Long article in the MJM this morning about personnel shortages at the fire & rescue squad. It’s a bit sensationalist and seems to suggest we’re more interested in saving a buck than in public safety. Let me make this simple: if we need people for public safety, we will hire them.
Update: The Council voted (5-1) to move ahead on the initial 7 positions and the balance (8 or so) will be hashed out during the budget process. Also hashed out during budget will be the personnel and operational concerns that some have expressed. I don’t regret my vote to move this forward and provide immediate relief but expanding a department as quickly as the Manager proposes clearly requires some additional discussion and planning.
February 25, 2008 at 12:46 pm
Andy,
Couple questions council should consider relative to this article:
How many career personnel is “enough” in IAFF’s (the union) eyes?
What are the call volumes in these other jurisdictions compared to here in the City?
What has the City done to ACTIVELY promote (look at City of VA Beach) volunteering at Fire or Rescue ?
I’m not saying both departments couldn’t use more staff; of course when the busy times come you can never have “enough”.
Also, the article hints at the impact of responses into the County, but fails to point out that the County also responds into the City. That’s part of mutual aid, and also happens in Fairfax City. I wonder how many times Fairfax City units are out of THEIR City on incidents, and THEY have to rely on mutual aid as does Manassas City?
February 25, 2008 at 2:32 pm
Given that most of the PWC Fire Stations are operating grossly over capacity and the PWC PD in the Western District are spread thin, I suspect there are substantially more calls into the county than vice-versa. If you look at the numbers, I would wager that few calls within the city have PWC as first responders. Mutual Assistance isn’t necessarily an execercise in equitability.
February 25, 2008 at 3:23 pm
David B, Under NFPA standards the City is grossly understaffed and not just with personnel but also with stations. The City has been negligent in keeping up with the times with the fire and rescue departments. As a PWC volunteer firefighter I have seen many time the City responding to PWC with inadequate staff. The City can not continue on not sending adequate staff to the County and keep demanding the County respond with the City fully staff. The City is not meeting their end of the bargain with the mutual aid agreement and it may one day cost the life of a firefighter or other rescue personnel. Something has to be done soon. If the loss of firefighter Wilson has shown the importance of properly trained and staffed fire and rescue departments to the City, then I am not sure anything will. I get the feeling the importance may have finially sunk in the heads of the elected leaders.
February 25, 2008 at 3:34 pm
Maybe if the City did not have to spend so much on ESL classes, there would be more money in the budget for public safety. But, somehow I think the MJM missed that boat a long time ago. Or, maybe if the illegals paid their fair share in real estate taxes instead of overcrowding into single family homes, the City would have more money to spend on public safety, yet for some reason I don’t think the MJM can see the connection.
February 25, 2008 at 5:05 pm
Hmm, the ultra-liberal firefighter’s union always has lots of money to throw around at election time. How much did they give to Rishell, Roemmelt? Like all govt employees, they are overpaid and underworked; and they labor mightly to convince folks the opposite is true.
February 25, 2008 at 7:07 pm
bushwick bill, as dedicated public servants we will even come save your a$$ when you need it. All you need to do is a little research of NFPA standards to see Manassas is grossly understaffed. I am not part of any union and for you to say firefighter are over paid is ridiculous. I guess you think Firefighter Kyle Wilson was overpaid! You sit behind your computer and put the brave men and women who protect your a$$ down and can’t be man enough to use your real name. Real man you are big guy. I bet your wife is real proud of you, NOT!
February 25, 2008 at 9:59 pm
I’m disappointed in you Andy. Hal had the right approach, authorize the emergency personnel increase for fire now and study the rest. But you let the manager sneak in this undefined ‘appointed’ chief of fire and rescue. Wouldn’t surprise me if that alone guarantees a rapid end of public safety volunteering in the City (just like it happened to the Park).
But of course, that’s of course exactly the IAFF’s goal (and exactly why this being budget time is why it came up now).
You fell into a standard issue ultra-liberal trap.
February 25, 2008 at 11:41 pm
Andy,
You might want to do a little undercover investigation here. Ask the volunteers who have been there for years and are gone why they left?
As the population numbers have shifted in the last several years to almost 40,000, the numbers that bring the fire and rescue service has not shifted.
Having a son who volunteered his heart away here and other places, he finally found he could not carry on as a volunteer with the lack of support. A firefighter already puts themselves in harms way by simply fighting fires. Going in without sufficient support, is nuts! And alot of people knew this was going for a long time and did nothing but put a tighter cover on the pot. Now that the steam is coming out, it’s time to deal with the problems.
February 26, 2008 at 8:50 am
I have read the above emails and am shocked. To suggest that helping our firefighters is somehow “ultra liberal” is the most ridiculous assertion I’ve ever heard.
One may reasonably disagree on the basis of what studies do and do not show, but name calling is both counterproductive and childish.
February 26, 2008 at 2:24 pm
I’ve seen PWC stations do the same thing sam points out to the City too.
As for “meeting their end of the bargain” on the mutual aid agreement, that’s pretty hard to define. City EMS units run FAR MORE calls in PWC (probably 10 or 15 to 1!) than PWC EMS units run in the City. Yet practically NO fire incident is handled these days by a single engine company, so there are a LOT more PWC units responding into the City for fire incidents than EMS incidents. How does one strike what all would consider a fair “bargain”?
Also, a “mutual aid” agreement is very different than a “mutual response” agreement. Mutual “aid” means the jurisdiction exhausts it’s resources before calling on others for help. Mutual “response” means the nearest appropriate unit is sent regardless of political jurisdiction. Arlington/Alexandria/Fairfax have mutual “response”, PWC/Manassas/Manassas Park have mutual “aid”. Citizens benefit the most from mutual “response”, but it is not so easy to draft that agreement and get it through 3 very different political processes. In my 25 years around these parts, it’s come up dozens of times and never made it from “aid” to “response”.
There is also a vast difference in funding strategy between the jurisdictions that always comes up whenever mutual “response” versus mutual “aid” is discussed. For example, if under a mutual “response” agreement the City or Park serves a PWC address as first responder, should the PWC F&R Levy money for that address go to the City or Park? And how do you factor in that both the City and Park (and Fairfax/Arlington/Alexandria) bill for EMS transport, yet PWC does not?
This isn’t simply a matter of adding more bodies to the City payroll. That’s a short term band-aid to a problem that I would agree is long overdue for solving, to the benefit of all the citizens. As Vice Mayor Parrish so eloquently stated last night, the short term fix is crucial but Council should approach the long term issues with further study. But he was outvoted.
February 26, 2008 at 7:30 pm
Seems like to me that the band-aid was applied by the balance of the council and the debate will follow. Kudos to those who stopped the hand-wringing and took action.
February 27, 2008 at 9:03 am
So Andy, by your Update, you’re saying council only approved the 5 originally requested fire positions? And did NOT (at this time) approve the Fire and Rescue Chief with administrative support person that had been added by the City Manager to the agenda item AFTER the agenda was publicly posted?
March 1, 2008 at 8:17 am
a
March 8, 2008 at 1:56 pm
The recent and significant decline in volunteers in our fire and rescue organizations has caused critical shortcomings in our fire protection which poses a public safety risk. We periodically rely on aid from the county and Manassas Park and are not meeting our obligations for mutual aid to these jurisdictions. Your City Council is taking swift and decisive action in adding career fire staff now and developing a plan for the future. There is no denying this will mean extra costs and will have tax impacts. Those of us pledged to control tax growth will be hard pressed to find the money in other city functions, but this urgent imperative must have the highest priority. I fully agree there is a need for further study of a long term solution as Hal Parrish has put forth, but to me the problem seems sufficiently large that we cannot go far wrong with the first steps we are taking.
Sorry for using Andy’s blog. I did put a similar statement on my own non-blog website.
March 8, 2008 at 2:56 pm
No trouble Jon. Post whenever the spirit move you.
March 8, 2008 at 6:08 pm
I urge the council to continue forward with this most important situation. I have to say, if I were to call 911 because someone in my family was having a heart attack or my house was on fire and response was delayed because the volunteers were out watching a sporting event, you can bet after the dust settled I would be contacting an attorney. Just one other comment, doesn’t the fact that Hal Parrish is a volunteer fire department member, of which he makes sure everyone knows, disqualify him from voting on this issue. Seems I have heard him not fully backing this decision. Seems like a conflict of interest.
March 8, 2008 at 6:57 pm
Mr. Way,
I have no problem paying a tax for the safety of my family, thank you for considering it. I do have a problem with a levy. I am no tax guy, but it is my understanding that we cannot claim a levy the same way we can with property tax. Could you or Mr. Harrover explain why we may go this direction. I have heard it is all political so that you will not have to raise the tax rate any higher than you plan to. Please tell me that is not so.
sam,
Were you kidding about our volenteers “watching a sporting event”? I hope so because I would hate it if you were putting these folks down.
March 8, 2008 at 7:30 pm
Jimmy boy:
My understanding is that the levy is also a property tax and is deductible. In my view politics had very little to do with it. We went with a levy b/c that is how surrounding jurisdictions go about it. When you get right down to it, it’s still a tax…:)
March 8, 2008 at 9:17 pm
Not putting them down, but it is a fact the fire house was unstaffed on Super bowl Sunday. They are VOLUNTEERS, the same reason we need professionals and we still need the volunteers to be a safety barrier and assist. Both have their place and both are needed, but as I said earlier, we can’t keep on depending on volunteers to cover us during holidays, weekends and on Super Bowl Sunday evidently. No shame on the volunteers, they are great and brave people. I know, I’m one in the County.
March 8, 2008 at 11:38 pm
FYI – Per The Comparative Report of Local Government Revenues and
Expenditures, Year Ended June 30,2006 – issued by the
Commonwealth of Virginia Auditor of Public Accounts –
The per capita cost of fire and rescue service was:
Manassas ($68.38)
Manassas Park ($139.84)
Prince William ($162.82)
Fairfax City ($394.73)
Falls Church ($153.21)
Fredericksburg($210.47)
Manassas citizens have benefited for decades from first fire
and rescue service at a comparatively modest cost. The
men and women of these departments deserve our
gratitude and support.
March 9, 2008 at 12:37 am
“…first RATE fire and rescue service at a comparatively modest cost.”
March 9, 2008 at 10:29 am
Councilman Randolph, I don’t think anyone could have said it any better. You are the voice of reason, probably the reason I have supported you all these years. I apologize to anyone, especially the members of MVFC, if you thought my earlier post was a slap in the face, because it wasn’t meant that way. My point was, times hav changed, lives are busy, and in a community like ours, sometimes the volunteers are just not going to be able to be there. Less anyone think PWC is any different, you might want to research their department staffing, because they have the same problem. It is just hidden better because of the number of stations.
March 9, 2008 at 9:45 pm
Nice backpedal sam. Question is, why don’t YOU help your community? Why are you volunteering elsewhere than your home community? I mean, you cast aspersions at the volunteers in the City yet you go volunteer in the County.
People in glass houses….
March 9, 2008 at 10:09 pm
Because that is where I started as a 16 year old. David B, why don’t YOU volunteer. I do volunteer in my community, it is called mutual aid dumba$$. I didn’t cast any asperations on the City volunteers, I stated a fact. There were NO volunteers on super bowl sunday as was told to me by a very reliable source. Does that make you feel safe? And as I said, the county has the same problem, it is just hidden better because of the number of stations. Maybe you need to look in the mirror. David B, you really don’t want to get into a pissing contest with me because I will make you look silly.
March 10, 2008 at 12:11 pm
You’re funny sam. Do your arguments ALWAYS have to degrade to profanity and personal attacks?
“response was delayed because the volunteers were out watching a sporting event” was CLEARLY denigrating the City’s volunteers.
You don’t know David any more than you know citizenofmanassas, yet you make personal attacks on each. And now you accuse Vice Mayor (and soon MAYOR) Parrish of conflict of interest when you have no clue what’s going on?
March 10, 2008 at 8:51 pm
resident, all I care about is if I call 911 I am going to get soemone to respond from the firehouse. The fact is, it would not have happened on super bowl sunday. It is not my responsibility to make sure I make the volunteers feel good. It is my responsibility to see that my family is protected with the best public services possible. The fact is, if I or you needed service from the firehouse on super bowl sunday a second call would have had to go out to PWC or MP depending on the location which would have delayed reponse. That is not fair to me, you, or either of our families. Now if it ruffles some feathers, so be it. As for our future Mayor, I was just putting the question out there. But since you put it out there, I do see it as a conflict of interest. No different than if a Council member voted on a development plan that was taking place on a piece of property they owned. I just call them like I see them. Forget the fact that I volunteer in the County, I see the volunteers as an important part of the equation. I want to see the firehouse staffed properly and if that means I need to pay a few more dollars, than so be it to see that our families our protected. Also resident, I think that David B and CoM can take care of themselves if they are upset. What makes you think I don’t have a clue? You think I am the only person who sees the next Mayor voting on this issue as a conflict of interest? Try again!
March 10, 2008 at 10:45 pm
Easy fellas, this ain’t BVBL
March 11, 2008 at 6:21 am
sam, neither you nor i nor council nor God can guarantee that there will be staffing in the firehouse for every call to 911. You should know that (being a PWC volunteer) and arguing otherwise (as your are) is disingenuous. And your arguments relative to mutual aid are without basis. Have you actually READ the mutual aid agreement? There are no service level guarantees in it,m nothing says that Manassas must have available to the County a staffed engine and a tower and a hazmat unit and 2 medic units and a Rescue and a boat and a Collapse unit and a MCI unit and and and … AND there are no service level guarantees from the County to the City either.
I’ll leave it to others who read what I write here to decide if I’m a dumba$$ or not. Your opinion on the matter is clearly clouded by your inability to accept that YOU DO NOT KNOW IT ALL.
We mere mortals CAN help improve the odds. You ask why don’t I volunteer yet how do you know that I don’t? I ask why don’t you volunteer here in the City, and you have no answer other than a because that’s where you started. Your community needs you sam, you could be helping improve the odds yet you are not. You could have been that 1 more person that was needed to have a staffed engine on super bowl sunday.
Andy, YOU as a council member can do MUCH to improve the odds. BUT, I urge you not to get bogged down in org charts; back up and look at the big picture. Did you hear Lt. Nary and Chief Skinner when they talked of the “1.7 (soon 2.0) factor”? Rather than worrying about how many FTE’s are in a particular box, Council SHOULD be deciding what is the minimum staffing for the City, what (if any) service level guarantee should the City be making to its mutual aid partners, etc. Let the new F&R Chief figure out the boxes (else what’s the point of having him?), your decision a couple weeks ago established a de-facto minimum staffing of Engine and Tower weekdays and engine 24/7, but is that enough? What is enough rescue staffing? For example, if you accept that a fire engine should be minimum staffed by 3, and the tower by 3, that means 6 minimum on duty (IAFF will argue that 3 and 3 is insufficient, so these numbers go out the window with their math) x1.7 factor is 10.2. Round that to 10, and consider 3 rotating 24 hour shifts, and the City needs 30 just at the firehouse (side note: what if the hazmat gets called out, that will consume all staffing if it’s a real hazmat incident). There are 7 now, you added 5 and you’re potentially adding 4 more, so you’re still 14 short. The volunteers have to be able to pickup the slots of that 14 or effectively 8 24/7 “on duty” bodies. If they can, wonderful, we’re better protected than we were AND saving money too. You can run the same numbers for rescue, if you say 2 medic units (2 each) and 3 on the Rescue is minimum 7 factored 12. That’s 36 and you have 16 now (plus potentially 4 more in July so say 20). That leaves 16 short, or ~10 24/7 “on duty” bodies needed from the volunteers. So we’ve identified a need for 30 more, but what if that factor becomes 2? What if it’s decided an engine should have a minimum of 4 and a tower 5 or 6 and a medic unit 3 and a Rescue 5 or 6? And what if you staff a 3rd medic unit and 2nd engine and NOT make them available for mutual aid (to guarantee some minimum City coverage)? My feel is Council should be addressing THESE sort of big picture issues. We can get consumed in numbers until our fingers hurt, and miss the big picture. Don’t let that happen, focus.
March 11, 2008 at 6:23 am
Steve,
Will the “average” levy of $99 add on TOP of the $68.38, or replace it? We’ll be at an “average” of $99, or $167.38? The latter would be quite comparable to PWC.
March 11, 2008 at 11:48 am
First, the budget is still a work in progress and won’t be finalized
before the end of next month. Plus, I want to make sure we
compare apples to apples (per capita cost or average household cost).
The managers budget includes moving most fire and
rescue expenses to the levy, but some details remain.
The one thing that I CAN tell you is that this mayor and council
are totally committed to supporting quality public safety services.
Everyone is invited to a budget meeting Wednesday March 12th
at 5:30PM in the 2nd floor conference room at city hall. Fire
and rescue services are part of the agenda.
Thank you for your interest.
March 11, 2008 at 8:21 pm
David B, I offer you a sincere apology for my earlier coment. Sometimes we get on here and are passionate about an issue and forget we are all human. With that being said, I assume my comments about CoM were based on an earlir post and subject. I will not apologize for that because that person has not apologized to me for completely writing lies about what I said even when everyone in the world who has the ability to read could see I never said many of the things he/she alleges. However, I should not have written what I did. But, there are certain requirements in the mutual aid agreement that are not being met by many City volunteers. Most of those requirements not being met are usually by the volunteers that are not career firefighters elsewhere (this is not a knock on those volunteers). I know you don’t understand why I don’t volunteer in the City and I stay in the County, but without getting into the subject very deeply, it is a very very personal matter for me to serve the station I am at and I really wish to not discuss that matter. However, I understand your point and understand why you feel like you do, all I ask is that you understand that I truly do have a very good reason for staying where I am located. I read your post and it really sounds like you have a grasp on this subject. I will say though that I still stand by my comment about the next Mayor. We may have to just agree to disagree on that subject. But I really do want to apologize and say it was completely inappropriate.
March 11, 2008 at 9:50 pm
That’s better fellas. Much more civil and informative!