Acting Fire Captain Scott Basar and acting Fire Lt. Bill Regnier were unanimously promoted to captain and lieutenant respectively at the Chelsea Area Fire Authority (CAFA) Board meeting Tuesday morning.
The promotions follow interviews, oral boards and written exams.
In addition, Chief Jim Payeur asked the board for its support of the Washtenaw County Emergency Communications 10-year, 0.2 millage renewal, which will be on the March 8 primary election ballot.
Payeur said the money is needed for the replacement of outdated radio and communications equipment, to add radios in schools to provide direct contact with the county emergency dispatch system and to upgrade the county’s 911 system to the “Next Generation 911” system. This new system will allow emergency personnel across the county to text and send video and replace the current outdated pagers that are in use.
He said the millage request has been “well thought out” and it will enable better communications between first responders since today’s communication equipment is “better than it used to be.”
Payeur said the fire authority has completed an emergency plan for Chelsea Milling Company that identifies six priority incidents and each has an operational plan in place. They include emergency medical incidents, weather incidents, dust explosions, fires and hazardous materials.
In addition, Payeur said the authority had again applied for a federal grant to replace the firefighter’s breathing packs (an estimated cost of $90,000); and that last year although CAFA’s grant was approved, the money ran out before the equipment was funded.
Board Chairman Tom Osborne offered board members a preliminary projection for the costs of maintaining and replacing apparatus that totaled about $168,000 per year, which needs to be put aside and is money the authority does not have. A 0.2 mill request of the member municipalities would generate about $156,000 per year.
“We’d be a little short, but not working in a hole,” Osborne said, adding it was tough to guess the cost of a truck replacement 10 years down the road.
Included in the list of apparatus that will eventually need to be replaced were three engines, one tanker, one ladder truck, one squad vehicle, two brush trucks and a rescue vehicle. All would need to be replaced between now and 2038.
In January, according to the board packet, CAFA responded to 48 incidents in Chelsea, 9 incidents in Dexter/Dexter Township, 15 in Lima Township, 9 in Lyndon Township, 13 in Sylvan Township and 2 in Manchester.
