Good Business Decisions From NACFD? I Don't Think So!

If we consolidate will the NACFD make good business decisions for us? In a recent article in the Kingman Miner With Fire Trucks Relocated, Residents Worried About Coverage Chloride residents weren't happy with their consolidation with NACFD.

The article said the NACFD's budget went from 5 million a year, to a little over 2 million a year.

My question is, if the NACFD can operate 9 fire stations, an administration building, and lots of firefighters on a little over 2 million dollars a year, why can't we run 2 fire stations and a couple firefighters on over 1 million dollars a year? Doesn't make sense to me.

At the September community meeting Chief Moore said the NACFD doesn't want to just expand. So please, tell me how consolidating the NACFD with the Chloride fire district was a good business decision?

The Chloride fire district only pays $24,700 in fire tax to the NACFD each year. That's not $24,000,000 a year, that's only $24,000 a year.

That's enough for 1/2 a firefighter a day. So in my opinion, that wasn't a good business decision.

I'm tired of double talk answers. At a recent fire board meeting when I told Chief Moore that if Rosie's and the gas stations on US93 paid tax to the fire district at the same rate I do, they would pay $10,000 a year to LMRFD.

Chief Moore told me to be annexed into the fire district the property had to be contiguous, or touching our Fire district. That is true.

What the chief didn't tell me was that the businesses could pay a subscription service fee equal to the tax. He also didn't tell me that when he took over the LMRFD he stopped taking subscriptions. Another business decision I don't agree with.

The businesses are out of the fire district argument doesn't work. When Rosie's burned the LMRFD responded. Did we get paid on that fire?

MISTAKES In INFO FROM COMMUNITY MEETING
At the community meeting they handed out a lot of information. Two of the pages had calculation mistakes making it look better if their favor. I hope this was just a mistake.

On the page titled Personal Cost Analysis January 2015 with "Current" in the top right corner. They told us the cost for full time firefighters with John and Chief Moore was $802,795.71. That wasn't right, when you calculate it correctly the total is $859,327.00 not $802,795.71.

The other page titled LMRFD Projection W/Fire Chief Instead of JF NACFD with "Stand Alone" in top right corner. This page tells us the cost full time firefighters and a fire chief would be $852,786.52

So when you recalculate the employee cost with the fire chief it was actually $6541.00 less than the current figure.

Someone please tell me why the administrative assistant is paid $16.20 an hour, when a firefighter paramedic with 2000 hours of specialized training only gets $13.95 an hour?

Spending Other People's Money....
The information from the September community meeting also said the LMRFD needs a new ambulance.

It says the chief wants to spend $75,000 on a new truck chassis to put one of our old ambulance box on, so they wouldn't have to spend $150,000 on a new ambulance. In case you don't know a truck chassis is just the truck part with no box or bed installed. We put our old ambulance box on the new truck part.

Again I don't think that's a good business decision. There are many nice used ambulances for much less of OUR tax money. This is an example of a 2006 Ambulance with only 26000 miles for $20,000 Not $75,000 for a chassis, or $150,000 for a new one. It's your money, what would you do?

There's nothing wrong with the ambulance above, except how the Federal Government works. If you get $100,000 this year, and only spend $80,000, all you get next year is $80,000. So the feds get rewarded for not saving money, and someone gets good deals.

They also donated six of our AED's Automatic External Defibrillators to Kingman schools. They cost $1500 - $3000 new, they only had a $200 trade in, but it will cost a minimum of $9000 to replace them, and we needed them here.

We were broke and they give them away? Why didn't they sell them on eBay? Worse yet, there are no AED's I'm aware of in Dolan to save people from sudden cardiac arrest.

Consolidation is a bad idea in my opinion. The only acceptable way would be to separate the fire service from EMS.

We have no supervision, look how the firefighters treat people.

No matter what the Chief said, the NACFD wants to expand their district.

The LMRFD operated fine for 50 years until we stopped paying attention. Were paying attention now, and we need to keep control of our fire district.

We need local volunteers who care about the people, not arrogant firefighters who disrespect the citizens asking for help. If NACFD takes over how far do you think complaints about firefighters would go?

We paid off almost $1,000,000 over the last two and a half years, and we need to thank John and Chief Moore for their help.

The chief tells us he can't fill 2 positions he has open. I did a search for firefighter jobs in Dolan Springs, Mohave County nothing. Unless you search for "Lake Mohave Ranchos Fire District" job, you can't find the job openings.

The LMRFD survived for 50 years growing with the community needs. It wasn't just a bad board, but also a failing economy, and lack of citizen interest.

We're paying attention now, so please read the whole blog, give the other side a chance.

Jay