Agenda - 09-13-2011 - 1 - Laserfiche WebLink

Browse Search

.• — Data Collection — Service Delays — Radio Limitations Opportunities — County Aiding Volunteer-Agencies — Strategic Planning — Response Districts Threats — Relationships — Economy — Questions Commissioner Gordon said that she had asked about the inclusion of service by Mebane and North Chatham the last time and they have not been added. The consultant said that-North Chatham serves quite a large area and they were -not successful sorting out what -was in and out of the County. Commissioner Gordon said that one needs to have these numbers and this information for these agencies becausa there are parts of Orange County in the south and west that-are served by them. She said that they need to start collecting data since Mebane and North Chatham get funding from Orange County. She wants to see these numbers. Chair Pelissier asked the County Manager to address-this. Frank Clifton said that there are data issues and -when there is a mix of paid and volunteer fire departments, it is hard to get consistent -data. Chair Pelissier said that the - data is not really usable and she suggested adding `lack of data' as another weakness. Frank Clifton suggested saying `standardization of data.' Commissioner McKee made reference to page 8 and approximately 10,000 fire department calls annually and on page 72 it states that there were 11,995 EMS calls. He asked if this was double counting because the fire departments respond to -half of EMS -type calls. The consultant said that it appears that this is double counting. He said that during the BOCC meeting in March when the initial report was received, the fire chiefs requested some additional- information. He asked if all of this information had been updated because South Orange Rescue still states that it has a Chief and an Assistant Chief for each division. The consultant said that he had the comments. Chair Pelissier suggested adding some caveats in the document to make it clearer about the number of calls. Commissioner Jacobs acknowledged the presence of so many fire chiefs, assistant fire chief, and EMS personnel and he said that he is sorry they are doing this in a work session since - the fire chiefs wanted to have a conversation with the Board of County Commissioners. He said that there was a very good meeting of the steering committee a few weeks ago. They discussed this report and some issues were raised. One of the things that came up in that meeting was that there is not accurate data. It was also identified that the CAD software needed to be updated. There was also discussion about how people have taken this report as implied criticism of the volunteer fire departments. At this meeting, there was more of a peace about this issue. Commissioner Jacobs said that the Board needs to decide what kind of reports they want generated and which risks to manage. He wants to try and make a better system. Commissioner Hemminger said that as she read this document she realized how much the County depends on its volunteer fire departments. Frank Clifton said that the County has come to the scene of emergency services a little late as a governmental function since it has relied on the volunteers for so long. Even though the departments are called volunteer, they would not be able to function without paid staff