Winona Lake Fire Department Public Information Officer Mike Cox talks to the Winona Lake Town Council Tuesday. Photo by Jackie Gorski, Times-Union.

By Jackie Gorski
Times-Union

WINONA LAKE — Winona Lake Fire Department Public Information Officer Mike Cox brought a letter-writing campaign to the Winona Lake Town Council’s attention Tuesday, July 16.

Cox said the Occupational Safety and Health Administration is looking to adopt 30 or more of the National Fire Protection Association standards. Cox said the fire department understands the proposed regulations are meant to keep everyone safe, but he says they could end up closing volunteer fire departments.

Compliance of the standards would add thousands of dollars to the budget of fire departments, he said.
The proposed standards include having fire departments create risk and hazard assessments for all businesses in its territory in two years. Firefighters’ physical exams would have to be escalated and Cox said the exams would cost more. Annual exams cost about $115, but could potentially cost about $1,400.

Officers would be required to undergo increased training. Cox said Fire Chief Kevin Gelbaugh will have to undergo at least 200 hours of training to stay fire chief. Officers would have to undergo between 150 and 250 hours of training.

Officers may be required to undergo training that hasn’t been offered in Indiana in five or 10 years, Cox said.

OSHA estimated the costs for compliance with the proposed standards to be $14,000 to a fire department’s budget. Cox said OSHA may have underestimated the cost to fire departments’ budgets. Cox said the $14,000 OSHA estimate is about 20% of Winona Lake Fire Department’s budget.

He said OSHA is taking public comments until July 22 about the proposed standards. After that, OSHA will make a decision.

He estimated it may be a year before the standards are implemented if OSHA decides to go ahead with them. Then fire departments would have about two years to implement the standards.

Cox said WLFD started a letter-writing campaign to exempt volunteer fire departments from the standards as he believes the standards would cause most volunteer departments to close. He said they think OSHA has overstepped their authority with the proposed standards.

The fire department is asking for the council’s and public’s support for the letter-writing campaign. He asked for people to write letters to OSHA to exempt volunteer fire departments from the standards.

To write a letter to OSHA, Cox said comment letters can be emailed by going to regulations.gov and search Docket No. OSHA-2007-0073. This will bring up a list of proposals. Select Emergency Response Standard that includes the docket number; and then select the comment button, which will take you to a comment page and includes a space to attach comments.

Earlier in the meeting, the council approved the appointments for the Miller Sunset Pavilion Committee.
The committee will have Austin Reynolds and Ashley McGinnis as the two representatives from the council, Town Manager Craig Allebach and Park Board President Kristie Maiers as the representative from the Park Board. Town Council President Jim Lancaster volunteered to fill the appointment of the facility director representative to the committee until a director was found.

Clerk-Treasurer Heather James requested the wording for the appointment for the representative from the clerk-treasurer’s office remove her name and simply state the clerk-treasurer or a representative as James may designate someone to that position.

In other business, the council approved:

• The selling of four parcels of land along Union Drive. Town attorney Adam Turner said they were considered no man’s land and the ownership fell to the town.

• Heard about Winona Happenings. From 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. July 27, the jazz festival will be at the Winona Heritage Room, 901 Park Ave., Winona Lake. The Helping Heroes Pickleball Tournament will be at Limitless Park on Aug. 17-18. From 3 to 6 p.m. Aug. 3, Family Fest will be at the Miller Sunset Pavilion. From 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Aug. 5, the Police Back-to-School Cook Out will be at MSP.