The BCARES Board of Directors met on 6 November 2000 at the Boulder
Police Dept. The meeting came to order at 1908 and a quorum was
declared. Capt. Chuck Pringle, the new head of County communications,
attended.
It was noted that the Bylaws are out of date due to the disbanding of
the BRCC. Some new language was suggested and is attached.
Progress was made on getting new ID cards. Capt. Pringle will
notify
Gayla Colbert that we need them en masse, and Len Koppel will
coordinate it with her.
Capt. Pringle notes there it is possible there will be some end-of-year
money available for new or upgraded equipment and needs a wish list.
Jack Ciaccia will coordinate that. He also notes that the Sheriff's
Office hopes to get approval for a new building near the jail for a
dispatch center. He notes that he definitely wants it to have
space
set aside for BCARES equipment storage as well as an area for a station
to be permanently set up. That setup would be available for training
and other purposes as well as "on duty" BCARES use.
Capt. Pringle asked if we had enough pagers. Since Jack Ciaccia
and
Jim Andrews both have SWAT pagers that also get alerted to any BCARES
traffic, the one BCARES-only pager is enough. He notes the Sheriff's
Office is looking at moving to a new paging system since the current
one is extremely overloaded.
Regarding the Walker Ranch fire this summer, BCARES' plan requires an
AUTOMATIC response to any Mode 3 fire. BCARES failed to mobilize
per
that plan. However, Capt. Pringle noted that BCARES was not called
out,
either, since we were truly not needed at this incident. This
fire was
different from previous fires in that all command was done on the scene,
not at the communications center, which was typical in the past.
Also,
TV was not an issue as TV news provided all the video that was needed.
However, in hindsight, Capt. Pringle said he wishes he had called BCARES
out, if only for more realistic training purposes. As a side
note,
Jeffco ARES has 70 active members, 46 of which have "Red Cards" to
work
on fire lines. At least one Jeffco ARES member worked the Walker
Ranch
fire, and noted that the fire being commanded by the county, then the
state, and then the feds led to much confusion on the fire line as
to
what radio frequency to use. A ham radio capable of being set
to "any"
frequency was extremely helpful!
There was a discussion about whether there are enough Board members
to
staff all of the identified Board jobs. It was recommended that
one
more at-large Board member (plus an alternate) be put out for comment
and, if possible, incorporated into the Bylaws before the annual meeting
in January.
---
Suggested Bylaws language:
ELIGIBILITY FOR MEMBERSHIP IN BCARES: 1) Licensed radio amateurs who
are at least 18 years of age and have 2) been approved by the Board
and
3) have passed a background check by an agency approved by the Office
of
Emergency Management shall be eligible for regular membership.
In
addition, the Board may approve for provisional membership licensed
radio amateurs age 18 and above who 1) have completed preliminary
training, 2) have demonstrated commitment to BCARES and 3) have not
been
rejected by any served agency.
ELIGIBILITY FOR BCARES BOARD OF DIRECTORS: to be discussed by e-mail.
(This is to be facilitated by Randy Cassingham creating an e-mail
discussion group on Topica for Board members. The address for
that
group is [email protected] -- all Board members shall be added
to
this e-mail reflector. The addresses added to the group are:
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
The current list of members can be obtained by any member of the list
by sending a blank e-mail to [email protected])
---
The meeting was adjourned at 2121, with the next meeting set for 8
January 2001 at 1900. The General meeting was set for 22 January
2001.
Submitted by:
Randy Cassingham, BCARES Secretary