised me that the task force of personnel were engaged in their work. They integrated well with the crew and learned new techniques to improve their own response duties,” he said.

Johnson said: “I recommend the Marion County task force for future assignments and deployments. (It was) a pleasure to work with the staff.”

Matt Voth, another member of the Marion County task force, said some of the positive things about these experiences is the morale of firefighters is high, and the most modern, safest and standardized procedures are being followed.

“This is paying dividends in minimizing loss to residents while seeing how much better the departments are working together,” he said.

“The attitude of ‘each department is its own island’ is going way, and all of these things are leading to recognition in reports to the Kansas governor,” Voth said.

Randy Frank, emergency management director, also stepped up, Voth said.

An area that can hurt the morale of the local firefighters, he said, are mandates (referring to the new 800 MHz radios) from the Marion County sheriff’s office, and pressure from the new EMS director for more trucks, he said.

“Policies they are proposing or have proposed such as radios and now a new proposal on how many fire trucks should be taken to an automobile accident, are not based on a current on current standards,” Voth said. “We think they are sometimes forced down our throats.”

One way the county fire chiefs hope to stop these types of policies is to meet with the sheriff’s department, EMS department and city police to form a working group where each entity can bring and have input on new emergency policies, Voth added.

The county fire chiefs also want to encourage the sheriff’s office to have more training for its dispatch employees.

“We would also encourage EMS to look at and create a program for recruiting medical first responders,” he said. “If each of these two departments would look to improve within instead of trying to create policy involving others, we feel great improvements could be made for the county residents,” he said.

Commissioner Dianne Novak said she thinks the volunteer fire fighters are doing an “awesome job.”

Dallke said he was disappointed when a structure fire occurred in the county and only two firefighters from Peabody went out, but 10 from Goessel arrived, along with trucks and other equipment.

The commissioners also heard from Myron Regier, Dan Bernhardt and Brandi Barney with the Marion County fair board association requesting $6,000 toward improvement projects, which was unanimously approved.

A major project, said Barney, is adding roofs over the east and west bleachers on the show pavilion at an estimated cost of $16,653.

Spring Branch Construction LLC of Hillsboro would be in charge of the project.

Other smaller projects include repairing and replacing tin on buildings, bathrooms in the commercial building and new bleachers for the arena. But, Barney said the cost for new aluminum bleachers in the southwest corner would be close to $35,000.

Diedre Serene, director of the Marion County Health Department, discussed services and recent news.

Erin Hein, a childcare licensing surveyor, joined the Daycare Expansion Committee, which is a group meeting monthly to improve daycare options in the county.

“Other committee members,” Serene said, “include the Hillsboro Community Foundation, USD 410 School District and businesses, who have lost good employees because employees can’t find adequate daycare.”

Dallke asked Serene what daycare costs are? She said someone could be looking at about $35 a day, and if a child is sick, the parent(s) still pay for that day.

“Infants are hard to get into daycare, she said, because an infant counts as 1.5 children (based on state standards),” she said.

Serene added that this week is National Infant Immunization Week, and 2019 is the 25th anniversary of Vaccines for Children.

VFC is federally funded and provides vaccines at no cost to children who might not otherwise be vaccinated because of their inability to pay, she said.

“Most parents choose the safe, proven protection of vaccines,” she said. “Giving babies the recommended vaccinations by age 2 is the best way to protect them from 14 serious childhood diseases.”

Christian Stitz of Denver provided a pictometry update and three options to consider in using the product.

The commission decided to upgrade its software from $97,000 to $106,000, which will give a better view of the land, structures, flood plains, and more.

Bud Druse, recycling director, and Chris Otto, Fort Riley recycling, spoke about a partnership between the two entities and asking the commission to approve their request.

Otto said that because it is a military installation, there are certain regulations he needs to follow, and suggested a test period of two months to see what Marion County is giving to Fort Riley.

If the test period proves to be advantageous to both the county and Fort Riley, Otto said they would pay $10-$15 a ton.

Currently, the county sends its recycling to Waste Connections, and Dallke said as long as that could remain an option in the future, he would be willing to try the recycling program at Fort Riley.

The commission voted unanimously to begin sending recyclables to Fort Riley as soon as it can be lined out.

In addition, Druse said the recycling bins outside the transfer station are available 24 hours a day until noon on Saturday. No bins will be available to dump recycling on Saturday afternoon through Sunday until it is reopened again on Monday. The reason for the change, he said, is because employees don’t work on weekends, and the recycling bins are overflowing.

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