Grand jury: Newcastle Fire board dysfunctional

The Newcastle Fire Protection District board should stay out of day-to-day running of the fire district and its directors need to make an effort to be more "harmonious," according to a recently released report from the Placer County grand jury."The Newcastle Fire Protection District's board of directors does not function efficiently and sometimes can't function at all," the grand jury reported in its findings.Robert Bundy, chairman of the Newcastle Fire Protection District, said Wednesday that the report is incomplete and the board is moving in a positive direction."We've already lost a couple board members that were causing problems and we are all getting along just fine," Bundy said.The grand jury conducted an "extensive investigation" into the operations of the Newcastle Fire Protection District following complaints from the public.Bob Roth is currently a volunteer firefighter with the Newcastle fire department. He was a paid employee, but said he decided to return to volunteer status to avoid the "nonsense" with the board."It ended up to where it broke every one up," Roth said. "People quit and others don't want to come into the fire department because of the board. It's dysfunctional."During its investigation of one complaint the grand jury identified several other management issues such as a disunited board of directors, a dilapidated facility and poor wages for firefighters."There's no questions the salaries aren't the best," said fire chief Dave Ebert. "They haven't gone up since July 2006."Firefighters in the district get paid $7.50 an hour, engineers $7.75 and captains earn $8 an hour."This isn't enough to retain firefighters," Ebert said. "They are pretty sad wages, but it's all the board can afford."The grand jury made no recommendation to increase salaries. The report does recommend that high priority should be placed on relocating or rebuilding the current Newcastle fire station that is "old and dilapidated."Ebert said the fire station has is indeed in "need of serious repair or replacement.""It's probably more likely to be replaced because of the cost of renovation would be very high and surpass the amount of dollars a new facility would cost," he said.Bundy said the board is putting together a plan to present to taxpayers to get the firehouse replaced.The grand jury further suggested that the board "eliminate or minimize" the cost of the secretary position stating that the secretary, currently a volunteer, has been paid, in the past, about $10,000 a year with an additional $450 a month being spent for a "good" office. "We will not be following their recommendation on that," Bundy said. "We plan to start paying the secretary position."Bundy took issue with omissions in the grand jury report. "There's a lot of incomplete and incorrect information in the report," he said. "We'll be sending them information to correct it."He said the investigation was based on "misdirection" from "unhappy" individuals."(The jury) reports on findings of what they are looking for," Bundy said. "Our board is doing a lot of positive things."Bundy said the firefighters have better equipment and the structure of the organization is in better shape because of the positive actions of the board. "The firefighters did have a morale booster when we bought them new uniforms so they could match the others firefighters in the county," Bundy said.Other suggestions by the grand jury include attempting to have the county auditor-controller take over payroll processing and bill paying to minimize errors and delays.The board has 60 days to respond to the grand jury recommendations.The Journal's Penne Usher can be reached at penneu@goldcountrymedia.com.