CC Minutes - 01/26/05 WS - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

that these remain unchanged from the earlier version. Ms. Bettman thanked staff for the comprehensive and comprehensible documents. She asked if whether the council voted to approve the plan or voted to accept the plan would make a difference in the accreditation process. City Manager Taylor responded that it did not. Chief Tallon clarified that if the council accepted the document, it would then be acknowledging that the Fire Department was using this process to measure risk and making recommendations on how to cover that risk. Ms. Bettman said that response time was a key issue for her. She cited two instances in her experience as a registered nurse wherein response time had made a tremendous difference in the outcome for a patient. She objected to the fact that the goals for response time were greater than the need. She observed that the national standard was a four-minute response, but all incidents in Eugene were averaging at least nine minutes for a response. She pointed out that last year's goal was a six-and-a-half minute response time. Mr. Kelly also complimented the document, calling it detailed. He would support a motion to accept the document. He felt uneasy about supporting a motion to approve the document given the changed goals for response time. He thought standards were being relaxed as last year the goal had been a six-and-a-half minute response time 90 percent of the time and now the goal had been changed to a seven-minute response time 80 percent of the time. He asked why the response time goals had been changed. Responding to Mr. Kelly, Chief Obadal stated that the former goals could not be met. She said it had been hoped this could be improved operationally and the department had not been able to do so. She acknowl- edged the goals had been relaxed but reiterated that it was because the goals need to be attainable. She related that the Accreditation Commission required the department to look at the both the department's response and the call-in response times. She said when all the components were added up it looked like a long time. In response to another question from Mr. Kelly, Chief Obadal stated that the change in the percentage of time response times were achieved had been a result of understanding what different standards were across the country and also because this was the percentage that the department could achieve. She noted that she had seen, in her peer review capacity, departments with a goal to achieve a good response time 70 percent of the time. Chief Tallon added that the change in response time goals had largely been due to Chief Obadal's work as an assessor with other departments and her understanding of the requirements for accreditation. He thought the factor that was most telling for the decision-makers was the response reliability as a city. He cited pages 71 and 72 which provided three years of data per station. He said, since 1991, each year the response reliability had gone down. He called attention, in particular, to the Valley River area which had lost an engine company due to funding issues. He underscored that response time had increased due to the growth of the community, an increase in the frequency of incidents, and the spread of population into the Santa Clara area. As a point of information, he stated that there were very few, if any, departments in the United States that had a response time of four minutes 90 percent of the time, though the national standard suggested that response time. Mr. Pap~ lauded the document. He noted that on page 3 it said Eugene had received a Class II fire suppression rating. He asked what a Class I rating would be. Chief Tallon responded that this was the ISO rating upon which homeowners and business insurance rates were partially based. He said, nation-wide, he thought there were less than ten Class I fire departments and less than 90 that were Class II. He stated that fire departments were proud to be rated Class II and that some paint it on the sides of their fire trucks. MINUTES--Eugene City Council January 26, 2005 Page 4 Work Session