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APPROVED 811 612 0 0 5 MINUTES ORANGE COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS WORK SESSION May 23, 2005 5:30 p.m. The Orange County Board of Commissioners met for a Work Session on Monday, May 23, 2005 at 5:30 p.m. at the Government Services Center in Hillsborough, North Carolina. COUNTY COMMISSIONERS PRESENT: Chair Moses Carey and Commissioners Valerie P. Foushee, Alice M. Gordon, Stephen H. Halkiotis and Barry Jacobs COUNTY COMMISSIONERS ABSENT: COUNTY ATTORNEYS PRESENT: Geof Gledhill and Sean Borhanian COUNTY STAFF PRESENT: County Manager John M. Link, Jr., Assistant County Manager Rod Visser and Clerk to the Board Donna Baker (All other staff members will be identified appropriately below} NOTE: ALL DOCUMENTS REFERRED TO IN THESE MINUTES ARE IN THE PERMANENT AGENDA FILE IN THE CLERK'S OFFICE. ALL RECORDINGS OF THE MEETING WILL BE KEPT FOR 5 YEARS. The meeting began at 6:10 p.m. 1. Volunteer Fire and Rescue Service Issues John Link said that about 10 years ago, Orange County went through an assessment process looking at the roles and responsibilities of the fire departments, rescue squad, and EMS. The County has continued to grow and the rescue squads work well with EMS and other departments. The Board of County Commissioners suggested examining this again since things have changed with how the departments operate, particularly with regard to the decrease in volunteers. He said that today, the staff had a productive discussion with one of the volunteer fire departments regarding the issues that they face. The issues are as follows: ^ Nat enough volunteers ^ Possibility of hiring staff -paid and volunteers to cover 2417 ^ If staff is hired, then there must be benefits ^ Equity between volunteer fire departments and municipal fire departments ^ How to be frugal with district tax revenue when operations side goes up with the cost of vehicles In the long term, his prediction is that there will be equity issues about pay and equipment. Rod Visser made reference to the background documents, which include: ^ memo from Jack Ball ^ PowerPoint slides -hard copy -includes some of the local assistance available to volunteer fire department ^ review that staff did on rescue service provisions about 10 years ago John Link said that there are five specific areas that the Board could look at, starting on page 5.