This has been an unusually busy week. A lot of my time has been spent in meetings revolving around the activity at the Capitol. The legislative process is well underway and the Fire Service has two main objectives this year.
The first is to restore funding to the State Fire Marshal’s Office. This department has been reduced over the last 7 years by 19 employees. The reductions have resulted in a significant reduction in services to fire departments statewide. Greater Minnesota is being particularly hard hit. Code specialists have been eliminated as well as investigators. The Insurance Industry has taken up the cause with the fire service and legislation is about to be introduced that will re-establish the funding to this critical office.
Our second objective is to strengthen laws protecting emergency workers at highway scenes. Over the last 5 years there have been more firefighters and police officers killed at highway emergency scenes than in fires or shootings, respectively.
Getting these bills written, finding support and funding that everybody, or most everybody can support is a complex and time consuming process.
I believe we will have two bills that have a good chance of gaining the support necessary for passage. Only time will tell.
Today is also the kick-off for the Fire Department’s largest recruiting process since it was first formed in 1967. We need to increase our overall staffing of volunteers from 75 to 95 as we get ready to open a 4th fire station in southwest Eden Prairie. Recruiting volunteer firefighters is a critical components to our continued success. We are hoping for a large turnout of quality candidates.
