Warsaw-Wayne Fire Territory attorney Andrew Grossnickle, left, gives the oath of office to WWFT Board members. From left are Mayor Jeff Grose, Wayne Township Trustee Jeanie Stackhouse, Gordon Nash and Warsaw Common Councilman Mike Klondaris on Tuesday. Photo by David Slone, Times-Union.

By David Slone
Times-Union

WARSAW — Three agreements were approved by the Warsaw-Wayne Fire Territory Board Tuesday, Jan. 2, including entering into a purchase agreement for a $1.8 million ladder truck.

The Warsaw Board of Public Works and Safety on Dec. 15 approved the agreement to start the process to purchase a new Smeal/Spartan 100-foot rear-mount aerial platform ladder truck to replace the 2005 Pierce Aerial Platform ladder truck. The purchase is through Sourcewell.

On Tuesday, WWFT Assistant Chief Aaron Bolinger — filling in for Chief Brian Mayo — said the total price for the truck was $1,812,000.

“A little perspective: When the current ladder (truck) was bought in 2005, it was $758,000. So in 19 years, it’s over doubled in price,” he said.

Fire Territory Board attorney Andrew Grossnickle asked about the financing options Mayo had done some research on. Bolinger said the financing will be taken care of at Friday’s Board of Public Works and Safety meeting, and then presented at the Fire Territory Board’s next meeting.

Councilman Mike Klondaris said it was his understanding the fire territory was going to hang on to the current ladder truck, but Bolinger said he was not sure of that. Mayor Jeff Grose said he was not aware of that at this time.

“There’s been some discussions back and forth of what to do with it: Is it worth selling off right now? Is it worth keeping, just as far as busyness of our department? Things breaking down. I researched a couple years ago to have the truck refurbished, it’d actually be more than what we bought it for now,” Bolinger said.

There’s a lot of decisions to make on the truck, and Bolinger said the truck committee is dealing with those.

The Fire Territory Board approved entering into the agreement.

Bolinger then presented an interlocal agreement with Kosciusko County for terminal services data, used for maintenance and upgrade of equipment and software in reference to the operation of One Solution Freedom-Fire (Central Square).

The agreement was unanimously approved.

The last agreement was from EMS and Community Assistance, Resources, Emergency Services Director Chris Fancil. It was the annual preventative maintenance agreement with Zoll for four heart monitors at a cost of $310 per monitor — a total of $1,240. He said they probably use the heart monitors more than any other equipment on medical calls. They use it to take vital signs, EKG tracings and more.

“It’s a pretty important tool for us,” Fancil said.

If they had to go out and replace a monitor, he estimated they would cost about $30,000 each.

Luckily, the fire territory were able to get theirs through a grant.

The Fire Territory Board unanimously approved the contract.

In his C.A.R.E.S. monthly report, Fancil said numbers were down a little bit for December. They only went out 61 times during the month.

Looking at a provided graph comparing the last three months of 2023, Councilman Mike Klondaris said it was nice to see the trend line going down.

“I think a lot of that has to do with we had some vacation time to burn up in December, we had some things, so I don’t know how realistic that picture really is. And I think we had some situations that required a lot more time to deal with, as well. If we’re tied up in one situation, we obviously can’t go out and deal with another,” Fancil said.

Klondaris wondered if, given their line of work, maybe it was seasonal.

“Historically, around the holidays, mental health issues go up. I was a little surprised the number went down to 61, but, again, we’re amazingly 70s, 60s each month,” Fancil said. “I think one of the things we’re seeing is that, like I said, a lot of these situations seem to take more time to resolve, whether that’s because the resources are already stretched thin or because we’re just trying to find different resources for people, it could be a combination of those things. I think a lot of times we’re tied up for a couple of hours in a situation instead of just a quick resource and out of there.”

C.A.R.E.S. tries to improve the overall health and wellness of the city of Warsaw by assisting emergency personnel with response to mental health crises, connecting individuals to community resources and social services, and offering services to prevent emergencies.
In other business:

• All board members present Tuesday took the oath of office at the start of the meeting from Grossnickle. Those included Grose, Klondaris, Township Trustee Jeanie Stackhouse and board member Gordon Nash. Board member David Allbritten was absent.
• The board reappointed Shirley Fetrow as the recording secretary and Grossnickle as the territory’s attorney for 2024.
• Mark Peppel, Lutheran EMS, gave the Lutheran EMS monthly report for November 2023. He said they had a total of 482 responses and they transported 80% of their patients into the hospital.
• Bolinger gave the November 2023 fire department monthly report. He reported they had 331 responses in November, with 112 overlapping calls. In some of the overlapping calls, all three firehouses were at one incident.
• The board approved all seven travel requests, including three firefighters to the International Association of Fire Fighters Peer Support Training in Valparaiso Jan. 18-19; one to Murfreesboro, Tenn., on Feb. 19-22 for the Vision 20/20 Symposium; and three to Valparaiso March 14 for the Post Traumatic Purpose.