Public Safety (Subcommittee of the City Council)

Public Safety Committee Meeting Occum Volunteer Fire Department May 13, 2009 Minutes Committee Members Present Alderman Mark Bettencourt Alderman Jonathan Jacaruso Alderman William Nash Administration and Staff Present Alan H. Bergren, City Manager Timothy Menard, Police Captain Ken Scandariato, Fire Chief Roland Frechette, Emergency Management Volunteer/Central Fire Departments and Others Chief Frank Blanchard, Yantic Vol. Fire Department Chief Tim Jencks, Taftville Vol. Fire Department Shane Depuis, Taftville Vol. Fire Department Ray O’Connell, Yantic Fire Eng Co 1 Paul O’Connell, Yantic Fire Eng Co 1 Dan Auger, Taftville Fire Damian Rickard, American ambulance Joseph Hebert, Norwich Fire Department Ron Stolz, Yantic Fire Eng Co 1 BJ Herz, Yantic Fire Co I. Call to Order – Quorum Alderman Mark Bettencourt called the meeting to order at 7:02 p.m. It was determined a quorum was present. II. Approval of Minutes Alderman William Nash makes a motion to approve the April 8, 2009 Public Safety Meeting Minutes. Motion was seconded by Alderman Mark Bettencourt. All in favor, the motion passes unanimously. III. Correspondence a) Alderman Mark Bettencourt submits an email from Chief Tim Jencks pertaining to the Ponemah Mill project. It gives a status update on the standpipe repairs and the 2nd floor requiring PPE to enter. Public Safety Committee Meeting May 13, 2009 Page 2 b. Alderman Mark Bettencourt submits an email regarding the progress of dive truck creation. IV. Citizen Comment Roland Frechette spoke about mini-bikes (kids call them pit bikes) on Boswell Ave and Broad Street. Says he almost hit a kid on Tuesday around 7:20 p.m. and it’s not the first time. It’s a safety issue for the kids and other motorists when they are riding their mini-bikes and scooters in the streets. Captain Menard agrees and states that they get calls occasionally but the kids see the patrol cars and many of them take off. The ones that do wait for the patrol can’t be arrested (they are kids) and they can’t seize the bikes. Alderman Mark Bettencourt asks if a City Ordinance can be passed to deal with this issue. Captain Menard says yes. But it would be the same as the skateboard laws – they still can’t seize the vehicle so it is not much of a deterrent. Mini-bikes are the same as scooters – under 50cc can be operated on the street but a license is required and they can only seize abandoned bikes (usually those are stolen and can’t be traced to the operator that was in violation). Captain Menard mentions how skateboarders are very costly to the City – they damage the parks and railings. These repairs are necessary to maintain public safety. Rowan Lambert asks, “What about towing it and charging the parents?”. Captain Menard mentions that the garage that does the tow would possibly get stuck with the bill for the tow and storage if the vehicle if owners cannot be located and selling it after storing it would not be enough to cover the costs. V. New Business a) Public Safety Building Needs Plan Development. Alderman Mark Bettencourt says he is touching on this so that everyone will be thinking about the long term building plan. They still need facilities for the Police Department and Greenville Fire Station. Alderman Nash notes that with state hospital property development Laurel Hill may need to expand. Alderman Bettencourt notes that Greenville need s a larger property – Civil Preparedness is in there too. These should be part of the long term plans. Alderman Mark Bettencourt states there are many issues to think about. Alderman Jon Jacaruso says if the growth happens at either end of town, the City will be called to assist. What about just looking at State Property or hire more NFD staff to assist. Public Safety Committee Meeting May 13, 2009 Page 3  Alderman Mark Bettencourt just wants everyone to remember this so he brought it to the foreground. Keep it all in mind. Looking for input and long term plans for this. He will bring it up again when development of the state hospital property and Byron Brook is closer to being finalized. We may need to make changes to accommodate those developments. b. Standardization of Reporting Practices Alderman Jon Jacaruso would like to be able to get more standardized budget numbers on all calls/responds from all the Departments for comparison and tracking of where the resources are being utilized. He would like the Chiefs to get together and make a standardized list so they all report to the City Council in a single format. The call numbers in the budget have some different categories for each department. Chief Scandariato says that when it comes to State Reporting he is the go-to person. He sends down what the departments send for their own record keeping. Alderman Jacaruso wants to come up with a reporting mechanism that lists detail and categories so the Council can see what services we are providing and be able to compare apples and oranges. He would like to be able to see how many brush calls, amber alerts, false alarms, etc. at a glance. Chief Scandariato says the department is poised for a new server to connect all the departments. Connectivity and funding is the problem - they have the server and fiber optics but no funding. It would be a “report central” for recordkeeping. They can centralize the server with software upgrades and compatibility but they don’t have connectivity. Chief Blanchard says that history is reported from all departments to the National Fire Incident Reporting System (NFIRS). Alderman Mark Bettencourt says the departments have the same software but different versions and the software is not backwards compatible and that once they get online together that would take care of some of the reporting issues. Chief Scandariato is responsible but the line items come from the City Finance Department. He would need a standard list of what Public Safety Committee wants to see. Alderman Jon Jacaruso asks what they report to the State and can it be broken down. Can that be used? Chief Blanchard says there are too many categories for the State to make it usable to the Committee or the Council in a budget document. Also, if they get the server connected then anybody (with the proper authority) would be able to look at the info. Chief Jencks says there is already a list. Finance gets everything the Chiefs have. The numbers just get combined and edited to fit the budget document. Depending how they do that, it can cause some comparison problems as well. Public Safety Committee Meeting May 13, 2009 Page 4 Chief Scandariato says the numbers are just that, numbers. Every department records things differently, also differs from PD Staff and volunteer reports. Each house has the data but they  can’t bring it all together with the current set up. Chief Jencks says that each house cannot share the data. They are not connected. Chief Scandariato says that error codes are checked by the state. He fixes the data for all 5 departments but the data is not centralized. Alderman Jon Jacaruso asks if they can come up with a list specifically for the Public Safety Committee. Chief Blanchard says that even though they use the same program the difference is in the info they report which makes the data incompatible. Chief Jencks says the classifications and categories are based on each individual’s interpretation at each call. Everyone makes their own decisions based on the call at the time. Alderman Mark Bettencourt asks if cost is an impediment. Chief Menard says it’s all interpretation which differs for each person. Chief Scandariato says the Volunteers do page 1 but he does the rest. Alderman Jon Jacaruso asks where finance gets the data. All the Chiefs reply that the data comes from them. Alderman Jon Jacaruso asks why the list categories can’t be uniform for the Committee and Council. Chief Scandariato says he spent 2 months compiling data to be accurate and credible and submitted it to Josh in Finance but he didn’t print enough of it. He says that Josh edited the info and made it brief for printing but that when he did that it changed the data. Chief Scandariato doesn’t think everyone should be allowed to edit the data. Alderman Jon Jacaruso asks if they can submit the same data directly to the Committee. Chief Scandariato says yes since it is public record. Alderman Jon Jacaruso says there must be a way to do this. He describes how a similar process was done where he works so he knows it can be done. He wants the Chiefs to know that they need this data to start the conversing and comparing. It will help get everyone on the same page. He needs an “apples to apples” comparison of all the departments. Public Safety Committee Meeting May 13, 2009 Page 5 Chief Jencks says we need to have finance get us the info. Alderman Jon Jacaruso says he wants the Committee to get its own data directly.  Chief Scandariato says that won’t be easy since each department thinks differently. Alderman Mark Bettencourt asks if they can use the State Reporting as its base. Chief Blanchard asks the Committee to give them a list. Alderman Jon Jacaruso tells the chiefs that they will have to compile a list. The Chiefs are the ones qualified to make this list and Josh isn’t. Chief Scandariato says that if the Committee needs to identify trends to aid in budget decisions that the departments are not proactive – they are reactive. This streamlined data won’t be any more conclusive. Alderman Jon Jacaruso asks what the training needs are budget wise particularly public education. Chief Scandariato says that Smoking Causation of Fires would have been beneficial (after a fire caused by smoking occurred) but they couldn’t get the funding for prevention billboards. Alderman Mark Bettencourt understands and says the trends have to be identified. Captain Menard asks what the committee is looking for. Says the committee needs to tell them what it needs to know. Alderman Jon Jacaruso says each departments categories don’t match. Chief Menard says they can’t read the committee’s mind as to what they want. Chief Jencks wants to know where they are getting their items from. Chief Scandariato says they do need to discuss it. Alderman Mark Bettencourt understands this can’t be resolved at this meeting. It was agreed that the Chiefs will discuss it at their own meeting. VI. Old Business a) Dispatch issues - Report from Chief Fusaro The committee is still waiting for the NPU report. City Manager Alan Bergren is working on finding out when the report will come in. Public Safety Committee Meeting May 13, 2009 Page 6 Alderman Jon Jacaruso says the committee needs to know when NPU will give them the report. They need to be able to plan. Alderman Mark Bettencourt says NPU is the plan. Alderman Jon Jacaruso says what if the NPU plan doesn’t work out? There should be a plan B.  Alderman Mark Bettencourt says either way, any plan will cost money. b) Radio Issues Alderman Bettencourt stated that this is going to continue to be an issue. The phone line issue should be resolved by the end of summer. After that we can talk about other changes utilizing the fiber optic network. Until the he will remove it from agendas. c) Implementation Schedule of Fire Chiefs recommendations. It’s all money. Alderman Mark Bettencourt asks where they are short. No reply from the gallery. Alderman Mark Bettencourt asks if anything is happening yet? Are there any other domino’s holding this up? Chief Blanchard says they are still working on it and will continue to discuss it at the Chiefs meeting. d) Yantic Street Fence Christine Averna has submitted a request to find out ownership of the poorly maintained fence on Yantic Street by Falls Mill Condominiums. Alderman Mark Bettencourt will refer the question of who owns the fence to Public Works at the recommendation of City Manager Alan Bergren. VII. Other. a) Alderman William Nash wants to keep talking about fire equipment at his public forums. He thinks this is going to be a bond issue so he wants to keep talking about it so the public is ready for it. b) Alderman Jon Jacaruso wants to thank the paid Fire Department for their part in the concessio ns they are giving for the City even though their departments aren’t going to be affected by the layoffs. Alderman Mark Bettencourt wants them to know that the other city unions agree and are very appreciative of their support with this matter. Public Safety Committee Meeting May 13, 2009 Page 7 VIII. Adjournment Alderman William Nash motions to adjourn at 8:00 p.m. Alderman Jon Jacaruso seconds the motion. Meeting adjourned.