Agenda - 12-07-2009 - 4a - Laserfiche WebLink

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11 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 The Board considered approving the ongoing plan to strategically relocate Emergency Medical Services (EMS) stations and enhance response time as call loads determine need and resources provide. Emergency Services Director Frank Montes de Oca said that he brought forth to the Board of County Commissioners earlier this year a report on the EMS system in the County. One of the factors was to move the EMS stations into the communities that are served. Prior to that, the County had continued to centralize down to one area, which caused some extended response times. The response time target was 12 minutes countywide, and it had extended to 17 minutes. One of the options available is to recycle and re-task the old Animal Services building on Revere Road with an expenditure of $50,000 to turn this building into an EMS station. The benefit would be to decrease response time in the northern end of the County and it would also improve the response times in the north end of Hillsborough and allow an east to west response time on US 70 to the Efland area and the Eno area. The money has been allocated by the Board's actions last budget year in the Emergency Services Capital Investment Plan. Commissioner Gordon asked Frank Montes de Oca to speak to the geographic distribution of the stations and how that relates to the distribution of the county's population. Frank Montes de Oca said that there are two stations in the Carrboro area, and they will be relocating one of those. Commissioner Gordon said that she is concerned about the staff's ability to cover Chapel Hill and Carrboro and how to handle this load since the majority of the population lives in the Chapel Hill-Carrboro area and the map in the agenda packet shows that many of the calls are from this area. Frank Montes de Oca said that one of the two stations would be moved toward the east side of Chapel Hill. Frank Montes de Oca said that there are enough resources to staff six units at one time. There would be two units in the Carrboro area, one at the New Hope station, one on Revere Road, and one in Efland. Commissioner Gordon said that she wants to know more about the distribution of resources. She said that she was amazed at how many people have called and there was no ambulance available (235 times last year). What is the balance between distributing the stations geographically around the county and yet having resources to answer calls in the more densely populated areas. Frank Montes de Oca reiterated where the stations would be located. He will continue to look at the statistics and see how the response times can be decreased. Commissioner Jacobs asked about the discussions about using the Kirby property and Frank Montes de Oca was not familiar with that discussion. Commissioner Jacobs said that the County Commissioners were approached and they discussed using a property that was purchased on Schley and Mincey Roads to be used as either a fire station or something. He asked Frank Montes de Oca to check into this for a status. Commissioner Jacobs said that as new vehicles are brought on line, he would like to talk about fuel efficient vehicles. Commissioner Pelissier asked if there were any projections about the future station in Cedar Grove. Frank Montes de Oca said that there is no staffing for one in this area at this time, but he wants to keep it on the radar. A motion was made by Commissioner Jacobs, seconded by Commissioner Yuhasz to: