LVA's Kyes is searching for end to long struggle

Penny Kyes, business office manager for Libby Volunteer Ambulance, is sick and tired of all the drama, literally.

“I feel physically nauseated right now. Even today, the real issues never came out,” Kyes said. “The real issue is that Cabinet View refuses to follow any rules.”

Kyes drew issue with what she saw as an arbitrary and needless system known as NIMS (National Incident Management System, a FEMA product to manage disaster areas) that she claimed CVFSA uses on a regular basis.

“That was designed for national disasters, not every day use,” she said. “If I’ve got to go out on a call, I don’t have to radio ahead that I’m the incident commander. I’m sitting next to someone (in the ambulance), and we figure it out.”

Tom Wood, Fire Chief of the Libby Volunteer Fire Department, spent his three allocated minutes addressing the assembly about insurance, something the long time insurance agent obviously knows well.

   “If the Cabinet View Fire Department gets dissolved,” Wood said. “Libby will continue to offer the same service to that area as it has since 1911.”

Wood went on to point out that Libby’s ISO Protection Class was a 7 (the ISO scale rates any department from 1-8 as having “an exemplary rating concerning fire protection” and has met or exceeded all rating criteria) and that if Cabinet View were dissolved, insurance rates would actually drop because of what Wood alleges is improved service from LVFD.