Truckee Meadows Fire Protection District Board of Fire Commissioners Meeting - June 23, 2026

Good morning.

I'm gonna call the meeting to order for the Board of Fire Commissioners on Tuesday, June 23rd at 9 a.m.

Appreciate everybody being here on this really nice cold day.

977 degrees.

So Mr.

Mayberry, would you like to do the salute to the flag?

Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God and indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you.

I don't know how many more of you get you get to do of those.

Mr.

Mayberry.

How many more of those do you get to do?

All right, we'll go ahead and move to um roll call, please.

Thanks.

Chair Andreola present.

Vice Chair Garcia here.

Commissioner Hill.

Here.

Commissioner Clark is absent.

Commissioner Herman, do we have you on the phone?

I guess Commissioner Herman is absent.

Fire Chief Edwards.

Here.

Chief Deputy District Attorney, Mike Large.

Sure.

And I am Yvonne Strickland, Deputy Clerk.

Madam Chair, you have a quorum.

Thank you.

We'll move now to public comment.

Chief Edwards.

All right.

Item three is public comment.

Comment heard under this item will be limited to three minutes per person and may pertain to matters both on and off the Board of Fire Commissioners agenda.

However, action may not be taken on any matter raised during this public comment period until the matter is specifically listed on an agenda as an action item.

The board will also hear public comment during individual action items with comment limited to three minutes per person.

Comments are to be made to the Board of Fire Commissioners as a whole.

We have no one signed in.

Thank you.

Okay, we'll move now to Commissioners and Fire Chiefs announcements.

Chief Edwards.

All right, item four.

Commissioner of Fire Chief's announcements, request for information and topics for future agendas.

This is a non-action item, and there will be no discussion among commissioners.

Uh no discussion among commissioners will take place on this item.

And I have nothing this morning.

Vice Chair Garcia.

Commissioner Hill.

I just want to commend the team on all the work that they've been doing.

I know that the flooding was a lot of work for the team, and I know that the fires in Sun Valley and then Was there a fire in South Reno?

Yeah.

And Sparks as well.

So we're in it.

Um and we're here to support.

So just commend the work.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I'll I'll echo that and thank you for the really quick response in terms of helping the community understand where they could go, how they could get updated, and um the feedback that I've received so far from the constituents that I serve in Hidden Valley has been exemplary.

Um it's just unfortunate that the weather has its own way of handling situations, but I do appreciate everybody's hard work.

Thank you.

All right, well now, and I'll just ask Madam Clerk.

Like if Commissioner Herman does um come on the line, you can let us know.

Sure.

Thank you.

All right, we'll close item four and move to item five.

Chief Edwards.

All right.

Item five is a new employee introduction and badge printing for Deputy Chief Shannon Lewis.

And madam chair, if I may, sure.

Can I take this down at the podium?

Sure.

All right.

Good morning.

Uh today is both a celebration and a new chapter in the history of the Trucky Meadows Fire and Rescue.

Over the course of his distinguished career.

Well, let me back up a second here.

I think it's important that as we introduce a new member, we also need to recognize someone uh as they're coming to the end of their time with Trucking Meadows.

And uh so with that being said, uh, over the course of his distinguished career, Deputy Chief Ketching has left an indelible mark on this organization.

His calm demeanor, steady leadership, and genuine love for the Truckee Meadows and the people who serve here have helped shape the culture we enjoy today.

On a personal note, during my first year as fire chief, Chris's counsel, his friendship, and unwavering support have been invaluable in our organization's success.

His legacy will continue to be felt long after he's hung up his helmet, and we are forever grateful for his service.

And we look forward to celebrating Chief Ketchering at the July 7th Board of Fire Commission meeting.

And with that, I'd like to invite up Deputy Chief Shannon Lewis and his wife Barbara.

Today we proudly welcome Deputy Fire Chief Shannon Lewis to the Trucky Meadows Fire and Rescue family.

Shannon joins us with tremendous experience and a servant's heart, but more importantly, he joins a team built on trust, professionalism, and a commitment to one another and the communities that we serve.

Chief Lewis has served as a deputy fire chief of operations, a deputy chief of administration, and a fire marshal for the City of Stockton Fire Department in a career that ex uh that's spanned more than 30 years.

Most recently you served as the readiness coordinator for the William Williamson County Emergency Management Agency in Tennessee.

His knowledge and experience will be a true asset to Truckee Meadows Fire and Rescue.

Chief Lewis, while this badge signifies the rank of Deputy Fire Chief, it also represents something much deeper.

It symbolizes the trust we place in you, the responsibility that comes with leading this organization, and the opportunity to build upon the strong foundation left by those who came before us.

Together, we're going to continue to honor our traditions while preparing this great organization for the future.

Thank you for choosing Trucky Meadows.

Welcome to the family, and congratulations on your appointment.

And may you wear this badge with pride and honor.

So please join me in welcoming and congratulating Deputy Fire Chief Shannon Lewis.

Thank you very much.

Uh Chief, board members, members of the fire district.

First of all, I want to thank you for this opportunity.

Throughout my career, I've learned that leadership is not about rank or position, it's about service and representing our community.

This badge represents a commitment to serve our firefighters, our employees, our community, and the organization with integrity, professionalism, and accountability.

Even studying on vacation to prepare for the next position and their sacrifices for this position.

Lastly, I want to thank you for this opportunity, and I wear this badge with pride, and I appreciate the opportunity to be your deputy fire chief.

Thank you.

Well, welcome to Trucky Meadows Fire.

Can I invite you all down for a quick sure?

I don't mean perform.

Just sneak at your pictures, left it already.

Oh my God.

Congratulations.

Yeah, welcome.

Congratulations.

That's why I think I just want to hope that's just right ahead.

Lots to celebrate, that's for sure.

All right, we're gonna go ahead and close out item five and move to item six.

Chief Edwards.

All right, item six is a recommendation to approve an increase in the amount of ten thousand dollars to blanket purchase order number seven five zero zero zero zero four eight seven two for manpower temporary services, increasing the total not to exceed amount from 125,000 dollars to 135,000 dollars, utilizing Nevada State contract pricing.

SWC dash NV25-25407.

This increase will allow for the funding of one part-time accountant within the finance division, and this is for possible action.

Thank you.

Does anyone have any questions?

All right, this is an action item.

I'll call for public comment at this time.

We have nobody signed in.

Thank you so much.

I'll entertain a motion.

Madam Chair, I move to approve the increase of ten thousand as outlined in the staff report.

Second.

Thank you.

We have a motion and a second.

Any further discussion?

Hearing none.

All those in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Motion carries unanimously.

Thank you so much.

We'll move now to item seven.

Chief Edwards.

Item seven is a recommendation to approve an amend and amended and restated agreement for emergency medical and emergency fire dispatch services between the Truckee Meadows Fire Protection District and the Regional Emergency Medical Services Authority, which extends the term of the existing agreement for an additional one year commencing July 1st, 2026 through June 30th of 2027.

Updates the annual fee schedule for dispatch services from $632,303 and 32 cents to $177,652 and modernizes various provisions.

And this is for pro uh possible action.

Thank you.

Does anybody have any questions for Chief Edwards?

Well, uh now that you've been digging into this partnership with RemSA and um and I have no problem with the new contract.

I just I was on the board when we did this in 2021 and I was just reading that staff report again, talking about the off ramps that we wanted to put in and make sure that this was the right fit for us.

And um I I haven't heard from line staff like I used to on our partnership.

I think they've really improved, you know, we figured out how to communicate and work together, but I was just curious um your your thoughts as we've been you know working with Remsa on this agreement.

Yeah, I think that's a great question.

Um I think we've done a lot um working with RemSA to improve some of the dispatching uh challenges that we've experienced, and they've been very receptive to our needs.

Um this contract before you is for a one-year term as we're continuing to have those conversations with our regional partners to move towards that regional dispatch model.

Um and I think any longer term here kind of pulls away from that or distracts from it.

So that it also helps to build in some of that pressure to keep us moving towards that regional dispatch model, which we so desperately need here in the Washa Valley.

Great, great.

Well, um, I'm excited uh to to see what that happened what those conversations um are and um I'm happy to make the motion if you'd like, madam chair.

Thanks.

I think we're all excited to hear what those are.

All right, we have a motion by Commissioner Hill.

Do we have a second?

Yes, we have a second by vice chair.

Any further discussion?

Public comment and public comment.

We have no one signed in.

Thank you.

C DA Large, just know that you are always here when we meet always.

Just making sure that we have an opportunity.

All right, all those in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Motion carries unanimous to say thank you so much.

I need some copy.

Yeah.

All right.

We'll move now to item number eight.

All right.

Item eight is a recommendation to approve property liability and workers' compensation policies for the Trucking Meadows Fire Protection District for one year beginning July 1st, 2026 for a total amount not to exceed 2,320,495 and authorize the purchase of insurance based upon the recommendation.

The recommended selection includes a new property, liability, auto, cyber and pollution coverage policy through membership in the Nevada Public Agency Insurance Pool to include the board's approval of a resolution authorizing membership and the NPAIP, a renewal of a crime employee dishonesty coverage policy through traveler's bond and specialty for a combined cost of 442,365, as well as workers' compensation and employers' liability coverage policy renewal through 7710 insurance company for a cost of 1,878,130.

This item is for possible action.

And I'd like to introduce uh Brandon Lewis, the vice president of USI Insurance, who's also our broker, to provide a presentation on this item.

And he'll be accompanied by Donna Stewart, who's a senior claims consultant specializing in workers' compensation.

I'd like to invite them up to the podium.

Thank you.

And thanks for coming and doing this in terms of giving some in-depth information.

I uh I'm hoping you might have have found like a magic wand or something, but I don't know if that's in your presentation or not.

But thank you.

You're welcome.

Is the microphone?

It is.

Good morning, Madam Chair, fire commissioners, uh, Chief Edwards.

Thank you for the introduction.

Uh, my name is Brandon Lewis with USI Insurance Services here in Reno.

And I am joined by our senior workers' comp claims consultant, Donna Stewart.

And we're here to discuss the insurance renewal options, including the recommended option as well as workers' compensation strategies for the district.

Um every few years in the insurance markets, we will fully market a client's account, going out to multiple carriers and programs.

And that's always quite a bit of work, which we're happy to do.

But I would like to thank district leadership and staff.

They have been uh incredibly responsive, providing information and helping us to bring you the best option today.

So thank you, everyone.

On this executive summary slide, there's really two elements to the program.

The first we'll call property and casualty.

That includes property insurance, liability, auto, professional liability, and some cyber crime and pollution coverage.

And this is where the recommended option with the Nevada public agency insurance pool comes in.

Um, also like to just introduce we do have Wayne Carlson, executive director with the pool, and Steven Romero, member relations manager with the pool here as well.

So after meeting with district leadership early on in this process, we decided that it was necessary to market the district's insurance coverage.

The main reasons were that our current liability insurer who we've been with since 2019 wanted to add an exclusion for fuel mitigation operations to the renewal under what we call the excess liability coverage.

And this wouldn't have worked because it would have made work uh under the Nevada Energy contract impossible.

Um, so we knew that was uh critical and important for the district.

Um at the end, uh we do believe the pool or the Nevada Public Agency Insurance Pool provided the most competitive terms in pricing under option two.

The second component to the renewal and the larger budget item is workers' compensation.

The workers' comp markets are extremely limited for government entities with with what we call presumptive loss exposures found under NRS 617.

Um, this over the years has really restricted the markets uh for what we call a fully insured program here for the district.

You have coverage without a deductible or without a self-insured retention.

Uh whereas on the other side, just as an example, the county is self-insured for workers' comp and the county purchases excess coverage.

Even those markets are very limited because most carriers don't feel that they can uh earn a earn a uh decent premium and come up ahead with those losses.

The other big factor for workers' comp this year, and this affects all employers.

Um, that is that rates in Nevada for workers' comp have gone up on average about 20 to 25 percent for all employers, and that affected the district as well.

The other item we worked with was the district's current workers' comp insurers called 7710.

They attempted to non-renew the coverage.

They sent a non-renewal notice, but once we reviewed that, we determined that they didn't follow state law.

So, with the help of the division of insurance, they helped us to force them to offer a quote for one more year.

Although that price, that premium increased to almost 1.9 million, we did have other potential options that could have been in the three to four million range.

So we were pleased that that option came through.

The next slide just gives a brief overview of the exposures.

Each year we look at these to help us assess coverage and whether we have the best pricing for the district.

The main change that we'll see here is the building and content values will increase from 40 to about 49 million with the addition of the new fire station 35.

That's already been added to the current policy, and we'll include it in this before we place it.

This list, this market summary slide, just gives an overview.

Every time we go to an insurance carrier or program, we look at their financial rating.

AM best is the lead organization for this type of rating.

Under option two, you'll note that the pool is not rated.

And it's because it's not a traditional insurance company, which I'll dig into a little bit more.

But I would note that the pool does use highly rated reinsurers and best financial practices for their program to manage risk.

It is member owned and member governed by Nevada public entities.

So that's a key part of their process.

We did have three options to review with district leadership, and ultimately recommending option two to you today with the pool or NPAIP.

There were some key differences between each quote, but under option two, the pool does provide very broad coverage for a range of coverage from property and liability all the way to cybercrime and pollution.

Their option will also allow the district to not have to renew some separate policies between this year and next year and save additional premium.

Some of the other key differences were the pool that we will have a $5,000 deductible for most covered losses, including property, liability, auto, things like that.

There are higher deductibles for cyber when applicable and pollution, but that does help keep the overall pricing competitive.

The pool has worked with a number of other fire districts that do work with Nevada Energy under those fuel mitigation contracts, and Nevada Energy has accepted the coverage under a special endorsement that they've written for that.

That was a key factor that we looked at.

The next slide goes over the dollars and the premiums.

And that really the main driver again here is the workers' comp.

The top section of this slide gives you the options with the pool, and that even with including an estimate for the new fire station, keeps us within 2% of last year's premium for that property and liability program.

The workers comp did increase 35%.

About 25% of that was rate, and the other 10 was what we'll call experience rating that Donna and I will go into a little bit more.

We also, every year we look at contracts.

We look at contractual liability for the district.

Because we want to make sure that whichever insurer or program are representing can meet those requirements.

Each option did have some limitations, but we went through those and it's part of the recommendation today with the pool.

Believe that those that will meet most major contract requirements and allow the district to continue its key operations.

Another big point is really services and resources.

Because the pool is not a traditional insurance company, they offer a wide range of additional services that insurance companies can't.

This includes human resource consulting, governance board training, and property appraisals as well.

The next section of our presentation provides an overview of how workers' comp claims directly impact the district's workers' comp premiums, along with our strategy to work with the district to reduce costs going forward.

Again, the key issue here is that are the presumptive benefit laws for heart, lung, and cancer, because those have made it very difficult to find insurers willing to quote.

We were able to force the current carrier to quote this year, but know that next year they plan to file a compliant notice to non-renew the account next year.

So experience rating overall, this is basically a way for the insurer insurers to make sure that they're charging an appropriate premium for each employer.

An experience rating basically takes the claims that occur, accident frequency, how often, as well as the total cost of those losses.

And they compare it against employers with those same job classification codes, such as firefighters.

And if the employer has worse claims an average, your experience rating goes up and you end up paying more premium.

And if you have a better claims experience, your costs will go down.

This just gives an overview.

This slide just gives an example.

An employer with better than average claims might have a 0.75 EMOD.

They end up getting a 25% discount on their work comp premiums.

But on the bottom of the slide, if you have a higher EMOD, in this case 1.75, the employer ends up paying more for work comp.

The EMOD itself is based on a prior three years of payroll and claims data.

So it's something on a rolling basis that Donna will address a bit.

This just goes through the main components of the experience modsification codes like firefighter, payroll, and claims.

All of these need to be carefully analyzed to make sure they're correct each year.

I'll invite Donna up to touch on a few points regarding the district's historical modification factor.

Good morning.

Thank you.

And looking at this slide, we're looking at experience ratings or experience modification factors that go back to 2020.

The three years currently impacting the fire station are 22, 23, and 24.

So we're actually going to talk more about 25 and 26 EMODs and what happened and why we were sitting around two, and then it drops to 1.61.

That's because in two in 2025, all of the 2020 claims stopped impacting that experience rating.

So we're talking about that COVID exposure.

And there were a lot of claims in 2020, exactly 37 claims for 1.5 million dollars.

So in 2025, those came off, and that dropped the experience rating down, which was a nice reduction for the fire department.

And then in 2026, we see a 0.11 jump again.

However, the 2024 year starts impacting in 2026 because there's a year in between where it's kind of green to kind of look back on what the losses were.

2026, it goes back up.

2024 was not a good year.

There are 40 claims and 1.4 million in experience incurred value.

So that was the reason that the EMOD went back up again in 2026.

Okay.

Thank you, Donna.

Sure.

This slide just gives an information on how if the modification factor can be controlled, how you can save workers' comp dollars.

Currently, on the district's renewal quote, there's just over a million dollars in surcharge because of the claims experience.

By we were able to maintain a five over $500,000 in credits against that.

So the district's not paying that extra million dollars.

We were able to cut that in half with other discounts on the policy.

But over time, as we work with the district to manage claims, the goal is to bring that mod down so that you're not paying a surcharge, hopefully at all.

Donna, could you touch a little more on the next slide?

So this slide analyzes losses and impact on the EMOD, and these are actual versus expected losses by policy period.

And these are the years we were talking about 22, 23, and 24.

22.

Now those costs are actual paid costs, not the incurred value I was originally talking about.

So it's a little bit different than what we initially talked about.

But even looking at 24-25, we're still looking at a little over a million dollars in actual paid.

And that's including open claims that are still reserved out fairly high for you know injuries that are still going on.

And then how, but our goal is how are we addressing that?

And some of our strategies and looking at proactive risk management and looking at claim strategies, because we do have the presumptive law now, it's really being monitoring those presumptive trends, making sure that we are doing early intervention to present prevent those from getting really big, identifying where maybe it does apply, and maybe the presumptive law does not apply, because there are some little loopholes in there that you've got to dig deep into the print to find.

And then risk control, of course, is preventing losses.

The other area is looking at all trends, looking at the cancer, looking at the heart bills or the heart claims also.

It's not just the lung, and making sure that we're doing some preventative work to help you identify and prioritize those efficiencies that would really help the aid the agency improve.

Thank you, Donna.

You're welcome.

As Donna mentioned, um, Donna and our team will continue to work with the district on active claim monitoring.

We also help with monthly claim reviews.

We're also going to start analyzing your eMod, your experience factor on a quarterly basis.

We can give leadership a heads up on where we think that's trending over the next year, um, as well as the other risk management and consulting services that our firm office offers.

Um, thank you for your time.

We'd be happy to answer any questions.

Thank you.

Thanks again, Chief Edwards, for inviting the folks, you know, to share because there's also you know, some legislative impact that we're feeling, you know.

This is really, I don't want to use an unfunded mandate, but to a certain extent, it it really falls into that category, right?

Because I don't think anyone would ever not want to ensure the health and safety of every employee.

That's not really, in my opinion, what we're talking about.

But we're talking about insurance companies and the actual data that they use of risk versus essentially being able to pay out any future claims.

It really comes down to actuarial analysis and math.

That's what it comes down to.

And so I really appreciate the fact that you're looking, and I want to thank Chief Edwards for the leadership of looking at what we can do up front as best we can.

We can't always control things that happen, but the quarter um the the analysis you're gonna be doing on a quarterly basis, I think is really helpful.

Is there anything that others are doing that maybe you're looking at as well?

I guess that it's not just your your um analysis.

This is happening, it's almost a domino effect that's happening.

And I'm wondering if there's anything that might be coming down of how we look at this as well.

Good question.

Thank you, madam chair.

Um, there is a working group right now, I believe led by Clark County.

Okay.

Um and the district's been involved in that uh primarily in response to SB7, which was passed in that 25 year.

I see the eyes light up.

Um that one caused quite a stir and some concerns about some retroactive liability for lung claims.

Um so that working group, I believe, is very active, and that could be a really important part of that.

Um, also, in addition to the pool, um, the gentleman uh here, Wayne and Steven, they also represent the PACT, the public agency compensation trust, and they ensure a number of rural fire districts and other entities with presumptive exposures.

Um so they're also a key player in terms of advocating and you know, trying to find ways to make this work better for everyone.

Well, I hope that the working group as it progresses, there's an opportunity to look at going back to the legislature and sharing what that impact is.

And um I realize that the insurance company is again doing their job, but that's a really huge hit.

And I also want to just give recognition to not only you but to Chief Edwards for reviewing the non-renewal notice timeline.

Because had it been a little different, we would not have it at all.

So I think that you should be commended for looking at all the I's and T's crossed and any fine print.

I'll go ahead and open this up to um Chief Edwards.

Did you have anything that you wanted to add?

I don't want to.

I do not other than the fact that we're gonna look at this very closely and then internally look at what our our um injuries have been over the last five years to see if there's correlations that see if there's things that we can do internally to re-engineer how we deliver service.

Maybe that's how our fire engines are designed, maybe things we do around the firehouse, anything that we can uh identify to reduce injuries uh to help bring that EMOD uh down.

Um something we're definitely looking at.

And I'll just add and then open it up to my colleagues.

But I do think that there is an educational uh component as well in terms of employees.

Um, and I think the more information they have, the better they will be and um embracing various um opportunities because no one wants anyone to have any of these, quite frankly.

But not only SB7, SB 170 and SB 387, they all came and really put quite a crunch on local government.

So I'll open it up to my colleagues, Commissioner Hill.

I love that I know what an EMOD is.

I know I never knew that.

That was a great presentation.

I'm like feel very empowered.

Uh for didn't you didn't we pay for um something to help with injuries?

Didn't you weren't you doing, can you remind us I forgot what that was?

I forgot what that was.

Yes.

So we have two different contracts.

One we have with Ready Rebound, which is a company that helps get our employees in quicker to the doctors to get uh definitive treatment.

And the second is we have a contract with uh a physical therapist, Dr.

Fisher, uh, that comes in.

Um, and he's I think that contract is five hours a week right now.

It's increasing to 10 um through the next fiscal year, but to provide some of that physical um uh assessment and and treatment and stuff to help people from having work comp injuries, so helping their flexibility or a rehabbing partial injuries or something before they actually become something that are going to need um definitive treatment.

I think it's also important to note that we're not going to be able to eliminate everything for injuries because we work in a pretty hazardous environment, and our firefighters are exposed to all kinds of uh risky situations and so forth that further you know increase the likelihood of having these injuries.

It's uh I think the more we bring attention to it though, maybe we're more mindful on how we um address some of these situations and so forth to see if we can't reduce some of that.

Right.

Well, I think it's great we're doing the proactive work, and I think that will pay off for us as well, and then doing that analysis of just seeing what we can do to ensure that we're uh preventing any potential injuries.

But this is uh great uh presentation, and I feel comfortable moving forward.

Vice Chair Garcia.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I appreciate the presentation as well.

It was very thorough, and I you outlined your methodology, so that was very helpful in helping us understand the inner workings of your analysis.

So thank you.

The second part of this agenda item is authorizing the membership to the NPA IP.

Um, I was just curious because I'm not familiar with what that membership entails.

I I read that it pulls together a bunch of public entities, but we have a very specialized fire agency here.

And so I'm just curious if that membership will lend itself well to the type of work that we do here.

Thank you for the question.

Um, if I may, I'd like to reintroduce Stephen Romero, member relations manager with the pool uh to address that question.

Thank you.

Yes, for the record, Steve Romero with uh pool.

Uh we actually have other fire districts uh within our organization.

So we understand the fire districts, we understand what you do.

And what we will be doing is we will work with Brandon and Chief Edwards to be able to do an onboarding as well with regards to the membership.

Is there any additional questions with regards to what it means to be a member?

That's it.

Thank you.

Okay.

All right.

Uh this is an actionable item, so I'll call for public comment at this time.

We have no public comment.

Thank you.

Well, entertain a motion.

Move as presented.

Second.

We have a motion and second.

Any further discussion?

Hearing none.

All those in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Motion carries unanimously.

Thank you so much.

And thank you for the great presentation.

And hopefully, we'll see some relief in various ways.

So it might be helpful to have an update just periodically when you see fit, um, so that we can be prepared from a budgetary standpoint as well.

So especially since you're doing the quarterly analysis.

So thank you.

All right, we'll go ahead and close item uh eight and we'll move now to item nine.

Commissioners and fire chiefs announcements.

Chief Edwards.

Item nine is a commissioner's fire chiefs announcements request for information and topics for future agendas.

It's a non-action item, no discussion among commissioners will take place on this item.

Do you have anything?

I do have a couple items.

Okay.

Um, one is yesterday we adopted the first level of fire restrictions in the in the area.

Um, and this is in alignment with our partners at the state and federal level as well.

So the list of the prohibited activities are on our uh district's website, and I'll speak more to it at the BCC meeting to give a rundown on those in the onus of time here.

And then also um I did want to thank all of our crews for the incredible amount of work uh that was put in on Friday at uh Hidden Valley.

Um that was a pretty unique incident for us.

Um that started out with just uh uh a water removal call for a single engine response, and that first engine arrived on scene uh and it was actually from the city of Reno that gave us the update that we had all this mud and debris flow uh coming through the neighborhood.

So um that you know initiated uh a much larger response actually from our partner agencies at Sparks and with TM.

Um our incident managers did an incredible job of priority prioritizing life safety, um making sure that everyone was accounted for, um, proud of our folks, and you know, can say that miraculously no no humans uh were injured or lost their lives in this incident.

Um proud of our folks, and you know, can say that miraculously no no humans uh were injured or lost their lives in this incident.

And if you saw the damage, it was pretty incredible that nobody was hurt.

Um sadly, one cat did perish in the incident.

Um it was a significant event that required not just the resources of our fire agencies, um, but we also had the Washoe County Sheriff's Office there, their search and rescue teams, uh Washoe County Emergency Management was on scene, NV Energy.

We had an active gas leak at the same time.

People were trapped in their home because of the debris flow.

It it uh damaged the meter and allowed the gas to escape there.

Um so firefighters were able to go in and effect a rescue to get those folks out of harm's way.

Um we also had uh representatives from Remsa, Washoe County Regional Animal Services, and the Washoe County Community Service Division.

And so uh this incident transitioned that evening uh to a recovery, and we transferred command over to emergency management in Kelly Echaberia and her team.

Um, and then for future updates, you can go to emergencywasho.com for those residents seeking any additional information.

And that concludes my updates.

Thanks.

I'd really would like to uh recognize Ms.

Etchriera, I can never pronounce your last name, Kelly, um, who just walked in because standing up and the communication team as well, and TM and all of the partners, the communication was really really helpful.

So as I was getting calls, it is my district, not that I'm the only one.

I was able to respond as quickly as possible.

In many cases, answering the phone promptly, and the response from everyone in the team was really wonderful.

And as I mentioned a moment ago, when the meeting started, the appreciation of the residents of Hidden Valley is nothing short of um recognizing how quickly everyone responded responded.

So it's it's really commendable.

I I almost can't believe it happened, right?

Again, a flood.

So um, yeah, thank you so much.

And thanks for the videos and everyone and just standing up the site, the update, perimeter.com, everything that was available.

Um waste management is actually out um today, if you will, and has been out in terms of helping with debris.

So there's still some ongoing um activity that's happening.

So I will open it up, Commissioner Harold.

Do you have anything?

Vice Chair Garcia, do you have anything?

All right, we'll go ahead and close item nine, move to item 10, which is public comment.

Item 10 is a public comment, a non-action item.

Comment heard under this item will be limited to three minutes per person and may pertain to matters both on and off the board of fire commissioners agenda.

Comments are to be made to the Board of Fire Commissioners as a whole.

Do we have any public comment?

We do not.

Thank you.

Okay, we're gonna close public comment.

We're gonna move to item 11, which is a closed session.

DA Large, would you like to share um the detail in terms of folks that can come up?

Yeah, we're gonna have a closed session with Trucking Meadows Fire Protection District pursuant to NRS 288.220 um and NRS 241 um 016 subsection three.

Um, and we need um the chief and his team along with uh myself and the board, and we will after that is done, we will open it for public comment at that time.

Right, and the location is upstairs, the caucus.

Thank you.

Just want to make sure we get the location.

So we are adjourned at 9 45, and we'll call for public comment after the closed session.

Thank you.