Boyceville Fire Board: should public comments be on regular agendas
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By LeAnn R. Ralph
BOYCEVILLE — Whether to include comments on the agendas will be a topic for consideration at the next meeting of the Boyceville Community Fire District Board on March 19.
Steve Nielsen, representative for the Town of Stanton, told the Boyceville fire board at the March 12 meeting that he had been receiving telephone calls about the fact that public comment was not on the agenda for the March 12 meeting.
Lee Kegan, representative for the Town of Tiffany and chair of the Boyceville fire board, said he had made a decision to not have public comments on the agenda.
The Boyceville fire district includes the Villages of Boyceville and Wheeler and the Towns of Hay River, New Haven, Sherman, Stanton and Tiffany.
The Boyceville ambulance district board includes the same representatives, except the Village of Wheeler is not part of the ambulance district, and the Town of Sheridan is part of the ambulance district.
Not having public comments on the agenda is a change in the fire board’s policy because public comments have been on the agenda previously, Nielsen said.
The fire board cannot control the public comments that are being made, and if the board tries to control the comments, “it looks we are trying to hide something,” he said.
Kegan said he had consulted with the fire district’s attorney who had confirmed that the chair can set the parameters for public comments.
To review what the attorney had told him, Kegan opened his cell phone and read out loud that the attorney had said public comment would be a matter of board policy and whether to include public comments was up to the fire district.
Kegan, who sounded apologetic, said that Nielsen had been correct about the public comments being a matter of fire board policy and that he should not have made that decision to remove public comments from the agenda for the March 12 meeting.
Decisions
The fire board cannot ever make any decisions on items brought up during public comments, Nielsen pointed out when several board members wondered about including public comments as part of the agenda for the next fire board meeting.
According to the Wisconsin Open Meetings Law Compliance Guide from May of 2019, “Although it is not required, the open meetings law does permit a governmental body to set aside a portion of an open meeting as a public comment period. Such a period must be included on the meeting notice. During such a period, the body may receive information from the public and may discuss any matter raised by the public. If a member of the public raises a subject that does not appear on the meeting notice, however, it is advisable to limit the discussion of that subject and to defer any extensive deliberation to a later meeting for which more specific notice can be given. In addition, the body may not take formal action on a subject raised in the public comment period, unless that subject is also identified in the meeting notice.”
The Boyceville Community Fire District Board agreed that public comments should be placed on the agenda for the next special meeting on March 19 so the fire board could discuss whether public comments should be part of the fire board meeting agendas.
Concerns
Karl Hackbarth, a supervisor on the Stanton Town Board and the former chair of the Boyceville fire board, attended the March 12 meeting of the fire board as a member of the audience.
Hackbarth had wanted to make a public comment at the March 12 meeting, but since comments were not included on the agenda, he asked to speak to the Tribune Press Reporter after the meeting had adjourned.
Hackbarth said he had resigned because he believed he could no longer be effective as chair of the fire board.
His topic for public comments at the March 12 meeting, he said, was the surplus in the Boyceville fire district’s 2023 budget and 2024 budget.
The Boyceville fire district had a surplus of $47,000 in 2023 and a surplus of over $61,000 in 2024, Hackbarth said.
Hackbarth was referring to the fact that after expenses for the budget year had been paid, the difference between revenue and expenses showed there was money left over in the budget.
Setting a budget for any governmental body can be difficult because the revenue and expenses can never be completely known when the budget is set.
Regarding revenue for a fire department, for example, the fire board has no way of knowing how many fires the fire department will end up responding to during the year, which can adjust revenue either up or down if there are fewer fire runs than anticipated or more fire runs than anticipated.
Hackbarth said when he asked where the roughly $108,000 was that had accumulated over two years of budgets, he was told it was sitting in the district’s bank account..
Hackbarth said he had talked about the surplus at the February 5 meeting.
The Tribune Press Reporter did not cover the February 5 meeting since the notice of the meeting arrived by e-mail message at 3:10 p.m. that afternoon, and the Tribune Press Reporter had already committed to covering the Wheeler Village Board meeting that was set for the same time as the Boyceville fire board at 6:30 p.m. that evening.
Hackbarth told the Tribune Press Reporter he talked about the Boyceville fire board appropriating the surplus for some purpose, rather than letting the money sit in the bank account without providing any benefit to the taxpayers in the fire district.
The taxpayers have paid the money, and since it was not used for the operations of the fire department, it should be appropriated for another purpose in the fire district. The taxpayers deserve to know that the money has been appropriated for a purpose, Hackbarth said.
The Boyceville fire department is still making payments on the new fire station and on the new fire engine, so perhaps the surplus could be used to spend down some of the debt, he said.
Another volunteer
Desirae Laursen, an emergency medical technician with the Boyceville ambulance service, also spoke to the Tribune Press Reporter after the meeting.
Laursen, who started out as an Emergency Medical Responder (EMR) with Boyceville, recently earned her EMT-Advanced certification.
Laursen said she had asked to join the Boyceville fire department as a firefighter and was told “no,” in no uncertain terms.
Her reasoning for wanting to serve on the fire department, she said, was to maybe help smooth over some of the animosity that exists between the fire department and the ambulance service.
An article published in the February 26 Tribune Press Reporter about complaints the fire board had received noted that the Tribune Press Reporter had received complaints last fall about the fire department that had been sent through the mail in an envelope with no return address.
The complaints said that ambulance service personnel were treated rudely during a joint training exercise with the fire department, and that fire department personnel had used vulgar hand gestures directed at ambulance service personnel on several occasions.
The two agencies must work together directly at times, such as during a car accident or a fire or a lift assist, so a good relationship between the fire department and the ambulance service would help to better serve the public, Laursen said.
After all, that is why Boyceville has a fire department and an ambulance service — to benefit the public and to help ensure the public’s health, safety and welfare, she said.
When Laursen was told “no,” that she would not be welcome to join the fire department, she asked if she could be put on a waiting list and said she was told that she could be placed on a waiting list.
Since the Boyceville fire department does not seem to have a health officer, Laursen said she thought it could be helpful if there was an EMT on the fire department’s roster.
During his report to the Boyceville fire board at the March 12 meeting, fire chief Josh Pittman had reported that there are 28 firefighters on the Boyceville fire department’s roster.
The fire chief did not indicate how many of those on the roster are active with the fire department.
“Active” refers to going out on fire calls and regularly attending fire department meetings and training sessions.
