East County will receive some good news tonight at the East Contra Costa Fire Protection Districts monthly Board meeting as Brentwood will see its downtown station reopened on May 1, 2013. With the grant’s 24-month clock ticking, Station 54 will be opened through November 17, 2014.
More good news will be reported as response times dropped 22-seconds when compared to December. The District is reporting that they had 572 calls with an average response time of 7:10 minutes. In December, they had 542 calls with response time on average of 7:32 minutes.
Finally, the District will discuss the idea of creating subcommittees of a smaller group of directors will get together for more detailed discussions. This is a great idea as long as these meetings are open to the public and proper notice is provided—three that were named on the agenda include:
- Budget/Finance
- Revenue Enhancement
- Service Models
It’s estimated these committees will range between three to four board members and will meet monthly. What is interesting is they would suggest more than two directors per committee as this sets up potential Brown Act Violations (or stacking potential suggestions one way). They are better off selecting just two directors for each committee and getting community involvement to give additional perspective.
Here is some information I cherry picked out of the Board Packet.
The downtown Brentwood station 54 will open on May 1.
The District is been working on open recruitment which closed on November 21, 2012. The District received 353 qualified applicants that took written exams December 6 through December 15 2012.
The District received the ranking from the written test on December 21.We interviewed the top 25 on January 3-4. After the interviews, we will send the top 11 candidates through a background check and anticipate having those background checks completed by February 1. After background checks, conditional job offers and medical exams will be completed.
We anticipate starting the 11 new hires on March 1 and getting them through their basic training which will consist of approximately 6 weeks and then a week of shift orientation.
The downtown Brentwood station 54 will open on May 1.
The District will conduct promotional testing for three fire Engineers on April 18 and 19 as part of reopening the downtown Brentwood station.
Operational Update for January 2013
Calls for service:
In reviewing the calls for service for the month of January, there were a total of 572 calls with an average response time of 7:10 minutes. Comparing this to the month of December, the District ran 542 calls with an average response time of 7:32 minutes. The response times for the first six months of 2012 averaged for the District was 6:24 minutes for 3162 calls. For the first six months of 2012 there were 574 calls with an average response time of 7.01 minutes.
Looking at the response times for closed stations;
- Station 54-downtown Brentwood, had 115 calls in the month of January with an average response time of 7:38 minutes. In December there were a total of 122 calls with an average response time of 7:57 minutes. For the six the first six months of 2012 there were 675 calls with an average response time of 5.23 minutes.
- Station 95-Bethel Island had 34 calls in the month of December with an average response time of 11:52 minutes. In the month of December there were 32 calls with an average response time of 13:06 minutes. For the first six months of 2012 there were 574 calls with an average response time of 7.01 minutes.
Auto aid:
In the month of January the district received auto aid from Contra Costa County Fire 28 times with them sending 41 units. The District sent auto aid to Contra Costa County Fire 9 times providing them with 9 units. During the month of December, Contra Costa County Fire came into the District 26 times with 38 units and we responded into Contra Costa County Fire 14 times with 16 units. In 2012 the District received auto aid from Contra Costa County Fire 389 times with them sending 518 units. The District sent auto aid to Contra Costa County Fire a total of 167 times and 194 units.
Consider the Formation of Board Subcommittees.
At the January 7, 2013 board meeting, Director Smith requested more discussion on establishing subcommittees to work in between regular board meetings.
Subcommittees provide a format for information sharing and detailed discussion of District issues prior to consideration of action by the full Board of Directors. Smaller groups provide the exchange and focus necessary for in-depth topics. The new Board of Directors will be tasked with addressing District challenges such as financing sources and revenue, level and model of service provided by the District and staffing decisions. To serve this purpose is it recommended the Board discuss the formation of subcommittees including scope, objectives/purpose, number of members and representation and meeting frequency.
Based upon the size of the District and using other Fire District Board of Directors as examples, staff recommends that initially the Board consider forming three subcommittees for:
- Budget/Finance
- Revenue Enhancement
- Service Models
These subcommittees should range between three and four members and it is currently anticipated the subcommittees would meet monthly or as necessary.
3 comments
Glad to see you are calling it fair on this committee discussion. They would be smart not to put more than 2 on it. I lthink its a great idea of adding people from the community, but how much help would people not familiar with the district be? Probably be more of a road block than anything else.
One would think the District would be rushing to get Statio 54 open before may 1. Ouch!
Glad to see things looking up for the District. Keep our engine out of East County 🙂
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