MINUTES FROM THE REGULAR MONTHLY MEETING OF THE NORTH FORK AMBULANCE HEALTH SERVICE DISTRICT

The Regular Monthly meeting of the Board of Directors of the North Fork Ambulance Health Service District located in the Counties of Delta, Montrose and Gunnison, Colorado, was held at 110 E. Hotchkiss Ave, Hotchkiss, Colorado, on Thursday, March 21, 2024 at 11:00 a.m.
CALL TO ORDER: The meeting was called to order at 11:07 am.
ADDITIONS TO THE AGENDA: No additions to the agenda.
ROLL CALL: Board members present – Dan Miller, Dave Kreutz, Bonnie Eisenberg, Marcus Roeder and Peter Pruett.
Others present include: Kathy Steckel, Diane Perry, Tanya Applegate.
CONFLICT OF INTEREST DISCLOSURE: No conflict of interest.
PUBLIC COMMENT: No Public Comment
APPROVAL OF MINUTES: Minutes from the February 15, 2024 Regular Monthly Meeting were reviewed. Dave Kreutz made a motion that the minutes be approved as written. The motion was seconded. All were in favor.
REPORTS:
FINANCE REPORT: Financials for February were presented and reviewed. Marcus Roeder requested that a balance Sheet with a comparison to last year be sent out as part of the board packet. He also reported that our quick ratio of assets to liabilities was 2:1, which is very good. Peter Pruett made a motion to approve the financials for February. The motion was seconded. All were in favor.
APPROVAL OF APPROPRIATIONS: Bonnie Eisenberg made a motion to approve the appropriations for February as presented. The motion was seconded. All were in favor.
DISTRICT CHIEF REPORT: Kathy Steckel gave an overview of her report (see attached).
Administration: Kathy is working on web accessibility with a local web designer. She is also working on a Strategic Plan to include 1 and 2-5 year goals with financial forecasting. She will be talking with crew members, ALS, CP to get their opinions and would like to talk to each board member after that. The first step is to make sure our Mission Statement and Core Values are defined so that the Strategic Plan aligns with those. Kathy handed out our current Mission Statement and asked the board to take it home and review it. She is fine with the existing statement, but would like board input, if they see any need for change. Marcus suggested a SWOT Analysis. Kathy and Tanya have already been working on that for the CP program.
Finance: Expecting 2023 Provider Grant funds for the radios to come shortly. Hoping to have the new ambulance at the beginning of May and will be able to submit the request for that grant from 2022 as well.
PR: Received a grant for $5,000 from Rocky Mountain Health Fund on behalf of the Auxiliary to help support CP. Added a beginner’s SAIL class in Crawford twice a week.
OPERATION: Tanya and Steve talked about the Gun Safety Grant that they applied for. It is a $100,00 grant to give away gun safes (both long and handgun), ammo safes, and trigger locks.
Steve attended a multi-agency round table about emergency preparedness, primarily focusing on communications during an emergency. NFEMS is in fairly good shape since our offices and rigs are not connected and a computer virus would not be able to spread very effectively. Internet is a possible weak point. We are considering putting a Starlink satellite dish on the Hotchkiss station in order to have access to internet if phone lines went down.
This building is one of a very few in the North Fork valley with a generator. There was some discussion about changing our generator from natural gas to propane, in order to be entirely stand alone. Dan would like to see us have generators at all of the stations. Kathy said that there is a possibility that USDA grants might be available to help pay for those. This discussion of emergency preparedness brought up the discussion of a triage trailer, supply storage facilities and perhaps coordination with the Red Cross.
UNFINISHED BUSINESS: No unfinished business
NEW BUSINESS: Appointment of an Accessibility Officer for the website. Marcus Roeder made a motion the Kathy Steckel be appointed as our website accessibility officer. The motion was seconded. All were in favor.
Website Accessibility Policy. Marcus Roeder would like to see some changes to the policy as presented. After some discussion it was suggested that we delete parts of two sentences making the statement now read “North Fork Ambulance Health Service District is fully committed to providing an accessible website compatible with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.1) and commercial screen reading software. All features of the website are coded to allow individuals with vision and other impairments to understand and use the website to the same degree as someone without disabilities. We welcome feedback and can often resolve issues in a timely manner, if they arise”. Marcus Roeder made a motion that the policy be accepted with the suggested changes. The motion was seconded. All were in favor.
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Next Regular Meeting is Thursday, April 18, 2024 at 11 am.
Bonnie Eisenberg will need a ZOOM connection to the meeting in April.
ADJOURNMENT: There being no further matters before the board, Dan Miller made a motion to adjourn. All were in favor. Meeting was adjourned at 12:08 pm.