Recently I received an email from a resident who wanted to know what I spent my time doing during the day to keep busy. After all, this person stated, “this was just a Volunteer Fire Department.”
Without getting into the nitty gritty of my daily assignments and responsibilities I outlined a few of the things that keep me more than busy every week. I have broken down my responsibilities into four separate but related areas. Those areas are: The Building Department, Fire Prevention/Inspections, Fire Suppression and Emergency Preparedness.
Today I would like to focus on the Building Department.
Our city is very progressive in that the Building Department reports to the Fire Chief. We still have a Building Official, Kevin Schmieg. Kevin is very highly regarded in his field of expertise and he and I have an excellent relationship. Kevin has been with the City for nearly 22 years. Kevin is a visionary, as evidenced by our city’s early adoption of the e-permit process. This new in 2004 service, allows certain building and fire permits to be acquired using the internet and avoiding having to commit the time come into City Hall.
Having both departments working out of the same organizational structure fosters the kind of cohesive communication that leads to a very high quality inspections and enforcement program. Building Inspectors and Fire Inspectors are often seen working together on the various challenges that they face daily in the field. An excellent working relationship between the two Inspections groups results in a high quality and long lasting end product in our stock of buildings. Keeping our city’s building stock to its highest possible level is a factor in retaining the overall quality of our city’s image. Everything ties together.
