CC Minutes - 06/25/07 Work Session

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Mr. Clark agreed with the remarks of Mr. Pryor and thought there was great wisdom in the proposal. He said that given Springfield’s expanding tax base, Eugene might be able to take advantage of investments that community made in fire and emergency medical services response. He appreciated the chief’s willingness to work with Springfield and to increase cooperation so that people on both sides of I-5 were safer. He suggested that the concept was more efficient and likely to save money for both jurisdictions. Mr. Zelenka also liked the concept. He said that if someone’s life was in danger, it was important to have the fastest, best response possible, no matter where one lived. However, he wanted more information on the cross-subsidization question raised by Ms. Bettman. He was concerned about Springfield’s ability to pay its bills because of all the new debt he anticipated form the infrastructure it would be required to build. Mr. Zelenka asked the difference between mutual aid and the 3-Battalion concept. Chief Groves said that mutual aid was an individual request for assistance generated by an incident commander. It did not automatically happen, and that automatic response was the essence of the concept; when a call for assistance was received, the closest unit would respond. As holes began to develop in coverage because of multiple calls for service or a large, site-specific incident, the backfill began to occur, so that the web of coverage would be thinner, but there would be no holes. It took the larger amount of resources to give the two communities more depth in the emergency response. Mr. Zelenka clarified that the two cities had a joint dispatch function. He determined from Chief Groves that it was possible Springfield firefighters could be responding to calls in Eugene to cover stations that were in the process of responding to an earlier call. If that depleted the response, the departments could go to the mutual aid approach, which called out departments of surrounding jurisdictions. He termed if a very organized process that could be tracked by reference to the standards of coverage. Ms. Taylor thought cooperation was a good thing but shared Ms. Bettman’s concerns about the expansion of the Springfield UGB and the need to respond to the Peace Health campus, and further noted the recent wild fires in California, which demonstrated that building outside the city could lead to fires. She suggested that rather than build its tax base through boundary expansions, Springfield was doing too much “tax-free” staff, and observed that the Springfield council discussed shortening library hours. Ms. Taylor shared Ms. Bettman’s interest in more financial information. Mr. Poling agreed with Mr. Pryor’s remarks. He said that the topic of training was particularly important. He said that many of the incidents that occurred in the Harlow area could be more quickly reached by Springfield emergency services than by Eugene, and he agreed that people calling for help did not care who responded. People would only see the fire protection they paid for with their tax dollars. He trusted staff to track the City’s expenditures and thanked Chief Groves and Springfield Fire Chief Dennis Murphy for their work on the issue. He thought the concept was a good thing. Chief Groves gave credit to his staff and the staff of Chief Murphy for their work on the concept. Mayor Piercy thought the council was expressing legitimate support for the concept as well as legitimate concern that Eugene not bear too much of the cost. She agreed that the concept was important and a good thing but also agreed that the questions asked about the cost needed to be answered. She also thought the points raised by Ms. Bettman about the UGB and the Peace Health campus were legitimate, particularly as MINUTES—Eugene City Council June 25, 2007 Page 7 Work Session