Monday, December 10, 2012
The budget was adopted by the fire district's board of directors by a vote of 2-1 and will include the hiring of two new firefighters to replace outgoing employees.
The Monarch Fire Protection District passed a balanced budget for 2013 last week that predicts its operating revenue will remain mostly flat but will still allow for the hiring of two full-time firefighter/paramedics to replace a pair of outgoing employees. The budget was prepared by MFPD Chief Tom Vineyard and adopted by the district’s board of directors at a meeting Dec. 5. Director Kim Evans said the $17 million budget largely resembled the one for 2012. “We were able to keep the tax rates flat from year to year so we essentially have to adopt the same budget with minor exceptions," she said. On the revenue side, the district is forecasting it will bring in $17,156,200, compared to the $16,933,200 estimated for 2012. Property taxes, …
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
Chesterfield public agency has no room for wording reminiscent of Rush Limbaugh's "feminazi" or Jerry Seinfeld's "Soup Nazi."
When there is a rare open public meeting at Chesterfield's March Fire Protection District, someone from Chesterfield Patch tries to attend. On Monday night, there were a total of three people at the meeting, including me. One left early. Here's what I heard. A Nazi on staff: During a discussion about increasing firefighter/paramedic on-the-job training from half-an-hour a day to two hours a day, district Training Officer Robin Echele used statistics to make a point. He referred to a staffer as the “Data Nazi” who had come up with certain statistics. It struck me as odd that a person working in a political subdivision that included a sizeable Jewish population would even consider using the word “Nazi” in this way. Nazis killed and tortured …
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Monarch Fire Protection District
13725 Olive Blvd, Chesterfield, MO
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Friday, March 23, 2012
Take a look at how Fire District trustees measure up against State Auditor's criticisms, in this author's opinion.
Open public meetings of the Monarch Fire Protection District can be rare things, so I was sure to attend the open meeting on Wednesday March 22. The meeting started with an almost empty room. The public outnumbered reporters 4-to-3. The board’s attorney was absent as was Fire Chief Tom Vineyard, who was in Colorado on a ski vacation. (Pretty good for someone on the job three months.) After the opening Pledge of Allegiance, things got sticky for the Board of Trustees and Sunshine Laws. In the last two months, Monarch was raked over the coals by the State Auditor’s Office for violating the Missouri Sunshine Law—including open meetings laws. News articles and columns followed, including three in Chesterfield Patch and an editorial in the St. …
Friday, February 17, 2012
Violation of Sunshine Laws and wasted money seemed apparent, author says.
I didn’t start attending Monarch Fire Protection Board of Director meetings until November, but it did not take long for me to figure out that something was not right. When Missouri Auditor Thomas Schweich released his audit of the District on February 15, it would have been surprising if he had not found what he did. Closed Meetings: More often than not the Board of Directors meetings were closed. The whole point of the Open Meetings Law and the Sunshine Law is to make closed meetings the exception and not the rule. In a January 4 column I wrote how nine of the last 14 scheduled meetings were CLOSED. (See photo.) So, litte surprise when the State Auditor found in the first nine months of 2011 there were 40, yes forty, incidents when the …
Friday, January 6, 2012
New chief of Monarch Fire Protection District "sworn in."
Chesterfield-based Monarch Fire Protection District introduced its new fire chief, Tom Vineyard, Thursday night at a regular public meeting of the district's three-member board of directors. Board President Kim Evans conducted a ceremonial swearing-in at administrative headquarters, 13725 Olive Blvd., since Vineyard's first day of work was Jan. 2. Vineyard was with Mid-County Fire Protection District since 1988. Top firefighting brass from University City, Pattonville, West County Fire and others watched Vineyard take over his post, leaving after the brief protocol. Vineyard takes the job amid controversey, and a lawsuit over the firing of four top department personnel. The case recognized "abusive treatment" of female firefighting staff …
George Harrison
11:25 am on Thursday, April 19, 2012
John, I appreciate your reporting on these meetings. Most residents find attending difficult and it's nice to hear what's going on with the fire district. However, I have to say I'd find it easier to take you seriously if your columns about the district were a little less nasty in tone. I have a hard time believing that many of the district employees are bad people, much less Nazis. I agree that … more ›