01/20/2009 Meeting Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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Council Minutes of 2/20/2009 violation that goes to Rocky River plus the $35 North Olmsted already gets per violation, projects money realized by North Olmsted to be between $675,000 and $81.0,000 annually. Minus, of course, the cost of hiring a magistrate and a bailiff. This idea creates much needed revenue for the city while simultaneously reducing the city's dependence on outside funding. Other communities such as Olmsted Falls and Sheffield Village hold. their own mayor's courts. 3) Dave Boatman, 2093 Brown Road, Lakewood, president of the fire fighters union.. The fire fighters have spoken at Council meetings and Public Safety Committee meetings about the safety of citizens being compromised. They have heard the statements made by the Mayor and Fire Chief that safety is not going to be compromised, that there will be no effect. He said that North Ridgeville has two fire stations and has less people on duty--- typically 8 or 9. This is what our city is going to as a result of these layoffs. We've been. told mutual aid is a good option for us-that other cities will be there to cover the slack if there are multiple runs and we can't handle our own runs. Two days ago, our fire fighters got called for a mutual. aid run to North Ridgeville at 7:30 in the morning. They only had. 8 people on duty that day. The call was for a full arrest. It took our squad 9 minutes to get there. The person had no chance. There was no first responder from their city to respond because they didn't have the people on duty. It took nine minutes, and it wasn't that far from our border. This is what we are going to. To say that these layoffs are going to have no affect on our community and our citizens is just plain false. 'We need to be aware of the fact that by reducing the number of fire fighters on duty, there's less people to respond. With that, will come increased response times. The Fire Chief said at the Safety Committee meeting there were 80 multiple runs. That is a false calculation. The Chief took his numbers by the number of times people were called back when squad were out. That's not an accurate picture. On a recent shift, they had four runs back-to- back, and all of them were in Station 1 territory. In this case, they had the people and were able to handle the runs. But we are going to be relying on mutual aid. We are going to be having 9 minute response times coming into our city, sometimes more. Lives do hang in the balance. We need to address the problem. Our city's response time has been 3 minutes, 42 seconds. They can't do it with. less. Councilman Kearney asked how the department, when on a mutual aid call, fmd the streets in another community. Mr. Boatman said it varies. In the case he cited, dispatch gave them directions before they left the station. Sometimes the city will send a police officer, if available, to meet the squad. at the city line anal lead them in. Other times,. if the information is given to our dispatchers, they enter it into our mobile data terminals and they can actually send that information out and a map can be pulled up. Currently, those mobile data terminals are out of service. If all else fails, they do have Redbook maps. Councilman Kearney expressed concern for our city when we need mutual aid and wondered how other cities get directions. Mr. Boatman said he could. not say for sure. He does believe, if they would request a police cruiser and one was available, that would. be provided 4) James Fleger, 24387 South Oxford Oval, a 44 year resident of North Olmsted said he'd never seen a city managed as poorly as this is right now. He questioned Finance Director Copfer as to her salary, benefits and travel expenses. Finance Director Copfer said she would. make $94,000 this year and. received health. care and longevity. If she 8