ANOTHER BUILDING INSPECTOR?
CITY COUNCIL QUESTIONS THE NEED FOR IT

On October 25^th, councilmembers chose to table a request for a second full time person in the building inspection department, which would have been in addition to Tom Gray, the city's Building Official who is currently full time, and Darel Geske who is part time and wants to remain part time.
Tom Gray and other city staff had interviewed and ranked four of the five candidates that applied for the position, but none of those applying had any building inspecting experience.  "Winter is a good time to help train a new person, so when spring hits we're ready to go.  Keeping busy will not be a problem."
He said Darel Geske, who is sched-uled for 4 hours per day, is probably at "80% capacity" and is not interested in taking on more hours.
Asked Councilmember Jerry Bohn, "How would two full time people keep busy in the winter when there are no inspections?"
"There are indoor inspections," said Tom.
Stated Mayor Mary Meuwissen, "I want to make sure we need someone ... We've only got 100 lots that are available in the city for development ... We're in a building moratorium ... I'd like to be an advocate but I'm never afraid to ask the questions, too."
Councilmembers decided to "let this sit" until the next council meeting.

REPORT FROM FIRE CHIEF GARY SOHNS
NEW COMMUNICATION SYSTEM NEEDED
Gary Sohns, Chief of the Victoria Fire Department, spoke to councilmem-bers on Thursday evening, October 25^th, on four different topics.
800 Megahertz Radio Sys-tem.  After the Chief's presentation and some discussion, Mayor Mary Meuwissen made a motion supporting the 800 MHZ system and asking the county to consider a match program that would allow Vic-toria to get right up to speed, to full force, with the system.
"We'd be a full participant," said the mayor.  "If the county would pay for ten, Victoria would pay for ten.  We'd made that commitment.  Maybe this would be a good leadership role in helping other cities look at this."  The motion passed unanimously.
Gary had reported that he attended a meeting of Carver County Board of Com-missioners to review the new 800 MHZ radio system.  Nine of the eleven county fire chiefs requested the commissioners set aside money in 2002 and 2003 totaling $154,000 to purchase 44 portable radios (88 MHZ) in 2003.
The reason for this request, according to Gary, was to ensure that each of the county's cities would have four of the 800 MGZ portable radios in service in 2003.  Four radios is the minimum quantity to allow communication between cities.
Gary said the county commissioners asked for a commitment from each of the cities to purchase additional radios to ade-quately service each city's communication needs.
Chief Sohns said the chiefs decided to go to the county board and ask for the four radio each, so all cities can go online at the same time and in the same system.
He said, however, that the county is looking for some commitment from the cities, some reassurance that cities are also looking to change over to the 800 MHZ system, and will purchase additional ra-dios necessary to communicate with other cities.
"I guess some cities feel the county should pay for all the radios," said Gary.  "The system we're presently using is 27 to 38 years old, so the county had directed staff to upgrade."
Gary said that the Victoria Fire De-partment currently uses 29 radios.  Re-placing them with the new system means an expenditure of $2,400 to $3,500 per radio.
Asked Mayor Mary Meuwissen, "Wouldn't the county consider matching funds with the city?"  The mayor ac-knowledged she had seen problems with the city's current radio system.  During the 1998 storm I saw problems when there's a lot of action.  Only so many people could talk, when all of a sudden a lot of people are going in different directions."
Councilmember Jerry Bohn pointed out that for Victoria to replace all 29 of its radios, it would cost the city $100,000.  "It's an unfunded mandate!" he stated.
Chief Sohns said some cities in the county have only 18 radios, while some have at least 50 radios, and that the number four was a compromise.
"Isn't this a great benefit to the county to have the new system?" asked Mayor Mary.
"Yes," replied Chief Sohns.
Asked Councilmember Jerry Bohn, "When the county approved this, did they know how they were going to be paid for at that time?"
"I feel like you're being manipulat-ed," said Councilmember Richard Tieden.  "I don't think it's fair to put you in this position ... We need a more organized effort of this brought forward."
Chief Sohns said, "I think the chiefs are pushing this more than anything, but it was generated by the county."
Thermal imaging camera.  The Victoria Fire Department purchased a Thermal Imaging Camera that senses body heat, senses fire origins that are not visible in a smoke filled structure, detects elevated temperatures, fires behind walls, chimney fires, and the image seen is com-parable to a photonegative. 
Chief Sohns said the camera costs $14,000 and can go 400 to 500 feet. 
Art Diethelm property.  The Victoria Fire Department is requesting discussion on the city purchasing the property located at 1501 80^th Street.
Said Chief Sohns, "The property is directly across from Well #2 by the Fire Station.  We've talked about the possible purchase for the Fire Department without saying exactly at this time what it could be used for in the future.  It has a good storage facility for us, maybe office space for the Fire Department, or housing.  Some young Victoria firefighters cannot afford to live in Victoria so they're living out of town.  We could rent out rooms to them."

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