CC Minutes - 06/11/01 Work Session

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and 4.990 of that Code; Repealing Section 4.934 of that Code; and Adding a New Section 3.100 to the Eugene Code, 1971 The council was joined by Police Chief Jim Hill, Lieutenant Carolyn McDermad, Senior Management Analyst Terry Smith, Acting Fire Marshal Reggie Augsberger, Matt Shuler of the Eugene Fire and Emergency Medical Services Department, and Alan Leiman of the City Attorney's Office for the agenda item. Chief Hill discussed the proposed amendments to the current code, reporting that the department had two issues, one related to cost and one related to officer-community safety. The need to respond to false alarms was costly and it diminished the department's ability to respond to real emergencies and calls for service. He referred the council to the Hobson Report, which addressed staffing levels, and said that the proposal was one of several strategies to address the report's recommendations. He clarified that, unlike some jurisdictions, the intent of the department was to drive down false alarms rather than raise revenues. Chief Hill acknowledged uncertainty about whether the approach would work, but said the department was relying on the most recent research to reduce the number of false alarms. He thought a combination of a permitting fee and community education would mitigate the problem. Lieutenant McDermed reviewed the elements of the proposed approach, which include an alarm registration system to create an accurate data base and help in educational efforts, escalating fees for false alarms, education and public awareness, and verification of alarm calls after an established number of false alarms had been received. Acting Fire Marshal Reggie Augsberger of the Eugene Fire & Emergency Medical Services Department described the problems that his department had with false alarms, noting that between 700 and 1,000 each year were received, or approximately 90 percent of all alarm calls. Mr. Smith briefly discussed the approaches taken in other communities and reviewed the amendments proposed by staff, which involved a combination of fines and education, saying staff hoped the department could use the tools available to it to achieve a 20 percent to 25 percent reduction in false alarms. Mr. Rayor commended the staff report. He referred to the definition of "false alarm" in the draft ordinance included with the meeting materials and suggested there was a problem with the phrase "any source." Mr. Leiman clarified that definition currently existed in the code in Chapter 4, but it could be modified in the ordinance. Ms. Nathanson expressed concern about the number of false alarms from a relatively small number of locations. She thought it very important to reduce the number of false alarms because public safety staff became desensitized to repeated false alarms, creating a situation where a staff life could be at risk when an alarm proved real. She thought it important to raise sufficient revenue for education and enforcement. Responding to a question from Ms. Nathanson regarding the experience of other communities after implementing such an ordinance, Mr. Smith said that the communities with the least success in reducing false alarms had adopted some but not all of the best practices available. Best practices appeared to be a necessary but not a sufficient condition for producing results. There were communities that had adopted all the best practices and been very successful, as well as vice-versa; the least successful cities have not used all the best practices. Responding to a question from Ms. Nathanson regarding the reduction in property crime that was experienced by Salt Lake City after implementation of a similar ordinance, Mr. Smith said that there was no correlation between ordinance implementation and the drop in property crime in Salt Lake City; Salt Lake City used that statistic to demonstrate that the ordinance did not lead to an increase in property crime. MINUTES--Eugene City Council June 11, 2001 Page 9 Work Session