Nine members of the Morongo Valley fire department attended last night’s lengthy Morongo Valley Community Service District board meeting to protest the proposed mutual aid agreement with the Calimesa Fire Department. Before the meeting began, however, the board removed the proposal from the meeting’s agenda entirely. Reporter Andrew Dieleman has the details…
Before last night’s meeting was called to order, the Morongo Valley CSD board of directors removed from the agenda a proposed mutual aid agreement with the Calimesa Fire Department, but stated that it may reappear on a future agenda. Members of the fire department then turned their attention to another proposal on the agenda that would extend personnel probation times from 12 to 18 months. Fire engineer Chris Palmer argued that the decision could violate union laws and may reduce incentives for new firefighters to work in Morongo Valley. The board voted unanimously to keep the existing 12-month probation period in place.
Also during the meeting, the board adopted the resolution for the Morongo Valley annual fire suppression assessment fee and approved a number of ad hoc committees to begin using select MVCSD resources for upcoming fundraisers. The board also discussed flying the position for a new General Manger to allow current interim General Manager Gary Yearsley to return entirely to the Morongo Valley fire department. The decision failed in a 3-2 vote, but the board did agree to post the general manager job requirements for the next board meeting.
The board also tabled a large number of other proposals for next meeting. The board tabled the possible increased wage compensations of firefighters during out-of-area strike team assignments due to unavailable budget figures, the creation of a new MVCSD website due to the possibility of using other services to create the website, a special meeting with the district attorney until a mutual meeting time could be agreed upon, and the approval of the 2018-2019 fiscal year budget since that portion of the meeting agenda was not posted in accordance with board regulations. The board then went into a 90-minute closed session to discuss personnel matters, there was no publically-disclosable action taken.
MORONGO VALLEY CSD MEETING 3 ½ HOURS EVEN AFTER CONTROVERSIAL ITEM REMOVED
