Aspen Fire Chief Rick Balentine talks with the community.
After than more than an hour of discussion and reflection on their handling of the past performance guidance, the Aspen Fire Protection District board unanimously voted Tuesday night to extend Fire Chief Rick Balentine’s contract through the end of 2021.
The board was scheduled to vote on a six-month contract, which was already more than two months removed, but when the discussion began Tuesday and included giving Balentine goals that were measurable, the board decided that it was not fair to him to try to have them met by the end of June.
Aspen Fire Chief Rick Balentine receives a Moderna COVID-19 vaccine from family planning nurse Linda Vieira at the Community Health Services building in Aspen on Wednesday, Dec. 23, 2020. (Kelsey Brunner/The Aspen Times)
Aspen Fire Chief Rick Balentine has been put on notice by the district board that he needs to improve his relationships with other local public safety agencies by June, when his contract likely will come up for renewal.
The Aspen Fire Protection District Board is putting Balentine on a six-month employment contract rather than an annual one-year or multi-year deal he has had since becoming chief in 2014. He had two consecutive three-year contracts and then a one-year deal, which expired Dec. 31.
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Aspen Police Officer Chip Seamans receives the COVID-19 vaccine from Laurie Cohen, the immunization coordinator at Aspen Community Health, on Wednesday. First rounds of vaccines were given to the valleyâs first responders and Cohen said with a chuckle, âThis has certainly been a project, a good project though.â
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Weekly, asymptomatic testing of emergency responders in the Upper Roaring Fork Valley could begin by the end of this week or early next week, officials said Wednesday.
The effort will include Aspen police officers, Pitkin County sheriff’s deputies, county jail staff and deputies, Aspen Fire Department personnel, dispatchers at the county’s 911 center and certain employees of the county’s Health and Human Services Department, said Kurt Dahl, Pitkin County’s director of environmental health.
“It may catch a case a little bit earlier than before and limit exposure to other folks,” said Rick Balentine, chief of the Aspen Fire Department. “It’s gonna help us stay in business.”