Town of Princeton, MA
Public Safety Committee
Meeting Minutes
Wed February 23, 2011
Town Hall Annex
Chairman Sulmasy called the meeting to order at 7:00PM. Members present were Neil Sulmasy, Stan Moss, Jon Fudeman, William Dino, and Bob Sauer. Absent were Jim Comer and Charlie Schmohl. Also attending was Captain Ken Whitney from Princeton Fire Department.
Acceptance of Minutes
Feb 9 Minutes were unanimously approved as presented.
Discussion of full time fire chief
Chief Laporte provided detailed information about the expenses of the Fire Department. The one piece of information missing is the breakdown of salaries in the department.
The Committee directed discussion to the gaps that may need to be filled in the Fire department. There is concern that there are times when EMS does not have adequate coverage to respond to emergencies. This also holds true on the Fire department side. A possible answer is to move to a full time chief.
This chief would be multi-disciplined. The committee came to agreement that there are 2 main possibilities:
- We would have a full time chief/EMT/ fire fighter this would require a paramedic on call. Currently we average about 70% coverage for paramedic calls.
- We would have a Chief/Fire fighter/ Paramedic this would have an EMT on Call.
Stan is running fiscal numbers to see what is possible. There was also discussion about amending the on call stipend to help entice our current staff to take on call shift and possibly recruit a few more qualified candidates.
Discussion also surrounded how on call will be handled. Will it require a person to be in the station in which other duties are assigned or do we do the traditional on call format we have.
The Committee will try to have a full recommendation on the full time chief after next meeting.
Other business
We had brief discussion on current status of 911 regionalization. The town has yet to hear back from Worcester concerning the consultant.
Next Meeting
We will be meeting again a 7pm on Wednesday March 2 in the annex.
The Committee unanimously voted to adjourn at 9:10PM.
Respectfully Submitted,
Neil Sulmasy
Chair Public Safety Committee
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