We had the first meeting of the Mayor’s Ad-Hoc Fire and Rescue committee Tuesday out at the Airport.  It was at the Airport because all of the conference rooms at City Hall were booked.  First a little bit about the issue at hand:  the City last year created a new Fire and Rescue Department headed by a career Chief.  That department works with the volunteers to provide Fire and Rescue services for our citizens.  As one might imagine, these 3 departments work together very closely on a daily basis and collaborate on somewhat longer term issues via the “Public Safety Committee”.  There have been some differences of opinion over how things should work so the Ad-Hoc committee is taking a look at it.

 The meeting lasted about 2.5 hours and I felt it was pretty productive.  The first item we discussed was putting a Council member on the Public Safety committee.  Some felt that this would be a distraction but I think it necessary.  There is a Council liason on almost every other board – Utilities, Airport, Museum, Schools, etc.  Public safety, along with schools, is the most important thing we do so we have to get it right.  Having a Council member there doesn’t guarantee a result but it does provide a level of awareness and communication that is very important to the citizens and the balance of Council.

The balance of the meeting was really a discussion of the changes that all involved would like to see made.  That changes are wanted and/or needed is not surprising, this is a complicated enterprise and I think everyone figured there would be some adjustments along the way.  Besides, when you have the long traditions that we have in Manassas, changes to the status quo in any aspect of our municipal lives require many people to cooperate and collaborate over a longish period of time and that’s ok.

We’ll meet again in a couple of weeks.  Date not set yet.

One word of clarification:  the changes that we are discussing are on the administrative side, not the operations side.  Our career and volunteer staff run calls together, the staffs augment one another and they all train together so no worries there.  If you call 911, the City will have qualified people respond.  This process has little or no bearing on our readiness to help citizens in the short term and will only make us better at it in the long term.