Dec. 1 set as deadline for agreements
Responding to calls during a pandemic and new county contracts dominated the discussion among other topics during the volunteer fire department chief meeting Thursday night.
COVID RESPONSE
Local health authority nurse Brynn Smith urged caution in responding to calls amidst a spike in COVID-19 cases at the county volunteer fire department meeting Thursday night.
“At this point with the prevalence of COVID cases in our county, every single call that you go on you need to act like they [the callers] have it,” Smith said. “There’s a lot of evidence pointing toward this being an airborne transmitted virus.”
Protocols to respond to an airborne virus include wearing a N95 mask, something Smith was vital to keeping shifts or even whole departments on duty.
“You’ve really got to urge your people to make sure they’re masking on every single call,” Smith said. “I don’t care if it’s a house fire, if it’s a public assist. No matter what it is, they’ve got to wear a mask.”
Smith noted the CDC updated their definition of “close contact” Oct. 21 to include “being within six feet of an infectious individual for a total of 15 minutes or greater during a 24-hour period.” Prior to that, a person had to be within six feet for 15 consecutive minutes.
“Even if you have shift workers that are working 24 hours, and they stay separated, it’s a combined 15 minutes,” Smith said.
“You might as well at this point consider everybody hot and wear your N95 there,” county fire chief Andy Endsley said.
The county recently received a shipment of 28,000 N95 masks and 40,000 surgical masks, which where distributed to all VFDs, care facilities, schools and other areas in the county, according to Endsley.
“We’ll order more N95s,” Endsley said. “We can get another big shipment like that if we need to.”
CONTRACTS
County judge Robert Newsom handed out new contracts at the meeting for the VFDs to sign and went over changes.
According to Newsom, funding will stay at the same amount for VFDs, and to be in line with statutes, Endsley will be named county fire marshal at the Nov. 9 commissioners court meeting. Endsley will not have any law enforcement powers; that will be fulfilled by the assistant fire marshal Mike Matthews, Endsley said.
A new social media policy was added to the contract, and Newsom described it as “common sense.”
“Just don’t down everyone on social media,” Newsom said. “We felt like we needed to add that.”
Volunteer firefighters will also have to undergo a background check under the new contract, paid for by the county. The county is requiring all new and current employees to have a one-time background check.
Departments selfdispatching to calls is prohibited, the contract reads, and Newsom said county funds will be withheld if a department is found to be in violation.
“Self-dispatching… is really a dangerous thing,” Newsom said. “It produces chaos and can produce wrecks. That includes people going in their own cars.”
Precinct 3 Commissioner Wade Bartley said insurance would not cover departments that self-dispatched to calls.
Dec. 1 was set as a goal for departments to turn in their contracts, and Bartley said funding will be cut if department do not meet that deadline. Miller Grove VFD chief Ray Sparks said he was “at the behest of my membership” at the station to accept the contract.
“If they disagree with it and want me to come back negotiate with you guys, then I’ve got to tell them there’s no negotiating,” Sparks said. “You’re bullying my members.”
Precinct 1 Commissioner Mickey Barker said county funds need some way to be tracked, and he said the contract is key at that.
“We went over these contracts several times,” Bartley said. “The judge pointed out what the changes were from last year that needed to be made to address some situations.”