Philosopher Camus wrote “Always go too far, because that’s where you will find the truth.”
White Pine County Commission Meeting May 23, 2018
Public Comment
Michael Bodwin from the Nevada Division of Forestry has a new program to link communities to Wildland Programs, this program is called the Community Wildland Fire Protection Plan. Part of the program is to find grant money to help communities install Field grades and chipping programs.
Fire Commission
Public Comment–
Ward “ I didn’t know this until last night but KGM Bald Mountain has offered to donate a Ford F 550 Super Duty 2011 Type 6 fire truck to the County Fire District. The fire truck will be stationed in Cold Creek.”
Discussion/For Possible Action- Approval of the FY 2019 Renewal Proposal from Nevada Public Agency Compensation Trust and approval for payment from FY 2019 Funds at the rate outline in the back up materials.
Alan Reed, Warren Reed Insurance “The good news is the workers compensation premium the rates are going to go down by 6.47%. As well the Hard Loan rate is going to go down by 26%.”
4/0 Approved
Discussion/For Possible Action – Approval of the FY 2019 Renewal Proposal from Nevada Public Agency Insurance POOL and approve for payment from FY 2019 Funds in the amount of $33,919.89.
Alan Reed “This reflexes 11.2% rate increase. We have two million dollars in building coverage right now and $591,000 in Contents coverage, that is up 2% from last year. Automobile coverage is also a driver of the premium. You have 36 vehicles and trailers. Last year you had 34. And finally the payroll is up about 3%. The hurricanes and the California wildfires had a pretty hard effect on the insurance industry. When the insurance companies sat down with Lloyd’s of London, they found they were looking for about a 25% rate increase in cost. Lloyd gave POOL only a 10% rate increase, about $3,400 increase.”
4/0 Approved
Discussion/Update – on the hiring of a new Fire Chief and an Emergency Management Director.
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Discussion/For Possible Action: approval to combine the Emergency Management position with the Fire Chief position to process the candidates who have the potential background in Emergency Management and grant writing along with advertising the position for Fire Chief and Emergency Director.
Ricci “Last Friday we only had two applicants for the fire chief position, and at the end of the day we had four. We did not receive any applications for Emergency Management position. So after discussion with Finance, I would like to advertise for three positions. One position would be a combination of both Fire Chief and Emergency Management, the second position would be Fire Chief only and the third position would be for Emergency Management.”
Stork “I think I express myself on this subject before, they should be separate positions. I do not feel that it’s prudent to have a Fire Chief act as Emergency Management.”
McKenzie “I don’t think there’s enough time in the day for one person to complete both positions.”
Howe “We just went through this and it didn’t work out, but we have to create some interest. The combination of Fire Chief and Emergency Management would be a higher paid position. I feel we should advertise all three positions and see what we get”
Bybee “ I really feel these two position should be independent of each other. We need to keep recruiting for the Emergency Management position.”
Ward “If you don’t get any applicant you don’t have a pool to choose from.”
This agenda item died for lack of action. In June they will start interviewing the Fire Chief position, until then the advertising for the Fire Chief will continue. The advertising for the position for Emergency Management will be extended.
Discussion/For Possible Action – Approval to reduce the cost of the EMS Services contracted for the Air Races at Yelland Field.
Gale “I don’t want to take away any value or anything they’ve done, their estimate is $11,512.50. Is there any wiggle room here?”
Stork “This contract is for 24-hour service. Do we need the EMTs out there for 24 hours? Can we have them only during the show itself?”
Wheable “We do have campers out there for the 24 hours?”
Ward “The 24-hour coverage is mandated due to the amount of people expected there. We need an ambulance and an ambulance crew set up for just the event, because we need the other ambulances to be on call as usual. This is the action plan set up with the FAA”
McKenzie “From what I hear we are at the low end for what we charge for this service.”
Bybee “One thing we can do is leave the employees cost alone and cut the amount we charge for the equipment”
Francis “You may want to cut the cost, and tell the profit or loss of the event has come in and then adjusted that time.”
The cost of having an ambulance there is $25 per hour per ambulance , four ambulances are required. The County Commission did sat these rates, and in order to change them they need to have another agenda item. This is the same rate that was charged to the Silver State Classic Car Race. The difference between the air races and the car races is that the air race is a County event, the car races are not a County event.
4/0 the county will cut the rate from $100 a day to $50 a day, with the stipulation that if there is more money brought in, the county will reimburse the fire department for the money they’re giving up.
Public Hearing & Appeal Hearing
The County’s intent to Abate through demolition two dangerous structures in McGill pursuit to section 302 of the Uniform Code for the Abatement of Dangerous Buildings, as adopted by incorporation under White Pine County Code 14. 05. 0 1 0, identified as and located at 23 Avenue C, McGill, Nevada and storage units located behind McGill-Ruth Sewer and Water District, 31 North Street, McGill Nevada. The County reserves the right to make the cost of demolition incurred by the county a special lien assessment against the property.
No appeals were sent in to stop this abatement. The owner of the 23 Avenue C, McGill, Nevada has a contract with a company to have the demolition done. This demolition should be completed by June 30th.
4/0 Approved
Discussion / Update on the Special May 30th County Commission Meeting for the purpose of interviewing Human Resource Director candidates.
Howe “I feel it’s important for the community to be here for the interviews of the applicants, I believe there are 6 of them. This special meeting will help us get someone in place before Kathy’s retirement. If we have not done it now it wouldn’t happen until mid June or July.”
Approval to appoint Brianna Hedges as an alternate to the Local Emergency Planning Committee and the Water Advisory Committee representing the Ely Shoshone Tribe.
Congratulations to Brianna Hedges as a new member of the LEPC.
Discussion/For Possible Action approval to set a special County Commission meeting on Friday, June 15th 2018 to approve the canvas of the vote from the 2018 primary election.
This is necessary because the approval has to of the election.
Howe will be busy this day and will not be able to attend, Bybee suggested that they not load up the agenda because he has other projects in the community to complete.
5/0 Aproved
Ratification of the amended tax bill.
Bakaric “We the good news, I was able to sell the Ely Central School building. The bad news is I made a slight error in my calculation for back taxes and we will have to write off $125.10. We did get $13,200 for the building.
4/0 Approved
Approval of the term return of sale of real estate.
There were seven properties that did not sell and will be on the next property tax sale.
4/0 Approved
Discussion/Update – on the White Pine Aquatic Center’s involvement in and assistance to the local AYSO Soccer Program ran by Steptoe Valley Soccer Club volunteers.
Brown “This will be an all volunteer program, all coaching and volunteering would be on a volunteer basis. All of the volunteers would need background checks and we would be paying for that. We would also be responsible for controlling the money. Any registration money that came in will go through the county in our accounts. We would be doing all of the tax base stuff and we’ll have complete control. This way we would keep all of our money here locally instead of sending it out to AYSO organization. This may require a contract between the county and the currents Steptoe Valley Soccer Club. This would help the local vendors who could be providing the uniforms and equipment. It should not be any additional cost to the county, because the software and the insurance we already have.”
Stork “We can’t vote on this today the way it was put on the agenda.”
Brown “No, I tried to get it on as an action item, but was unable to.”
Howe “I don’t like it at all. I don’t like the county taking over any sporting program. We have many people in the county that do not participate in this program. If we do this we will be in the running the Little League, Etc. This opens up avenues for bad things to happen, for one thing we would be handling the money. For the county to step up and be the front man for any athletic organization, or other organizations is just not right.”
Bybee “This is a lot more than we talked about before, we were going to handle sign ups and registrations. This makes me nervous. I’m getting a little uncomfortable because we already had ASYO. We were going to assist and now it appears we are going to take it over. This does make me very nervous.”
Brown “ This is not something new. A lot of large counties like Salt Lake County already handled the locals Sports.”
Stork “Meg could you do the research on the large counties and get back to us before we put this on the agenda again?”
Brown “ I can do that, what exactly do you want to know?”
Stork & Bybee “How other counties handle this.”
(This is a discussion only item so no vote could be taken. I do like the idea of one place to get involved in sports. It would be nice to be able to have your children go to the pool and sign up for different sports that interest them, instead of trying to locate where to sign up. I also understand that there could be a lot more to this than is put forward. Francis had a very good point in asking, the money collected would that be money going into the County or would we be collecting it for the club? Brown explained that the money would be needed to lease out the equipment from the soccer club, and would go to buying the awards and prizes to go to the soccer club members.)
Discussion / Update on resolution of the issue with Norris Hendrix’s address and Lund and how similar issues will be addressed in the future.
Christiansen “Mr. Hendrix`s property was actually addressed correctly, it was the houses around his property that had the wrong addresses. We did readdress the three vacant Lots and now have the proper address for them. Notices have been sent out to the proper addresses of the owners.”
Discussion/For Possible Action – approval to put Hangar number 2 out for the second round of bids.
Gale “On the last round of betting we had no written bids and only one person who came to give a verbal bid. And he did not bid on it. Now we’re looking for some direction from the commissioners we’d like to put it back out for a bit I do have some other information work with the DA’s office just some clarification, one of the big questions was if two or three people could come in and share the hanger? We need some clarification and rewording. I have gone back and talk to people who are interested in the hanger and they felt if two or three guys could have combined to pay for the hanger, because they felt that the base bid was a little high, they would have been as one on the hanger.”
McKenzie “How many planes could you put in that hanger?”
Gale “Easy three or four planes.”
Howe “How much is the rent?”
Gale “The minimum bid was $300 a month”
Bybee “The hanger holds three or four planes and 300 a month is too high!”
Gale “We did the research with the FAA and this is the going rate for that size of building for 2015. Lease Value Plus square footage and this is what we came up with is $300 a month. Overnight rates to leave your airplane at the airport is $25 for a single-engine and $55 for a twin engine.”
Stork “ If we had a lot of transient traffic, it would be wiser to hang on to the hanger and rent it at a daily rate. But I do not see this type of traffic at this point.”
Gale “At the Ely Jet Center does offer a hanger usage per night at about $200 a night. Airmed does pay this amount to store their plane there overnight.”
Stork “I don’t care how many people are in the hanger, if we open up the big hanger we will be able to use it 4 a daily rate and it will hold a lot more planes.”
Gale “We have to request to rent the larger hanger as soon as the tenants there move out. It would be Ely Jet Center and Medx One. Their airplanes are too large to fit into hanger 2, so they would like to have the larger hanger.
The request for bids was not clear enough, people wanting to bid on the hanger did not know if they could bid together. So we need to clarify the qualifications in the bid process. The bill would go to one individual, but they would all share the space.
Right now the plane owners are paying $55 a month to have their planes in the larger hanger.”
No one would make a motion to put hanger to out for bid again, so this agenda item guide for lack of motion.
Discussion/For Possible Action approval of a quote for service from Commemorative Air Force to provide an N3M and an L-19 aircraft with Personnel for $4,000 and or CAF/Nevada Wing aircraft with personnel photographer services for $2,250 for a total of $6,250.
Gale “We how do a presentation from these two groups at the last air race meeting. And one thing they will do is they will have the aircraft here on display and after the race they will offer rides in the aircraft.
One of the big things is they go to all of the air shows. And they do all the write-ups for upcoming events. On the photography side, will you put out for bids and most came back that we do not have the equipment to do this type of photography. This group is professional at Air Races and they take pictures of planes going up to 400 miles an hour. When they take the pictures they give them back to us for promotion.
One thing you will notice is that we need an air boss, we did go out and get bids. All the bids were from $4,000 to $11,000. Now the air boss is there on the premises and controls all air traffic during the event. It is a requirement from the FAA that we do have an air boss. With this agreement from Commemorative Air Force and CAF / Nevada Wynn craft the air boss comes with the package. We get the air boss, the display of planes and photographer for that $6,000.”
4/0 Approval
Discussion/Update – on the 2018 Air Races
Gale “This is the last commission meeting before the races, I would like to have any questions you have. On the 5th of June I do have to get three different weather forecast for the next 12 days. I will get it from Elko, Las Vegas and Reno. Once we get those and have them confirmed, I will attach them to the insurance policy and get the check out to the insurer. It will be send overnight and then we are insured. At the weather report does not look good we have 24 hours to redo the forecast and possibly called the event off.
I had come before the board and said that we need 350 volunteers, we now have 320 volunteers.
Last week we had the FAA here to check everything out. They did a trial run and they said they can’t believe that we have not tried to do this before. We had to do a little adjustment to the course, all other races are a left-handed flying patterns and ours will be a right-handed course.
We have kept our classes simple to one, it’s the IF1. In future years we plan on extending to have other classes.
We had a mock EMS event and the FAA was impressed with our plans.
As of last week there have been over 500 tickets purchased.”
Discussion/For Possible Action – approval to start the June 13th regular Commission meeting later in the day to allow Commissioners to be present for opening ceremonies at the Air Races.
The opening ceremony will start at 8 a.m. . And we would like to have the commission there. There will be several other officials from the state attending.
4/0 Approval do start the June 13th Commission meeting at 10
Kathy Ricci, Human Resources Director has agreed to stay in her position until a new Human Resource Director can be appointed and trained.
Get out to vote and get your Air Races Tickets.
Geri Wop
