Howard County Fire Chiefs meeting in Mineral Springs

The Howard County Fire Chiefs had their meeting last night at the Mineral Springs Fire Department. Budd Dunson spoke briefly regarding his candidacy for Howard County Judge. Scott and I also spoke about our campaign. Sherry Beatty from the Extension Service gave a brief talk on using GPS systems. After her talk Sonny Raulerson, Howard County Emergency Coordinator, discussed education opportunities for departments. During the discussion the fire chiefs also discussed the changes made to the Good Samaritan Law during the last session. It appears that the Legislature may have unintentionally removed the immunity the law had provided. At the least it is not clear whether the immunity is still in place. Another concern was the new law increasing the training requirements to 24 hours. The new law places a hardship on most fire departments in our area. Most of the volunteer fireman have jobs and families and it is hard on them to meet the 24 training requirement. Those are certainly a couple of laws enacted in the last Session that need to be fixed in the 2009 Session - or before if there is a Special Session.