{"id":336,"date":"2019-06-19T13:32:25","date_gmt":"2019-06-19T13:32:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=336"},"modified":"2019-06-19T13:32:30","modified_gmt":"2019-06-19T13:32:30","slug":"polk-fire-rescue-interim-chief-makes-a-costly-list-of-recommendations-to-the-county","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2019\/06\/19\/polk-fire-rescue-interim-chief-makes-a-costly-list-of-recommendations-to-the-county\/","title":{"rendered":"Polk Fire Rescue interim chief makes a costly list of recommendations to the county"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Chief Rob Weech told commissioners Tuesday it would cost\n$8.9 million to pay for all the improvements to the fire department that\nan outside consulting firm is recommending.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She was on the phone with 911 for twenty minutes waiting for\nhelp to save her. Meanwhile, firefighters were outside battling the\nblaze.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the wake of the fire and the controversy surrounding\nit, Chief Tony Stravino and the captain in charge of the scene, James\nWilliams retired.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Weech said training for new officers tops his priority list.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I think that will give us the ability to take our new\nand inexperienced officers and get them on the same level as some of\nour old promoted officers,” Weech said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After the fire, Williams was criticized for instructing\ncrews to concentrate on fighting the fire, rather than going in to try to save\nPickard. He was also sanctioned for posting video of the fire as it was\nburning on social media.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Weech also wants to develop mentoring program to team up\nnewcomers with experienced firefighters. Down the road, he would like to\nbuild a training center.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Weech reported that policies have been changed internally so\nthere is better communication between dispatch, firefighters at a scene and in\nthe surrounding area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When all was said and done, commissioners said they could\npartially fund the proposed improvements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We’re committed to this,” said Commission\nChairman George Lindsey, “But it is beyond resolving every issue in one\nyear. It’s not possible.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lindsey says this year; the county can invest $3.5\nmillion in improvements. In the following years, the county can spend more\nmoney on the remaining areas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lindsey says the lion’s\u00a0share\u00a0of the money will come from the fire fee, which will probably increase about $15 this year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chief Rob Weech told commissioners Tuesday it would cost $8.9 million to pay for all the improvements to the fire department that an outside consulting firm is recommending. She was on… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":337,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"0","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-336","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=336"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}