06/26/1985 Meeting - Laserfiche WebLink

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"" ..' F. Wheel Chair Vehicles We received testimony that drivers should have emergency medical training. . The current proposal requires them to have a valid American Heart Association .., Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation card and to be certified as a nurse1s aide. We do not recommend requiring certification as an Emergency Medical Technician, which is a higher level of training. With wheel chair vehicles, the customer desi res transportation servi ces, not medi ca 1 attention. Under these circumstances, there does not appear to be a need for highly trained emergency medical staff in the vehicle. Our proposed standards are similar to those in most other cities. If a person needs medical attention when being transported, the ordinance requires use of an ambulance or first aid vehicle, which are much more regulated businesses. Conversely, first aid vehicles are intended to provide transportation to persons who need or may need limited medical attention as they are being transported. First aid vehicles can be designed to carry passengers who either sit on a standard seats or in a wheel chair. Thus, first aid vehicles are more closely associated with ambulances, and wheel chair vehicles are more closely associated with transport services. G. False Alarms The implementation of the 911 system, as well as the stretched resources of the police and fire field crews, necessitates changes in our laws governing alarms systems. The key changes would address the issue of responsibility for false alarms and establish penalities when more than one false alarm is reported to withi n a 60 day peri od. . It is a' fact of life in nearly every city, i ncl udi ng Eugene, that a hi gh percentage of alarms are false. During the first five months of 1985, the Police Department has responded to an average of 235 false alarms each month, thus reducing officer availability for high priority calls. Over 90 percent of the intrusion alarms responded to by the police officers are false; the false alarm rate for the Fire Department is about 20 percent. By following the example of several cities who charge for false alarms, we believe we can decrease false alarms by at least 30 percent each month or 855 fewer false alarms each year. This becomes extremely critical for Eugene, where patrol officers are limited (two entire patrol teams were eliminated in the 1982-84 budget cutbacks), and we are constantly concerned about the response time to high priority (life-threatening) emergencies. The introduction of false alarm penalties comes with my strongest possible recommendation. Action Requested As part of the on-going effort to revise and streamline City regulations, I recommend that you approve the staff recommendations to Chapter 3 of the Eugene Code, 1971. I have proposed a number of changes to the ordinance you considered on June 10 to accommodate different industry groups. I believe the overall product will be very acceptable to the community while accomplishing your goal of major simplification of business regulations. e- MG:edsls074 . -4-