Recap: November Pleasant View Board Meeting
Projects for 2025, Mt Vernon Road, and Santa on the Truck!
The Pleasant View Board held its regular monthly board meeting at 4 p.m. on Tuesday, November 26. Hopefully this recap is a helpful way for our community to stay informed!
If this recap could be improved, please email me your suggestions at laura.cardon23@gmail.com. I fell behind in recaps over the summer but am back at it just in time for the new year!
The Short Version
Pleasant View wants to build more sidewalks along Mt Vernon Road to improve pedestrian safety and is trying to convince Jeffco to work on the project together.
The fire department has hired three new firefighters and will be running another volunteer firefighter academy in the spring. Applications close December 15: https://www.pleasantviewmetro.org/pvfd-lt-application-390910-510872.html
Santa on the Truck is Sunday, December 8!
The 2025 budget is being finalized. Big items include renovations to the fire station and a new parks maintenance building.
The Long Version
Pleasant View General District Updates
Pleasant View wants to build more sidewalks along Mt Vernon Road to improve pedestrian safety. Unfortunately, the county said it’s not a priority road for them currently. The district manager is collecting information about pedestrian traffic accidents to hopefully convince the county to partner with the district and share costs to build more sidewalks.
Pleasant View Parks Updates
The district’s field rental fees will be increased in 2025 to match the expenses for maintaining them. Rental feels will still be significantly lower than surrounding areas and will still not charge for lights, also unlike other fields in the area. New fees will start in 2025.
Golden Junior Baseball asked for more upgrades to Wolf Park, so Pleasant View is looking for ways to share potential costs since Golden Junior Baseball does not pay taxes to the district.
Invasive tree removal is almost done at Westblade Park. The parks maintenance staff has been working hard over the last few weeks to remove black locust, Russian olive, and other invasive species identified in the park.
The district is considering purchasing their own deck mowers to reduce the long-term expense of mowing. Currently, the district pays about $60,000 each year to a private company to keep the parks mowed. A deck mower costs about half of that new, or less for a used one. That will be part of the final budget presented at the December 2024 meeting.
The district is also budgeting for a new parks maintenance building at Camp George West to move the parks equipment out of Hatzis Hall. To begin much-needed renovations to the fire station, Hatzis needs to be freed up to store equipment, so building the parks maintenance building is the first step in that process.
Pleasant View Fire Department Updates
The fire department had 162 calls in October. You can read the monthly report from the county dispatch office here.
Santa on the Truck is next weekend, December 8! Meet Santa, the Grinch, and his elves as they ride around Pleasant View on the fire engine. The engine will start on Mt Vernon Road and first go to Mountain Side Estates at 8:30 a.m.
View the route below:
The fire department’s truck will need to be replaced in the next few years since it is approximately 20 years old. However, the cost and production time is significant. The first quote the fire chief got for a basic aerial truck (truck with a ladder that extends from the top) is $1.6 million. The industry-wide production time is four years.
Repairs are expensive on the truck each year (last year there was a $50,000 expense), but the district needs to look at whether it can afford payments on the new engine and payments on a new truck. Chief Malmgren will continue to research financing options and report back at the beginning of 2025.
The department will be hosting another volunteer firefighter academy in spring 2025. Applications will remain open until December 15. There are currently 25 applicants and the department hopes to bring on 10-15 new volunteers again. Several long-time volunteer members are retiring at the end of 2024 and three of the volunteers from the 2024 academy have been hired as career firefighters at the department.
Speaking of which, congratulations to Davis Pidgeon, Gray Gardner, and Chad Green on being hired to the department! Make sure to say hello to them next time you’re at the fire station. Zach Solis has also been promoted to Lieutenant and Aaron Genders has been promoted to Engineer. Lieutenant Solis will be taking over for Lieutenant Snyder, who is retiring in December!
The fire department is budgeting and planning for much-needed station upgrades in 2025. The current station does not have enough storage for equipment and vehicles, plus important areas like the kitchen and sleeping rooms are out of date or too small for the station’s present day needs. The kitchen will be the first upgrade to be done while the department finds out if they can expand the footprint of the station or need to work with the current square footage.
Finally, the firefighter union asked the board to approve purchasing all-weather tires for the new Engine 41. The engine comes with fair-weather tires from the factory and new all-weather tires would cost several thousand dollars. Truck 41 and the old engine both have all-weather tires. The board deferred the decision to the fire chief, who ultimately decided to use the existing tires before purchasing all-weather tires. In future snow storms, the on-duty crews will use Truck 41 or the old engine 41.