Full-time fire chief
Morinville now has a full-time fire chief and that should mean better protection for its residents, say officials.
The Town of Morinville announced last week that it would switch to a full-time fire chief from a part-time one early in 2017.
The change came out of the 2014 fire service study that said the town should get a full-time chief within three years as it approached city status, town community and protective services manager David Schaefer said. Next year also happened to match up well with part-time fire chief Brad Boddez's career plans.
Boddez said that he currently works as a full-time firefighter with the Edmonton Fire Rescue Services, but plans to retire in January, which frees him up to become a full-time chief in March.
"Leaving Edmonton was huge and a very difficult decision for me to make," Boddez said, but he felt this was the right time to go.
Boddez now becomes the fire department's first full-time employee besides its secretary, and will help provide better daytime fire service for the town, Schaefer said. This won't affect the department's budget as they've simply shuffled around some positions.
Fire investigator and past chief Ron Cust said Morinville has long needed a full-time chief.
"The workload is equivalent to a chief in any other city," Cust said, with some 50 people, $4 million in equipment and up to 400 calls a year to manage. He had to work 15 hours a week unpaid just to keep up with the paperwork when he had the job, and said Boddez was likely doing the same.
Cust said the town "should thank their lucky stars" that it's got Boddez as a full-time chief, as he was a career firefighter who understood how to manage a volunteer force.
Boddez said he was excited by his new job, which would involve drafting mutual aid agreements and fire regulations on top of other administrative work.
Grants tweaked
Athletes will have an easier time getting grants for tournaments now that town council has overhauled its community grant program.
Council voted 5-1 to approve a new policy for its community grant program last Dec. 13. Coun. Nicole Boutestein was opposed, and Coun. Rob Ladouceur absent.
The new policy makes many changes to the grant program and places control of it in administration's hands.
Under the old policy, administration would make recommendations on grants and council would approve or change them, said town sport and recreation co-ordinator Tyler Edworthy. Decisions could also be appealed to council.
The new policy cuts out council entirely. While council still sets the size of the grant program at budget time, administration will now decide who gets what grant, with decisions appealed to the chief administrative officer.
The new policy caps grants at $1,000 instead of $2,500. Edworthy said this was because council cut grant funding back to $10,000 in this year's budget.
"We can reach out to help a lot more people with a thousand dollar limit."
The policy states that administration will give priority to initiatives that demonstrate long-term sustainability, and rules out grants for fundraising, facility fees, wages or repairs.
The policy also lets applicants apply for grants for unexpected events that don't line up with the fund's three intake periods, such as a team qualifying for a tournament.
While Boutestein said in council that she was uncomfortable giving staff complete control of this grant, Schaefer said administration was already effectively running the grant under this policy. He also said they would better enforce the policy's requirement for applicants to report back on the use of their grants.
Coun. Brennan Fitzgerald called the changes efficient, as council was already something of a middleman in this process.
"The most important thing for me is that the money is well-spent," Coun. Stephen Dafoe said, adding that the reporting requirement would ensure that happened.
