Pleasanton, county fire departments undergo ISO inspection

The Linn County Fire Department at Pleasanton was one of several, including the Pleasanton city fire department, inspected by the Insurance Services Offices (ISO) during the week of July 14. (Linn County Fire District)

By Roger Sims, rsims@linncountyjournal.com

PLEASANTON – This has been a critical week for the Pleasanton city fire department as well as the Linn County Rural Fire District. The Insurance Services Office (ISO) was in the county on Tuesday and Wednesday, July 15-16, inspecting fire stations  to determine the preparedness of those stations to protect communities from fire.

Linn County Fire Chief Randy Hegwald said on Tuesday that the rural county departments were being inspected. He said that ISO inspections are typically triggered by a request by the fire chief of each agency.

The Pleasanton city fire department was slated to be inspected on Wednesday, July 16. That news at the Pleasanton City Council meeting on Monday, July 7, drew sharp criticism from two city council members.

Hegwald said that the current ISO rating on fire departments across the county was a 5 inside a radius of five miles from each fire station. Outside that radius, the ratings are a 10. Those ratings, more specifically called Public Protection Classifications, impact the amount that property owners pay for insurance.

The top rating of 1 is reserved for areas that have well-staffed and well-equipped departments typically found in larger metropolitan areas. The inspection includes staffing, vehicles including pumper and tender truck and bunker gear and safety equipment including self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA).

A drop in the rating could cost each property owner thousands of dollars a year in increased insurance rates.

Hegwald declined to divulge which department or departments were being inspected on Tuesday.

Pleasanton city officials are bracing for the results of the inspection. At the July 7 council meeting, city Fire Chief Jimmy Watts told the council that the Pleasanton city department would not be responding to calls until the bunker gear was updated.

Upon learning that an ISO was scheduled this week, Councilman Aaron Portmann asked Watts if any preparations were being made to bolster the department’s rating. Watts responded that there were not.

“So we’ve told the county we’re not going to respond to anything?” Portmann asked. “And we’re also not going to do anything until July 16 when the ISO comes through?”

Watts confirmed that indicating the plan was to wait for the ISO inspection to see what needed to be done.

The discussion then lit up as council members engaged in a fiery exchange.

Portmann asked Councilwoman Angie Randall, who was appointed by the mayor to oversee the police and fire departments, what her plan was to bring the fire department up to the necessary standard.

Randall said that she and Watts had conducted an inventory of the gear to determine its condition.

Portmann asked Randall if any other council member had been included in that inspection, but no other council member had been in on the inventory.

Portmann indicated that he had a problem with Randall being the council member who oversees the fire department. “You, who are absolutely against keeping the fire department being in charge of public safety,” he said.

Randall accused Portmann of bullying her, adding that she was not against the fire department. “I am not dead-set against the fire department, and I never have been,” she said. “I am asking these questions that you two (pointing to Portmann and Schreckhise) are now asking a year ago and got yelled at in executive session and told I didn’t need to touch the fire department.

“I was told it was done this way and had been for years.”

“The mayor asked me and said, ‘I’ll take care of the fire department. You step back,'" Randall said. "I did. We could not enter into a mutual aid agreement that would make our fire department a stand-alone fire department without an automatic aid agreement. In November, that was not offered (by the county).”

The Pleasanton city fire department question surfaced in May when there was a move to disband the city’s department and instead rely on the county department, which is located inside city limits.

Acknowledging that the shift to becoming a part of the county’s rural fire district would mean that property owners would be hit with an additional county tax for fire protection, Randall said that would be preferable to a downgraded rating. That, she said, would cost property owners thousands of dollars annually; in her case about $1,200 annually.

Over the course of a couple of town hall meetings at the Pleasanton Community Center, the council on May 12 approved a motion to give the department a year to rebuild while using a newly negotiated automatic aid agreement with the county in an effort to maintain fire protection to city and its ISO rating. The vote was 5-to-1 and Randall was the sole vote against the measure.

Randall has maintained that to bring the city’s fire department up to a standalone department would require a sizable tax increase that city residents couldn’t afford. She said the most economical way to move forward is for the home- and business-owners to become part of the county’s fire district.

Part of the fallout from the fire department debate is the resignation of long-time Fire Chief Rob Dent. During one of the town hall meetings, Mayor Young pointed out that after he was elected about 18 months ago he talked with all of the city workers and that those who were not doing their job were now gone.

In an effort to save Dent’s appointment, former councilman Jake Mattingley presented the council with several letters of support that commended Dent on his role as fire chief. At one point Mattingley even presented several new applications for people volunteering to join the department.

Mattingley also turned in a application but was neither interviewed or hired. Twice he had appeared before the council contesting that decision.

At the May 27 meeting, the mayor appointed Watts to the fire chief post. The appointment was confirmed in a split vote, with Portmann and Schreckhise voting against the appointment.

It will likely be several weeks before the ISO report is complete. La Cygne City Councilmember Jerome Mitzner, a volunteer captain for the La Cygne department and a captain at Fire District No. 1 in Johnson County, said that it can take several weeks before the results of the inspection would be known.