City Council Agenda
Regular Meeting
February 6, 2007
V. Announcements from Closed Session, from City Council Members and the City Administrator.
C. Announcements from City Administrator.
• Receive Fire Hydrant Report
Brief Report on the Fire Hydrant Update and ISO based on Questions from the last meeting:
Selected excerpts from Fire Chief Andrew Miller’s Report, as follows:
PSA (Public Service Announcement): A map and text of “OPERATIONAL FIRE HYDRANTS” and “OUT-OF-SERVICE HYDRANTS” in The Carmel Pine Cone.
“My assistant Chief...physically has gone out with a representative from Cal-Am and spotted where all the relocated hydrants are going to go...Cal-Am has that plan. And they are also in the process of finalizing the contract for a contractor to come out in the next 6 months to do at least 50% of the hydrants that are out-of-service.”
“My plan at the Fire Department, to continue and to complete all the flow testing of all the hydrants by the end of July. We flow tested a total of 110 hydrants and concentrate on the hydrants that were on the 4” mains that were causing some problems. The hydrants that we haven’t flow tested yet we don’t anticipate any problems because they’re on better mains, but certainly if we find them, we will identify them and correct them.”
ISO (Insurance Service Office) Questions & Fire Chief Miller’s Responses:
Questions:
“Has the city been contacted since filling out the community outreach questionnaire for a field survey and reevaluation?"
"If not, when do you expect to be reevaluated by the ISO?"
"Do you anticipate, with the changes in our department, from 12 years ago, that our rating could change for the better or for the worse?"
Responses:
ISO is an individual rating agency that rates Fire Departments.
“A very complicated system.”
Fire Department last evaluated in 1994, class 4 rating. (Ratings 1-10, 1 the best, 10 the worst.) Class 4 rating is a “pretty good rating.”
Rating are banded; 1-6, equivalent for insurance purposes.
Fire Department received an Outreach Questionnaire in 2002; it was completed by Staff, and then returned to ISO. Since there were “no changes,” the city remains a Class 4 city.
ISO will be sending the Fire Department a new questionnaire; an outreach questionnaire usually “comes out every 2 years.” The Fire Department will complete the questionnaire, return it to ISO; ISO then determines if any significant changes have occurred that would impact the current rating. If ISO determines significant changes have occurred, then ISO will schedule an evaluation.
ISO: “...not all insurance companies utilize the ISO ratings schedule, and some don’t utilize all their criteria,” et cetera.
“...a lot of good things have happened, our hydrants are going to be hopefully done in the next year so that will definitely benefit us, our training records are all up to date, our pump testing, our hose testing, apparatus testing, everything’s up-to-date, our training is actually better than it was, so a lot of really good things have happened.”
2 comments:
Recent reports in the Herald have said that PG is looking into a possible combining of the Monterey and PG fire departments. The reason is said to be that senior PG fire officals are over extended. In the short term PG wants Monterey's senior fire fighters to attend all serious PG fires.
If PG's fire chiefs are already over extended in their own baliwick, how can they provide adequate service to Carmel as they have contracted to do? If they can't provide adequate service, why is Carmel paying PG increasing amounts of money? If Monterey fire chiefs are to attend all major PG fire events, does that mean that Monterey personnel will actually be directing Carmel fire fighters in the event of major fires here or does it mean that Carmel will have to continue to rely on the over extended PG fire chiefs for supervision? Finally, is this all leading to Carmel's fire department being snuck into a three way joint powers agency by the back door? As a letter to the editor in today's Herald from a PG resident asked, and as most Carmelites wonder, why doesn't Carmel get its own fire chief? It isn't because the city can't afford to pay one.
A related and unreported fact is the city of Seaside was glad to see Rich Guillen leave the city. The tradegy for the people of Carmel is he is reputed to be so far over his head he has proven to be nothing but an errand boy for your mayor Sue McCloud. My sympathy is with you.
I also have sympathy for PG resident Al Borges. After going through the possible Seaside-Marina merger process, I certainly feel each city should have its own fire dept. and personnel. Residents take pride in their own fire depts. and do not want their Fire Chiefs moonlighting for other cities.
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