Public Safety (Subcommittee of the City Council)

PUBLIC SAFETY COMMITTEE MINUTES Wednesday March 14th, 2018 Central Fire House 10 North Thames Street, Norwich 7:00 PM Committee Members Present: Alderman William Nash, Alderman Joseph A. DeLucia, and Alderwoman Joanne Philbrick Committee Members Absent: None Administration and Staff Present: Captain Jim Veiga, Norwich Police Department; Christopher LaRose, Assistant General Manager, Norwich Public Utilities; and Glenn Arremony, Director, American Ambulance. Volunteer/Central Fire Departments and Others: Occum Chief Bob LaChapelle; Taftville Chief Timothy Jencks and Deputy Chief Tom Jencks; Norwich Chief Ken Scandariato and Captain Mike Dzavit; East Great Plains Chief Keith Milton; and Yantic Assistant Chief Paul O’Connell and Ron Stolz. Citizens Present: Brian Kobylarz, 16 Hobart Avenue and Mike Dzavit, 248 Browning Road. I. Call to Order and Quorum: Alderman Nash called the meeting to order at 7:00 PM. There was a quorum present. II. Approval of Minutes: Minutes of February 14, 2018 Alderman Nash motioned, seconded by Alderwoman Philbrick, to approve the February 14, 2018 meeting minutes. The motion passed unanimously. III. Correspondence: None. IV. Citizen Comment: a) Mike Dziavit of 248 Browning Road in Norwich commented that he would like to see progress made regarding communication issues with dispatch. The hardware and software to link up dispatch center has been available for well over 2 years however they’re still trying to get it on docket for work to be completed. Mike state he was shocked to hear at last month’s public safety meeting that the city is contracting out labor to finish up programs in cruisers. Mike state he understands MIS only has limited resources to handle all of city’s computer issues and  that is isn’t aware what the Police Department’s issues are but he is hoping to get this pushed forward as hardware and software are already there. He knows that a lot of people have spoken up on this issue so he believes a priority list needs to be established of what is being worked on by MIS. Alderwoman Philbrick questioned if we could utilized Norwich Public Utilities’ resources to get this done and Assistant General Manager Chris LaRose responded that NPU can assist in pretty much anyway that Leon needs them in the way of communication, radios, etc. Alderman Nash state he would speak to Leon the following morning. Taftville Chief Tim Jencks added that the last he had heard was the issue would be resolved by end of April unless more information has come out. Mike Dziavit stated that he was aware of two servers currently being worked on, one having failed and that Norwich’s is on the brink of failure so to his knowledge he doesn’t believe it would be addressed by that time but instead possibly May. Alderman Nash said he would try to get an email out to everyone with update after speaking to Leon. b) Brian Kobylarz of 16 Hobart Avenue brought up the visibility issue of signage on Hobart Ave and Oak Street. There have been several T-Bone accidents but he has been working with the Police Department so progress is being made. Alderwoman Philbrick said she felt it was unacceptable that it takes weeks to years to put up a road sign and that she would take up the issue with the Chief of Police if it was not resolved soon. V. Old Business: a) Apparatus/ Equipment Financing: – Alderman Nash asked the departments the status of their specifications for new apparatus. Taftville Chief Tim Jencks reported they are about a week out. East Great Plains Chief Keith Milton said they had been meeting with vendor C&S Specialties and are plugging along. Yantic reported they have been meeting every week to work on specifications. Alderman Nash said he spoke to Raymond at fleet maintenance after they met with C&S Specialties and that C&S understands this is a RFP process but Nash thought it would help to get them in front of all departments with their presentation as they were able to fulfill some specific needs. Alderman DeLucia said he didn’t understand what is taking the departments so long with specifications and asked what the process entails. Chief Jencks responded that following their study they identified what specifically their needs were, they vetted different manufacturers by attending shows and then visited three trucks built by one of the manufacturers in New Hampshire to make sure it was what they were looking for. They are now in the process of reviewing the specifications and making sure they are placing things where they need to be. They meet at least once a week to discuss and then there is some back-and- forth communication between their committee and the sales representatives. Their specification currently is at about 120 pages and  covers everything from pumps to layouts. He said that he would send a copy of it over to Alderman DeLucia. Alderman DeLucia then asked the rest of the departments what their hurdles were with getting the specifications returned in a timely fashion. In his opinion it seems as though no preliminary work was done before the bond went to vote as it is currently 6 months past its approval and they are just anxious to get the departments their trucks. Chief Jencks explained that the departments were hesitant to complete too much preliminary work as for the past 9 years there hasn’t been bond approval and they try to be considerate of the sales representative’s time. Alderman Nash explained that they are just eager to get the trucks in motion and are supporting the departments but cannot do anything until the specifications are returned. Chief Milton state that East Great Plains specifications are almost finished they are just working with vendors to get final questioned answered. Alderman DeLucia also wished to make a point that he has heard from John Salomone of side approvals that were not run through the committee and that this group is part of the entire public safety complex so everything must be discussed collectively to achieve what is best for the city. Alderwoman Philbrick added that this a chance to show the city and the voters that we can come together unified. VI. New Business: a) Vendor Presentation: Apparatus vendor C&S Specialty out of North Smithfield, RI gave a 10 – 15 minute PowerPoint presentation. They showcased the two manufacturers they represent TOYNE and EVI as well as gave a brief background of the company. They stated they already had met with John Raymond, reviewed his list and provided recommendations for cost savings on apparatus. They also had met with the Taftville, East Great Plains and Laurel Hill departments and provided them with literature. They are able to provide the tanker, pumper, rescues and the custom designs that the departments have specified. They can provide a final delivery within 360 days of specification approval. b) Landline Communications: Central Fire House Chief Ken Scandariato brought to attention an email he sent out white back stating they had not had the ability to be dispatched. Norwich Public Utilities told him said they took steps to make sure this didn’t happen again. His recommendation, after talking to Leon at length, is to instate an “old school” backup communications system such as simple analog phone lines in the event of a major catastrophic failure. Chief Scandariato said he believed there was a need to be prepared for unknown situations such as the one that occurred. He noted that most firehouses currently have fax lines that can be easily converted to hard phone lines during such a failure. In his opinion this issue showed an immense flaw in the city’s communication system. He believes the police, fire departments, public works, city hall and Norwich Public Utilities should have hard lines through dispatch so all facets could call one another if there are issues  with the main communication system. Alderman Nash said he would speak City Manager John Salomone. c) Norwich Public Utilities Update – Assistant Manager Christopher LaRose reported that the February 27th landline failure’s cause was in relation to the relatively new 2015 generator, transfer switch, breaker and special transformer that had been installed to increase reliability. All systems are oversized in order to handle every occurrence expected. NPU had been testing the system monthly with no issues until February 27th at 5PM after the generator kicked on and went to transfer to normal power; the breaker tripped and they didn’t immediately realize it was the breaker, not the transfer switch, which had been tripped. They instantly began started trouble shooting and it took a while to figure out what was wrong. He stated that after 35 minutes all servers shut down and from that point takes a bit for them to get back online. NPU prioritized on getting phones back online first and went from there. Larose reported the root cause was that the generator phasing and power phasing were too far apart, which is a random occurrence as since 2015 this had been the first time the phasing was far enough apart to trip the breaker. He said if this was to happen in the future they can go directly to the breaker and turn it back on but NPU also installed a delay to remove in-rush and bring the system back to normal. NPU tested root cause and the solution with success. They have prepared mobile generator to assist in the future and procedures to go along. Aside from that he reported that the three nor’easters in less than three works were somewhat of a challenge but they worked long nights and believe that they did well in restoration efforts. During their first after-action review meeting they discovered while there were no accidents there was a near-miss involving a vehicle and a snow plow that drove directly over an energized line that the fire department was blocking. He reminded the departments that a thirty foot distance is ideal with downed power lines and that NPU’s goal is to get someone from their personnel to the scene as soon as possible to assist in blocking traffic. d) Fire House Status Updates: Taftville: Chief Timothy Jencks stated their addition has finally cleared the hurdle with state and is currently John Salomone’s hands awaiting signatures on the city level. He stated the unforeseeable issue could be what lies under the ground. Chief Jencks reported there are no tanks behind their building just a ledge that was removed a few years before. He stated the department is working with Josh as far as getting parking lot redone as they need to pave the back area. Snow removal has always been an issue for Taftville as they have 7 spots for 48 members. He reported that one of our member’s truck was hit and totaled on side of road that past Saturday night. In next 5 – 10 years they will have to explore some time of parking resolution. Taftville assisted Occum and Lisbon departments with fires and had their typical storm related calls. He reported their rescue specification is about 98% completed and that gotten age out of apparatuses now due to the attention that was put into design. Their department, as well as the others, are trying to building for the future and be very conscientious about the tax payer money being spent. East Great Plains: Chief Keith Milton reported that the fire house is good; they submitted to the capital budget for their parking lot to be resurfaced, new siding on the building and air conditioning updates. EGP’s building updates have been held up due to needing to meet with the vendors. Chief Milton said he was ideally hoping to have fire money that was cut out of the budget put back in for helmets, coats and other gear as some of the members are coming up on 10 years with the same equipment. He reported the past month they did 385 calls with a handful of mutual aid calls as I-395 has been very active. They have gained 3-4 members in the last month. Yantic: None. Norwich: Chief Ken Scandariato reported that their Squad A truck was out of service 186 days last year and at 17 years old, it needs to be relegated to reserve status. He said thankfully the department already has a reserve apparatus they refer to in mean time. Chief Scandariato also said that the pumper they have that they run as Squad A needs to be replaced. He said as far as the station goes the upstairs windows need to be replaced as they shut extremely hard. Their department has also indentified a long-standing problem with inability to conduct inspections per the state statue, same as most other municipalities. Chief Scandariato requested a code enforcement officer to help his department with the workload they have on forcing various “slum-lords” into court. NFD has 1400 calls last month with an average response time under 3 minutes and they had a lieutenant’s exam that same day. NFD’s big ticket items are the SCBA’s that the Chief is hoping to cover through grant funds. The Emergency Operations Center is very busy and he would like to bring anyone for a tour to see how they have reorganized and have a better system in place. Chief Scandariato’s desire is to increase the bench depth of the EOC with a liaison from every department that is able to sit at the operations desk; NPU so far has 5-6 people committed. There is an open hour at EOC on March 24th to showcase the building. Laurel Hill: None American Ambulance: Director Glenn Arremony reported they purchased four new ambulances that they brought back from North Carolina. American Ambulance participated in an active shooter training in February with other departments. They brought two ambulances down and while he wishes they could have been more involved they appreciated being a part of it. Occum: Chief LaChapelle reported Occum Fire Department had two structure fires in the last month as well as a lot of activity on I-395 with a fatal crash, car fire and three car accident, all back-to-back. They have three members going to Fire 2 training and two members going to Fire 1. In the next month he stated they are hoping for five more members. They have been doing well with training in fire school and in-house training.  Norwich Police Department: Captain Jim Veiga reported Norwich Police had 3400 calls last month, currently down to 88 members due to retirement. They have three cruisers on order that won’t arrive for 2-3 months. The department’s new K-9 team started training Monday and they also have lieutenant and sergeant tests coming up. Captain Veiga commented on the radio issue that Chief discussed; they received various calls that phones were down and put cell phones into service in mean time along with putting 2 analog lines in once issue was fixed. They are trying to figure out best means to use in case of emergency. VII. Other: Alderman Nash asked in regards to I-395 fatalities if the younger members had people to reach out to talk about any after-shock. Occum Chief LaChapelle said they try to not have younger members on scene. NFD reported that the city has contracted behavioral health workers for all members to use. Taftville Chief Jencks responded that their department has reached out to use those workers and were denied. Chief Scandariato said that’s unacceptable and Alderman Nash said he would follow up; Alderwoman Philbrick encouraged him to do so the next day. VIII. Adjournment: Upon a motion by Alderman Nash, seconded by Alderman DeLucia, the meeting was unanimously adjourned at 8:25. PM. Respectfully Submitted, Katherine Rose