Recent efforts to fill vacancies within the Iola Fire Department are bearing fruit.
Six new employees — Casy Weast, Dakota Parker, Zachary Wilper, Brogan Nicholas, Sage Shaughnessy and Sarah Heisler — were hired Aug. 21, Iola City Council members were told Monday.
The newcomers are being trained through the city’s newly developed firefighters academy, which provides the basics of becoming a firefighter or emergency medical technician, as well as how to handle hazardous materials.
The academy began Aug. 21.
Funding comes from a FEMA grant, which means the only cost to the city is the paycheck to the employees.
The academy runs for eight weeks.
Iola Mayor Steve French was impressed with the results.
“It’s wonderful to see those new employees,” he said.
In addition to the new hires, Eric B’Hymer, was promoted as a deputy fire chief and Ryan Chapman as a lieutenant.
IOLA will work rapidly over the next few weeks to develop a strategy to tap into federal infrastructure funding.
City Administrator Matt Rehder and Assistant City Administrator Corey Schinstock sat in on a meeting Monday afternoon to discuss specifics of the $3.8 billion Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) legislation passed by Congress in 2021.
Of that, $3.2 billion will be spent across the country on transportation projects, Rehder said. Another $454 million will be spent on various water and sewer projects in the country, with $200 million allocated for “other stuff” such as electric vehicle charging stations.
Rehder said he and Schinstock counted at least seven potential projects — chiefly the U.S. 54 rebuild planned for within the next few years — that could utilize BIL funds.
“I need to sit down with staff and start prioritizing,” Rehder said. “We need to get ourselves organized. This is a federal program, so there are a lot of hoops we need to go through.”
As an aside, Rehder noted Iola learned recently it was unsuccessful in an earlier application for EV charging stations.
