There’s never a dull moment when the time comes for the Oxford Public Fire and EMS Commission to elect its board officers for the new year.
At the Jan. 21 meeting, OPFEC voted 10-2 to re-elect township Supervisor Bill Dunn to serve as the board’s chairman.
A motion by village President Steve Allen to nominate Councilman George Del Vigna for the chairmanship was voted down 6-6.
However, Del Vigna was unanimously re-elected vice chair of the commission.
Township Trustee Jerry Dywasuk attempted to nominate the village clerk for chairperson, but received only chuckles rather than a second.
“I’d like to nominate Rose Bejma because she’s the only one that can look at the insurance,” Dywasuk said.
The trustee’s motion was primarily a sarcastic remark because the village clerk can’t legally serve on OPFEC as she’s not an elected township or village official.
Dywasuk was upset because of an earlier board discussion about who the primary contact person to the fire department’s health insurance provider should be. Currently, that contact person is Bejma.
Some OPFEC members, including Dywasuk, expressed the opinion that the contact person should be an elected official sitting on the OPFEC board.
One person who did not think Dywasuk’s motion was funny was Allen, who used profanity to chastize Dywasuk during commissioners’ comments.
“Those of you who —- and moan and —– and complain about this being an ineffective body, I want you to look in the mirror the next time before you make that complaint and see how many times you made smartass motions tonight,” Allen said.
Township Trustee Shirley Clancy was re-elected OPFEC secretary with only one opposing vote – her own.
“I said no last year and you still gave it to me,” Clancy said to her fellow officials.
According to OPFEC’s bylaws, “the secretary is responsible for all record-keeping,” said Clancy, adding, “I don’t always” receive the records she should or they go to the village clerk.
“You’re asking me to be responsible for things that don’t even sometimes come to me,” she said. “It’s difficult to be responsible for records when you really aren’t the overseer of the records.”
Following more discussion, Clancy finally agreed to serve as secretary for another year.
“I’ll take it as long as my comments are part of our record because there’s no way anyone of us on this commission can really state with certainty that everything’s been placed where it should be,” Clancy said.
Dunn said he has many of the original records (as opposed to copies) stored in locked files and he would be happy to give those to Clancy as well as any future records.
Township Treasurer Joe Ferrari was unanimously re-elected treasurer of OPFEC for another year.