{"id":2449649,"date":"2019-10-08T21:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-10-09T03:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/?p=314017"},"modified":"2019-10-08T21:00:00","modified_gmt":"2019-10-09T03:00:00","slug":"aspen-fire-pitkin-county-boards-cordial-in-discussion-about-contract-for-airport","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/aspen-fire-pitkin-county-boards-cordial-in-discussion-about-contract-for-airport\/","title":{"rendered":"Aspen Fire, Pitkin County boards cordial in discussion about contract for airport"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n

<\/p>

A meeting between the Aspen Fire District Board and the Pitkin County Commissioners on Tuesday focused on building a positive relationship between the two agencies. (Kelsey Brunner\/The Aspen Times)<\/strong>
Kelsey Brunner\/The Aspen Times<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

A meeting Tuesday between Pitkin County commissioners and the Aspen Fire District Board mostly avoided mention of recent controversies and focused on creating a positive working relationship between the entities.<\/p>\n

\u201cAny emergency at the airport will require all agencies to work together,\u201d said Pitkin County Manager Jon Peacock. \u201cWe serve the public to the greatest degree possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

Commissioner Patti Clapper noted that since 1881 \u2014 when the Aspen\u2019s volunteer fire department began \u2014 the Roaring Fork Valley has functioned under a \u201cmutual aid environment\u201d that she said needs to continue.<\/p>\n

Controversy erupted last month when Pitkin County Sheriff Joe DiSalvo sent a letter<\/a> to a member of the Aspen Fire District Board criticizing Fire Chief Rick Balentine for fear-mongering and being uncooperative with other public safety agencies. DiSalvo cited what he said were Balentine\u2019s poor working relationships with his agency, Pitkin County, Roaring Fork Fire and Rescue, the Pitkin County airport and the Aspen Ambulance District as proof of the rift.<\/p>\n

DiSalvo attended Tuesday\u2019s meeting but did not speak about the controversy, which grew out of the county\u2019s efforts to cement a contract with Aspen Fire to respond to emergencies \u2014 especially structure fires \u2014 at the airport. That contract, or \u201cmemo of understanding,\u201d remains unsigned between the entities, Pitkin County attorney John Ely said Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Currently, Roaring Fork Fire and Rescue would the contracted entity that would respond to airport emergencies if that agency\u2019s board approves it, despite the fact that the airport is within the Aspen Fire District.<\/p>\n

However, Karl Hanlon, the Fire District\u2019s attorney, told commissioners Tuesday that he and Ely are scheduled to meet Thursday to work on the airport agreement.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really good we\u2019re sitting down and talking about this,\u201d Commissioner Steve Child said.<\/p>\n

jauslander@aspentimes.com<\/a><\/p>\n

via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A meeting between the Aspen Fire District Board and the Pitkin County Commissioners on Tuesday focused on building a positive relationship between the two agencies. (Kelsey Brunner\/The Aspen Times)Kelsey Brunner\/The Aspen Times A meeting Tuesday between Pitkin County commissioners and the Aspen Fire District Board mostly avoided mention of recent controversies and focused on creating […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2449649","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-28 00:19:34","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2449649","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2449649"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2449649\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2449649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2449649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2449649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}