Council hears concerns from town departments

At Monday’s meeting, the Moorcroft Council heard concerns from each of its departments.

Police

Moorcroft Chief of Police Doug “Red” Lundborg stated that will be retiring in May and has been actively seeking to hire a qualified officer for the last few months to no avail. “I don’t know where we’re going to find a third guy for after I’m gone,” he said. “There are 33 agencies in Wyoming that are looking for help. Gillette advertized and had one application. There just aren’t a lot of people knocking on the door.”

“The competition is unbelievable out there. I think Gillette starts their guys at $24 per hour and it’s hard to compete with that. We have to do what we can here,” he continued. He made note of the exceptional benefit package Moorcroft offers as the town’s answer to the higher wage offered by other municipalities.

While the department has had a couple of enquiries, there are only two serious applications and a third possibility may be coming in next week, according to the chief. To help his officers after he goes, Red plans to work on an occasional part-time basis “to give them a break”.

EMS

Volunteers Jessica Schnabel and Dorothy Baron of the Moorcroft Emergency Service were heard by the council. The two explained the ever-more-urgent plight of the service regarding their need for a new heart monitor to be used in the town’s ambulances.

The current machine is obsolete and no longer provides accurate readings, which means manual checking is necessary.

“More and more frequently, we’re having cardiac calls,” Schnabel told the governing body. “We need something better to get our paramedics the information they need.”

Baron explained that the manufacturer of their current monitors no longer make the pads or batteries for that model. “They are outdated and the company is no longer going to service them,” she said, adding that either the crew will have to run with no monitors or “we have to get new ones”.

The new heart monitors offered by Striker can be purchased on a lease to own option and they maintain the machines for the seven-year lease with an available upgrade at the end. The costs provided at the last meeting of Striker and the council are no longer in effect so Mayor Dick Claar advised Schneider to contact the company and “see what it will take to lease that and maybe we can make a decision at the next meeting”.

Public Works

Following a discussion of a bill for equipment battery packs that must be replaced regularly by public works during Public Works Director Cory Allison’s report, Councilman Dale Petersen asked for individual inventories for all departments including fire and the emergency medical service/

“My thoughts are that maybe we start a working spreadsheet so that when we buy stuff, we put those on [the sheet] so we can have an up to date inventory. When we look at our assets, we have to look at what we have for equipment,” he said.

Clerk/Treasurer Cheryl Schneider agreed, reminding the body that they had set said policy in place last year with a minimum valuation to be counted at $1000. She had also purchased “tabs” to be affixed to each item.

“The initial set up will be cumbersome, but after that, as we order stuff in, we can just put those identification tags on and scan them,” she said.

Town Attorney Jim Peck, in turn, explained that insurance companies tend to refuse coverage of items lost without inventorial recognition. With said recommendation, the inventory valuation base was lowered to $100 to be tagged and counted to better track anticipated costs for replacement. The work is to be completed and presented to the council at the second March meeting.