Albany County Fire District #1
Non-Partisan Directors serve 4-year terms. The winner will join two other District Directors, Jon Essley and James Jackson whose terms expires in 2028.
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Matthew Burkhart
(NON)
Why are you running for this office, and what training, experience, and skills would you bring to this office?
How should the Fire District prepare for the impact of warming and drought on services it provides? Please be specific.
What policies would you implement to better support the physical and mental health of firefighters?
How does the increase in frequency and intensity of wildfires affect your budgeting priorities as director?
I enjoy helping to ensure Albany County taxpayers have a trained and valued group of volunteer firefighters to respond to County emergencies and that ACFD1 uses taxpayer funds effectively and responsibly to ensure stations and apparatus are in good working order and firefighters receive the support, training and PPE they need to ensure an effective and safe response. I trust that my work on the Board enables firefighters with the tools they need to serve their community and that my volunteer time on the Board takes on some of the "paperwork" that allows firefighters to concentrate on being there to respond when needed. Positive collaboration between taxpayers and firefighters is important for an effective response built on mutual respect.
ACFD1 must continually evaluate preparedness through the year and during fire season. Ensuring the District maintains quality water supplies through additional tenders and identification of good useable water sources along with encouraging property owners to adopt effective wildland urban interface fire risk mitigation practices goes a long way to minimizing fire risk. Additionally, good collaboration with our neighboring counties through MOUs and positive working relationships with our land management partners is essential so ACFD1 has resources available for initial attack and is able to suppress fires that impact taxpayer property and safety. Focusing on firefighter retention ensures enough crews are available to respond when called.
Ensuring that ACFD1 volunteer firefighters have access to services that support their physical and, especially, mental fitness is important. Access to post-incident critical stress debriefing should be available to every firefighter. I support using ACFD1 budget to make this reasonably available as well as looking for grants to cover external resources for firefighter well being. Our volunteer firefighters need similar resources as professional career firefighters to maintain physical and mental health as well as ensure they feel valued by the taxpayers they serve. Encouraging ACFD1 and Department leadership to "check in" with folks after a tough call or hard week is important and I support our Chiefs and administration in this area.
Apparatus needs more frequent maintenance and firefighter tools and PPE need replacement more often with increased responses. Minimizing non-suppression related expenditures and looking for additional income streams such as grants, fuels work and offering dispatch assignments to firefighters offsets some of this cost. Having a few newer more reliable apparatus outweighs having many older less effective apparatus along with having common apparatus platforms that are useable by more firefighters. Ultimately the District needs to ensure it understands what the most appropriate number and distribution of apparatus and stations is to ensure we can provide effective response throughout ACFD1's area of response for the tax revenue we receive.
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