08/18/2009 Meeting Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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Council Minutes of 8/18/2009 that was brought fo Council by the fire expert in the city of North Olmsted, which is the Chief of the Fire Dept., clearly showed that response time would be improved by participation with the central dispatch center. The regional fire district would similarly be expected to improve response time, not slow them down. What he heard was opposition from the dispatch union in the city of North Olmsted, and from the fire union in the city of North Olmsted. As heard from their letter and by comments that have been made to him by leadership of that union, the fire union isn't in opposition like they were. He thinks they regret same of their decisions back then. Response time has improved for every single city that joined it. Data can be manipulated. The argument at the time was the differential was a seven minute requirement in Westlake versus six in North Olmsted. The difference was simply Westlake is about twice the geographic size of North Olmsted. So, although we have similar size fire departments and similar size population, they have a much large geographic area to cover. The projections from our Fire Chief were that our fire response times would improve. The reality of the city's that have joined central dispatch have showed that improvement. What we would expect is that improvement multiplied with the fire district. It will make things safer, and it will make them better, and it will cost less. Dennis Lambert, 25057 Carey Lane, said he was confused as he thought the legislation was to provide consulting services to develop a cooperative agreement. Mayor O'Grady said that was correct-it is a study which can be viewed as phase two of the regional fire district effort, with phase three actually being implementation. He assured Mr. Lambert the result of the study would be a implementation plan which would come before Council. The study will present facts on whether the plan makes sense; and, if so, how it would work. Council will be involved in the study as the consultants will want their feedback and will be providing Council with an overview of what they are doing. It will be the same for the labor unions. The fire union will be consulted. They will have representation, and they've had representation at all of the Westshore COG meetings. This should be a very good process with good give and take and it should result in a very clear picture of where we go with this thing, should we decide to go. But there are many legal steps first. Jim Burns, 3978 Dover Center, said he thinks it is about time we do something like this at least to find out if it's feasible or not. He is concerned on how the operation of this regional fire district is going to be funded. How each city is going to come up with its share of the operating cost of it. Second, when they buy equipment, who is going to buy this equipment. For example, if North Olmsted buys a million dollar ladder truck and the residents are paying the debt service, and Bay Village buys the $80,000 squad and pays the debt service on that, there has to be some way of balancing this out. He suggests that the State Legislature be addressed to amend the Ohio Revised Code to allow a regional government the oppo~nity to do voted bonding issues for that regional government. As of now, we can't do it. That's why North Olmsted had to go out to bond to build the library for the library systems because the library, which is a regional government basically, can't do so-it has to do it through another source. Mayor O'Grady thanked Mr. Burns for his comments and said that issue has been discussed-the idea of working with the Ohio General Assembly and making sure that we h&ve the ability, and then we create the structure that would allow us to create a taxing district. Councilman Mahoney moved for adoption. The motion was seconded by Councilman Gareau and passed unanimously. Resolution No. 2009-99 adopted. 17