Stories in this Regional News Roundup are excerpted from weekly newspapers from around the region. This is part two, with part one having appeared in Saturday’s Tribune.
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KAMIAH — With the hiring of Leo Gilbride as the new fire chief, the city of Kamiah is getting both a firefighter and a paramedic to lead the department into the next decade.
Gilbride comes to Kamiah from Grand Lake, Colo., where he held a position of assistant fire chief. He also worked for Little Park Health Systems.
Gilbride replaces both the retiring Fire Chief Dan Musgrave, and outgoing EMS Lead Andrea Layne. Under Gilbride’s direction, the two departments will no longer operate separately, but be combined into one cohesive unit.
“This department is called Kamiah Fire & Rescue,” said Gilbride, “and it will operate as one unified team. They train together, work together and we will grow in this community together. That is why we now have one Fire/EMS chief. That’s what we want, a fire-based system combining the two gives you the best bang for your taxpayer buck. You have wonderful fire and EMS individuals here and now the leadership to teach them how to mesh together and operate as one unified team.”
Gilbride’s firefighting and paramedic experience go back over three decades, and he also has military experience in the National Guard.
“I started as a volunteer firefighter in the early 1980s and then I was in the resident program for quite a while and eventually took a job as assistant fire chief,” Gilbride said. “All together, it’s more than 30 years working as a firefighter and paramedic.”
In moving to a new job in a new state, there is often something of a learning curve as one gets to know the area and people. Gilbride isn’t concerned about that because while he has never lived here before, he is quite familiar with the area.
He’s been coming here to hunt for a number of years and has friends in the area. Additionally, the area’s hills and valleys are very similar to the environment he is leaving.
“The environment of hills and trees and fire danger is similar in many ways to Colorado except for one thing,” Gilbride said, “it’s about 6,000 feet lower here, which is helpful when you are wearing about 40 pounds of gear and fighting a fire. You can breathe a lot easier.”
While Gilbride has not yet found a place to live, he points out that he is at work now and will look for a residence as time permits. He is focused on the upcoming tasks at hand.
“Although the previous chief is retired, and I am still moving here, there will be no break in service,” Gilbride said. “I have already started my position as fire chief. I have been staying at the motel for the past few days, but have a couple of friends that I can stay with until I can get my own place. I’m looking at a rental or maybe I’ll buy a house. I might just find a place to park my camp trailer; we’ll see what comes up. Whatever happens, the goal is for me to be fully moved here as soon as possible.”
— Peter DuPre, The Clearwater Progress (Kamiah), Thursday
McCall council seeks officials’ answers on COVID-19 cases
MCCALL — Members of the McCall City Council grilled local public health officials about the spread of COVID-19 during an emergency meeting Tuesday.
“We are feeling like we’re in the dark,” McCall Mayor Bob Giles told officials from Central District Health, which oversees virus data for Ada, Boise, Elmore and Valley counties.
“We don’t know very much from the data that you have shared,” Giles said. “Is it really 10 people, or is it 150 (who tested positive)?”
Of particular worry for council members was how tourists, seasonal workers and part-time residents who test positive for the virus factor into case totals for Valley County.
As of Wednesday, the health department said it counted 13 confirmed cases of COVID-19 among county residents, up from three just last week.
During the online meeting, Central District Health Director Russell Duke told council members the only cases added to Valley County’s case total are that of full-time residents who test positive.
Everyone else who tests positive in the county is counted toward case counts for their home county, but health officials still do contact tracing work to alert local residents who may have been exposed, Duke said.
“I think we need to figure out how we can get beyond this because what I’m hearing from you is you will know how many true cases are in our county, but we will not,” council member Melanie Holmes said.
Duke called that a “fair request,” but said testing labs, not the health district, are the ones who report the positive cases to the patient’s home county.
The health district only receives word of those cases if health districts in other jurisdictions and even other states contact them for local contact tracing, Duke said.
“I think the only mechanism that I can see would be for the health care systems to report out positive tests from their facilities,” he said.
Holmes asked St. Luke’s McCall Chief Operating Officer Amber Green for that number, which she said she did not know.
“The real time numbers as far as positive tests aren’t even a great indicator of who now has been exposed and has the potential to be symptomatic and expose others,” Green said.
“If you are relying on the positive tests today, we’re already behind the curve as to how many people those positive tests may have exposed and spread amongst our community,” she said.
Council member Colby Nielsen also questioned why some local residents are driving to Boise to get tested if St. Luke’s has an adequate supply of tests.
“We cannot simply test anyone that comes into our building that feels that they may have been exposed, but does not have signs or symptoms,” Green said.
— Drew Dodson, The Star-News (McCall), Thursday
