OPTA NW Chapter Meeting
December 12, 2013
Western Bus Sales
Elena Mark opened the meeting at 11:00
Attendees: Mollie Blagg-Western Bus Sales, Dan Hagah-Sherwood, Keith Bowers-Sherwood, Casey Jeben-Sherwood, Mary Conger –NCSD#12, TJ Crockett-ODE, Dawn Parcell-NCSD, Dana Strand-NCSD, Shawn Choruby-Western Bus Sales, Richard Beck-NCSD, Mark Sexton-NCSD, Susan Hill-Smith-OCSD, Rosemary Vehrenkamp-OCSD-Central Office, Jennie Skellenger-OCDC, Suzanne Steele-OCDC- Multnomah Co.
Minutes: the minutes from November 14 were read, and a motion to approve was made by Mary Conger with a second from Keith Bowers. The minutes were approved with a correction- to fix the date on page 3 to reflect May 21st 2014 per TJ.
Financial Report: Dawn Parcell handed out a current Banking Summary to everyone and she reported that the issues with the American Red Cross have been worked from the Summer Workshop. We still have outstanding balance from the Summer Workshop and she will be invoicing the districts and by January the deficit should be made up. A question was asked “do we have a budget for the winter workshop?” Currently we don’t have one but it was agreed that one should be made. Another question was asked about why we give to the state. We had extra money from the 2012 Summer Workshop so we elected to donateto fund a break at the 2013 OPTA Conference. Elena Mark made a motion to approve the finance report and Richard Seconded it.
Poster Contest: Richard reported that there was no new news and that he is waiting for information from the VIA National. When he gets the flyer from them he will pass on the contacts.
Education: PPS: will be providing a Core Refresher Class on December 26th and a First Aid Refresher on December 27th. North Clackamas will have some classes in late January.
Sunshine: Dawn Sent out a card for PPS employee as mentioned in last months minutes.
Safety Exercises: Ryan sent an email to all that the facility at the coast would not work due to lack of restrooms, recreation area and a building. Mary Conger reported that we are looking into the facility at Trojan called TrojanPark.
Winter Workshop: the venue will be the Monarch Hotel in Clackamas and the date is Monday March 10th. Dawn suggested a theme of Crisis Response Preparedness. Mark Sexton gave suggestions like having talks about how to notify someone when a crisis occurs: example someone jumping on the bus and how to deal with weapons on the bus and how to protect yourself.
Old business: Trailer: Mark Sexton is in the process of looking for a tandem axel 15 foot trailer in the $2,500-3000.00 range.
Committees: We need to address committee membership
New Business: Richard Beck is the video tech person for his district and he told us about some inexpensive lenses that could be installed on our bus cameras that would enhance the picture to see a much wider area. The lenses are 2.8 mm. lenses and cost about $10.00 each. He showed us some pictures of the difference with the lenses and with out. He also told us about setting up a “Spy Bus” for problems they were having in their employee parking lot. They reprogrammed the DVR for continuous feed and caught the people on camera and were able to apprehend them.
TJ brought up the subject of stolen buses. There was a large district that had 6 buses stolen from them and they were never recovered. This is a big concern for the TSA because school buses do not look out of place anywhere especially at public institutions, ex: the State Capitol. This could be a subject for a Crisis Response class.
Welcome: Molly Blagg from Western Bus Sales welcomed us and provided a very nice lunch buffet. Thank you Molly!
State Report: TJ Crockett passed around the text of the law President Obama signed recently. Certification for Medical Examiners was signed into law in 1995 to go into effect by May 2014 almost 20 years later. The purpose of having the law go into effect so much later was to slow the process down. In 1995 the lawmakers had seen big problems in the 1990’s and they knew it would take a while to get the problems to begin to get fixed. As to rule making, even if a rule is fast tracked” it will still take 3-5 years from now to go into effect. It is still hard to determine if a crash is caused by lack of sleep. That determination can be inferred but is not decisive. The purpose of the new rule is to be guidance to determine if people may have sleep apnea. Medical Examiners are now certified and as they take their ongoing certification classes all new rules are part of the classes they take. Medical Examiners cannot diagnose a medical problem; it is the Employees doctor that makes the diagnosis. If an employee’s doctor says they are ok, then the subject needs to end there. If anyone has drivers concerned about their health, then encourage them to go to their doctor. It is on the individual and the doctor to treat any medical issue, not the employer.
TJ also told us that the Program Analyst job had been offered and the person accepted and he was not at Liberty to say who it was at this time.
Trinket Sales: A concern was brought up – are we taking away from judging positions? We usually have a hard time getting enough volunteers to judge the safety exercises. Will the need to have another person there to handle trinket sales take away from the number of judges?
Round Table: Shall we table the round table discussion to once a month or quarter? The thoughts were once a quarter with specific topics. The issues that came up were interest of getting together after work and having common days off. A suggestion was made to keep the meeting short from 11:00 to 12:00 and then have the round table from 12:00 to 1:00.
There was no Quorum today so we could not make any financial decisions.
Meeting was adjourned at 12:15.