Eddie Morales - Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

With declining volunteer interest and just two full-time staff members at the Mequon Fire Department, a committee on Tuesday recommended the city hire three deputy chiefs, one emergency medical technician and increase wages for paid-on-call members — all at a cost of about $750,000.

The recommendation came from the Future of Our Fire Department Committee, created in June 2019 by Mayor John Wirth with the task of creating a road map to solve staffing problems.

“We want to get away from putting a Band-Aid on the bleeding,” said committee member Lynn Streeter. “We make these things permanent, and we are able to recruit successfully and be more competitive with our surrounding communities.”

For the Mequon Fire Department, being more competitive means offering enticing positions for easier recruiting.

Strengthening the structure

“An organization our size has difficulty competing,” said Deputy Fire Chief Kurt Zellman. “We hire a line-level firefighter or entry-level person, put a bunch of time and effort into training them and yet, in our organization, there’s a big gap between where they are when they start and where they can go.”

The committee proposed four options with costs ranging from $0 to $4.5 million. Committee members agreed upon the “budget conscious” option, which would have the city strengthen the department’s current structure.

The suggested budget increase would cover three deputy chief salaries at $120,000 each, $311,820 to permanently increase the wages for paid-on-call staffers and $79,012 for an additional EMT.

The fire department has two full-time chiefs, about 50 paid-on-call members and six emergency medical services members: two first responders, one paid-on-premises paramedic and three paid-on-call EMTs.

Streeter said that within that pool of 50 paid-in-call members there is a core group of about 12 that staffs 80% of call hours.“In and of itself, that creates a risk,” she said.

Alderman Robert Strzelczyk questioned why the committee didn't suggest a plan with less costly positions than additional deputy chiefs. “Why aren’t we bringing somebody in as a mid-level or captain level or something where they have supervisory skills, but it’s not at a $120,000 a year position on our taxpayers' shoulders?” he asked.

The cost of hiring three deputy chiefs — for the roles of emergency medical services, training and community risk reduction — would cost $360,000.

Alderman and committee member Dale Mayr explained that they are suggesting a top-down approachand that their "deputy chief" titles aren’t as important as the jobs they'd be doing.

Alderwoman Kathleen Schneider said the new chiefs would staff ambulances along with the EMTs.

By Vanessa Rousseau, Rotary Club of Newlands, South Africa

As members of the Rotary Club of Newlands in Cape Town, South Africa, we could not stand by watching the devastating effects of COVID-19 on food security in our country and our city.

Soon after the initial lockdown period was announced, we jumped into action to do what we could to alleviate the suffering. To ensure that we provide what is needed to those most in need, we have drawn on our longstanding relationships with community leaders who have worked with us on projects over many years.

One of our members started a fundraising campaign for our club to raise funds for food relief on BackaBuddy, a South African crowdfunding platform. With the donations to this campaign and the assistance of various partners, we raised about 1.4 million South African Rand (more than US$80,000).

This translated to meals for thousands of children, families, and the elderly.

So far these funds have assisted the following beneficiaries in the greater Cape Town area:

• The families of 780 children from Early Childhood Development centres in Langa, including food parcels and food vouchers for a total of 12 weeks, amounting to around 200, 000 meals.
• More than 250 children, other local community members, and the elderly via two Early Childhood Development centres in Masiphumelele (near Noordhoek) and Mbekweni (near Paarl). Bot centres have well-managed community food kitchens which have provided meals for 12 weeks. This has helped many families survive.
• More than 3,000 children per day and many elderly people received meals from twelve Philisa Abafazi Bethu(PAB) community kitchens and feeding distribution points. These are superbly managed by the indefatigable Lucinda Evans who is the CEO of PAB and with whom Newlands Rotary has been working for many years. Watch this video to see the work of PAB in the Lavender Hill community.

While we are delighted with the support we have received and the relief this has enabled us to provide thus far, our efforts cannot stop here. The South African economy is at an all-time low and the unemployment rate at an all-time high.

The crisis continues in Cape Town and the rest of the country. We will continue to raise funds to feed the hungry. To this end our Rotary Club of Newlands BackaBuddy campaign remains open for further donations. Find more details how you can help.