Fire District Board hires new legal counsel

At their Jan.4th meeting, members of the Maricopa Fire District governing board voted to terminate the services of legal counsel Donna Aversa of Sidney, Lex, Felker, Inc. Aversa, who was billing for both mileage and her attendance at board meetings, received an average of $2,400 monthly.

Board member Don Pearce opposed the termination. He suggested waiting “until the transition over to the city,” which is scheduled for July 1.

Thursday, board members voted to place Clair William Lane, whose office is located in Tempe, on a monthly retainer of $1,750 for 8.75 hours, including travel to and from Maricopa board meetings. Lane, who has served on several civic boards in the Phoenix area, has been the attorney for the city governments of Guadalupe, Prescott Valley and Bullhead City.

Lane was selected from a pool of four applicants. “All have the legal experience we’re looking for,” noted board member Rebecca Molus, “but I like Mr. Lane.” Clerk of the Board Amy Haberbosch agreed, explaining that the decision needed to be made in terms of “more of a municipal future” for the fire district.

Maricopa Fire District governing board members (from left) Carl Diedrich, Rebecca Molus, Oliver Anderson and Amy Haberbosch show off their brand new board shirts.

The board, possibly at their next meeting, will be reviewing the district’s bylaws. Fire Chief William Kelleher told them, “We need to go back to the boilerplate, and an excellent place to start is with the bylaws of the Arizona Fire District Association.” He added that the state and local bylaws are “substantially different in key sections.”

In other business the board agreed to grading and milling services ($12,466) for Station 572 at Tortosa, which is a temporary facility and will be for the next 12-18 months. Assistant Fire Chief Dan Ashton explained that it would cost approximately $30,000 to pave what is a temporary station, and the driveway “needs to be packed to handle apparatus.”

An addition to the Commercial Building Regulations, pertaining to temporary structures like sales trailers, was made to clarify the need for monitored fire alarms in those buildings.

The board also passed a motion to expend $15,000 to integrate the new Station 571 firefighter living quarters with a back-up generator system.

Fire calls for 2006 numbered 1,550, a significant increase over the 962 calls in 2005. The department currently has 61 employees, including 49 firefighters, three Battalion Chiefs, eight administrative personnel and a chaplain.