CC Minutes - 06/11/01 Work Session

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approach moved from penalties to verification. He said that the proposal to verify after five rather than six false alarms recognized the private verification that permit holders had purchased, and reduced the upper end of penalties and revenues, and perhaps addressed the issue of those who were not willing to cooperate with the City or recognize the problem. Mr. Smith acknowledged that it probably also increased the response times for those few times when there was a false alarm and the permit holder was already on verification. Mr. Meisner asked about the basis of the fine amounts. He did not think the maximum fine was much for a large business. Mr. Smith said that there were examples of companies who budgeted for such penalties, which was why staff proposed verification after five alarms. He referred to Fremont California, which had found the verification requirement to be effective for large companies. Ms. Taylor asked what caused false alarms. Mr. Smith cited examples of reasons for false alarms, saying in the case of fire alarms the problem was maintenance. With regard to security alarms, they were generally caused by small acts of inattentiveness, such as triggering an alarm by opening a door or a forgotten access code. He said that private home system alarms were triggered for similar reasons. Ms. Taylor asked how penalties would help to reduce such accidents. Mr. Smith said that the business of installing security alarms was a competitive one, and he distinguished it from the businesses that installed fire alarm systems to State- mandated standards. In the case of private security systems, sometimes businesses installed detectors of the wrong type for the application in question, and a penalty could spur a homeowner to install a different, more effective security device. If the staff of a private business kept making mistakes, a business would get new staff or teach the old staff new behavior. He suggested that the choices before the council was whether to let such minor mistakes to take up valuable officer time and whether to engage the community for solutions to the problem. Ms. Taylor determined from staff that total verification would address the issues underlying the amendments. Mr. Johnson added that the response time for actual alarms would be longer. Mr. Meisner and Mr. Kelly expressed interest in a written status report on the success of the ordinance after it had been in place for one year. At Mr. Johnson's request, Mr. Shuler and Mr. Augsberger discussed changes to the ordinance related to fire alarms, noting specifically the broadening of the alarm types to which the ordinance would apply, the addition of a civil penalty, and the registration of all systems. Ms. Nathanson asked staff to discuss verification. She asked if it had the potential of slowing response to a real emergency. Mr. Smith said yes. Ms. Nathanson said that was a problem but she was not sure what to say about it at this point, given the need to reduce false alarms and unneeded police responses. She asked what liability the City would have in such a situation. Mr. Smith said that those who end up with verification requirements stay there by choice or do not stay there long. Most businesses address the problem before that. The tradeoff for the small number of real alarms which would have slowed response was the quicker response that would occur to all other calls. Mr. Rayor left the meeting. Mr. Pap~ asked if there were statistics on the number of real alarms to which there would be slowed response that involved human safety as opposed to property safety. Mr. Smith said no. He noted that participants in public information sessions had complimented the department staff on its swift response to real alarms. MINUTES--Eugene City Council June 11, 2001 Page 11 Work Session