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2009 Winter Membership Minutes
Mar. 1st, 2009
Salmon, ID - Hosted by Salmon SAR
Commander Brett Mackert called meeting to order at 0903 hours.
Invocation was given by Pastor Mike Palmer (Salmon).
Pledge of Allegiance was led by Dan Leachman (Nez Perce).
Roll call
Commander, Brett Mackert Present
1st Vice, Rick Pruett Present
2nd Vice, Mike Oliverson Absent
Secretary, Brian Lenz Present
Treasurer/ Quartermaster, Steve Clinkscales Present
Communications, Jim Gay Present
Roll call of Counties showed 11 counties being represented.
Past State Commanders present: Dale Crowther
Hosting unit remarks, Sheriff Sam Slavin & Deputy Sheriff Steve Penner,–thanked everyone for coming, appreciate you coming. Hope everybody came off the mountain from the snowmobile ride yesterday. Hope you’ve enjoyed your stay while in Salmon.
Brett thanked Salmon for the great meeting & training.
Moment of silence was held for deceased and/or seriously ill members: Stan Fenn is suffering from Lou Gehrig’s disease.
Also, for our troops that are serving to protect our country.
OFFICERS REPORTS:
Commander Brett Mackert- Brett has been working on death benefits & snowmobile info
1st Vice, Rick Pruett- Spent 2 weeks in Texas, assisting at feeding kitchen serving 5,000 meals a day after Hurricane Ike. I’ve sent info to Wes Collins. I’ve worked with Steve on t-shirts order. Also, I’ve been in contact with Custer County to encourage membership. I went to Burley with 9 Special Olympics athletes.
2nd Vice, Mike Oliverson- (absent)
Secretary, Brian Lenz- Just received the membership info & will have Membership cards at the next meeting.
Communications, Jim Gay- stresses that all units need to be P-25 compliant by 2013, digitally capable by then to be compliant & eligible for state grants. Work your local disaster service coordinator. Narrow band radios ????
Quartermaster/Treasurer, Steve Clinkscales- ordered in new t-shirts $577
Zone 1 Training Fund = $2,545
Zone 2 Training Fund = $ 795
Zone 3 Training Fund = $2,500
Total Training Fund = $5,840.00
General Fund =$1,943.05
Checking $7,783.05 as of Feb 27th,
UNIT REPORTS:
Bannock, Steve Clinkscales- no report
Idaho Mountain(Boise), Ron Knopp – 33 missions, total man hours ~2,000; 4,000 training hours. Large variety of searches: hikers, hunters, snow machines, cars, suicidal, boating with 1 drowning.
Butte, Deloy Braswell – 2 parades, Fourth of July & Atomic Day parade.
Custer, Don Varney– lost hikers, lost children, looking forward to rejoining & being a part of ISSAR again.
Fremont, Smokey Gould – gave details of some of their recent difficult searches. Assisted with the Ashton Dog Derby.
Gooding, Tony Funk -3 call outs , one lost snowmobiler, report of jet boat parts floating down the river, assisted the DEA, lost kid
Salmon(Lemhi), Rick Pruett – 4 extrication calls, 3 accidents involving ATVs, marathon, lost hunters, truck in river, missing snowmobiler. New Rescue truck. 5 unit members taking EMT test.
Lincoln, Jim Gay - Slow winter, respond to traffic accidents and injuries, with one extrication. Report of a down plane.
Mini-Cassia, Dale Crowther – 3 searches, 2 hunters, one phantom aircraft ELT in desert. Extrication calls. Winter survival.
Nez Perce SAR, Carol Leachman -In 2008, we had 7 searches, spot beacon request for help. 2 day river search, couple of drowning, lot of run off in spring. medical . Hunter reported marijuana growth, over 1000 plants, went out with DEA. Public service, twin rivers back country horseman show, GPS classes. Repeating again this year, along with spot beacon classes. Also, Security. Lewiston Roundup parade, 100th Anniversary parade for Sweetwater. Booth at the fair, call the county sheriff. Fun run drinkers. Went to Welch’s Oregon, Northwest SARCON, classes were excellent, highly recommended. Participated in 3-4 learning tracks & brought that training back to the unit. Mock snowmobile search a few weeks ago, without telling them that it was a mock search. Mock search using a Spanish-only barrier. New equipment.
Nez Perce Air – Verl Long 2 day search, lost fisherman with a broken leg.
Valley, Steve Landers –Just getting back to ISSAR meetings, one victim died when he fell into tree well.4 people spent night on West Mountain snowmobile search, out of range, no communication, left no info with family. Conditions were sleet, rain. Lost mushroomer, 3 day search, National Guard assist, no provisions, dehydrated when found. & he was later arrested for outstanding warrants. We recovered a drowning victim by Yellow Pine, who was an experienced kayaker. Public service: Fourth of July parade traffic control & assisted with Special Olympics in McCall. Language barriers.
Unfinished Business:
Utilizing Resources - language barriers are an issue that should be considered in all units; have a plan for such occasions.
Text messages are often used even when cell services are spotty.
Brett made a comment on Personal Locator devices becoming more widely used and commented on educating public with regard of how they should be used.
Call out procedure for utilizing long-line winching capabilities, go through sheriff’s office/ state com. Relay request, need hoist out of the back country. .. life threatening information. Rescue only, NO RECOVERIES.
When rescuing snowmobile or ATV victims and the vehicle is abandoned, don’t forget to bring the victims helmet when bringing the victims out.
Minutes were passed around for review. Deloy Braswell motioned to accept minutes as printed, seconded by Tony Funk. Motion carried.
COMMITTEE REPORTS
Bylaws- no changes / no discussion
Web page, Dawn Lenz – Please review your county’s resource information. If you need any changes, please let me know.
Search Reimbursement- Brett commented about trends in searches. 2008 number of searches. Monies that are not used shouldn’t be sitting around when units need that money. Units need to submit their searches so that they can be reimbursed for their time & equipment usage. Please be sure to turn in your forms. Reimbursement typically runs approx 4-5 weeks to be reimbursed. Training is capped, catastrophic is not capped. Catastrophic searches are searches that run over $4,000 in compensation. Rates were readjusted in Dec 2007 and perhaps next time we should look at making it current value of mileage reimbursement. At $2/gallon is break even, but when gas was $4/gallon units were typically coming up short.
Brett recommends looking into training money reimbursement & will contact Wes Collins about the issue.
Scrapbook, Mike Oliverson- absent
Zone Training Guidelines – Deloy has no current information. 2 representatives are not present. Links to the reps emails are available online.
Membership Registration – pay dues, fill out forms, Steve Clink has to file all information with the state. Do fill out e-post card.
501c3 Status- Steve reminded us that our fiscal year ends June 30th. He has to turn in all paid units & information changes by then. Units are required to send in their E postcards to file.
Everett Bogart Award: If you have nominations, get them turned in. The form is available on the website.
New Business:
Legislative Report- Brett Mackert & Rod Knopp– change in definition of what a first responder is. Senate Bill 1444 Sec 72-102 & 72-205. Under old law stated, “every person that is a member” . Last year changed the law, “every person who is a volunteer emergency responder”. Further on, it defines emergency responder as “firefighter, certified emergency responder, peace officer, sheriff or other deputized by police”, which makes SAR no longer covered by the county. Can be remedied with full support of the county, and may come at some cost to the county. Need to add “SAR volunteers under the direct supervision of the sheriff”. Individual units have considered purchasing own workman’s comp policy. $8.88 per year per member with minimum $296 /year.
Death Benefit - Brett- did some research into what the death benefit would be if a member was killed on a search. The benefit originates out of workman’s comp. Brett read a letter from Dave Sasser, lawyer, dated Sep 9, 2008 discussing the formula for reimbursement:
Dependant age change to 25 and remove the full time student clause.
60% of average state worker wage = ~$540, plus each additional dependents +5% up to 3 dependents.
Brett spoke about getting figures adjusted for current time period.
Good Samaritan Act; coverage for hazardous material ……
No specific coverage for search & rescue. 1 code section with 3 parts. Any person while acting as a volunteer of a rescue unit shall not be held responsible for…. In good faith. Concerns, questions?
Nationwide, one Utah SAR unit named in lawsuit. Rod from IMSARU spoke of trying to change the working in the act to reflect search & rescue’s status.
Education: Demonstration of Avalanche bag.
Future Meetings:
2009 ISSAR Summer Convention held over July 10, 11, 12th weekend - hosted by Fremont County. 40th Annual ISSAR Convention. There will be no cost. We had a record attendance last time, let’s try to beat that. We want kids involved. Training available: water training, sheriff’s pistol shoot competition (encourage them to come!), ATV/dirt bike trailride.
2009 ISSAR Fall Trailride Aug/Sep - hosted by Franklin Co.
We are looking for ISSAR units to host 2010 meets. Idaho Mountain & Valley county are considering hosting.
Check the ISSAR webpage for details on these meetings as they become available.
State Meeting Information – Hosting counties should send their information to Dawn to post on the web, but also should mail a flyer to each ISSAR unit (see ISSAR unit page for addresses).
National meetings: no info available
Motion to adjourn, seconded. Meeting adjourned @ 11:53a.
Secretary Brian Lenz
Commander Brett Mackert