HomeMy WebLinkAboutFire FY2013-2014 DEPARTMENTAL BUDGET REVIEWS April 8, 2013
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The departmental budget review reconvened on April 8, 2013 at 1:35 p.m., and proceeded as
follows:
Fire Department
Honorable Tim Bynum (Left at 11:18 for the remainder of the day.)
Honorable Gary Hooser
Honorable Nadine K. Nakamura
Honorable Mel Rapozo (Present at 10:27 a.m., left for remainder of day at 12:33 p.m.)
Honorable JoAnn A. Yukimura
Honorable Jay Furfaro
Excused: Honorable Ross Kagawa
Chair Furfaro: Aloha everyone and welcome back to the ongoing budget
reviews. This afternoon we will be covering the Fire Department. I would like to make a
couple of announcements here. Mr. Rapozo was a bit under the weather this morning, but
came in, but he is not feeling well and has called it a day. Mr. Kagawa has an excuse letter
submitted for his not being able to attend today. Mr. Bynum called back and he has to take
care of a personal business matter. So we are four for your discussion today, Chief. And I
need to ask my colleagues, we all have to be present in the room as discussion goes on. So if
we need to take a periodic break, we will do so, but we have to conduct the meeting with a
quorum of four. And we all have to be present by our rules. Go right ahead, Mr. Hooser.
Mr. Hooser: Mr. Chair, that means I have to talk twice as much as I
normally do. And ask twice as tough questions to make up for Councilmembers Rapozo and
Bynum not being here. I will try my best to fulfill that responsibility.
Chair Furfaro: Double jeopardy here. And Chief, I just want to let you
know in the morning, this morning, like every meeting that we have that we come back
from a recess. We took public testimony, and some queries were made of the Police and
Fire Department. Were you over the TV monitors, able to understand some of the
questions that were posed?
ROBERT WESTERMAN, Fire Chief: Yes, Chair. Robert Westerman, Fire
Chief for the record. I heard the questions from Mr. Sykos about the beach signs and I can
provide testimony on that as we go through.
Chair Furfaro: Very good. Thank you. Chief, are you going to make a
PowerPoint presentation at any point because if we do, then I will relocate my seat and if
that is the way we are going to start, would you just introduce your staff and we will go
right into that.
Mr. Westerman: Yes, sir, it is a PowerPoint and as you readdress
yourself, I will introduce my staff. Fire Chief Robert Westerman. To my right, Deputy
John Blalock. I also have my BCs that are with us here today. Chief Hosaka and Chief
Ornellas' and our Administrative Officer Rose Bettencourt. Our Captain in Prevention
Darryl Date, and two of our Prevention Firefighters Kilpaki Vaughn and Jeremie Makepa.
We also have one of our Commissioners, Ron Bush of our Training Bureau who will be
doing our Training Bureau briefing. Noticeably absent is Ocean Safety Bureau. Kalani
injured himself this weekend so he is at the hospital getting his knee looked at and
hopefully he will be better in the next couple of days. And we have Randy out doing our
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pilot jet ski program because high surf and with us we have Commissioner...Vice Chair
now Fukushima with us.
Chair Furfaro: Commissioners thank you for being here, Mr.
Fukushima. Thank you for being here.
Mr. Westerman: First off, I would like to say thank you very much. We
appreciate you hearing our budget for the year, and look forward to some successful
outcomes. We will be doing this in PowerPoint presentations and we will stop at each
Division and give you the opportunity like you have been to ask questions. You know, this
year we are doing it a little different, we have not done it like this in the past and we are
focused on all of the successes that we have had through the year and how we used the
funding for the current year and some of our goals for the next year, and again, some of the
issues that we feel we have. So again the budget this year, and as you have heard with
most of them, ours is 1.88% decrease over 2013 and most of those decreases have come from
our OPEB dollars are significantly reduced, the percentage being reduced and that reduces
our impact on salaries. Like everyone else we reduced some travels. We had some
increases, but our decreases have been more than our...decreases have
been more than our increase. Our call load for 2012 and if most of you remembered I used
to have a long slide. We have about 5369, which are a 7% increase over 2011 and a 24%
increase since 2002. We have a slide in there that will talk about it a little bit better. It is
kind of funny how our call load goes up as tourism goes up and our call load goes down as
tourism goes down and it is kind of a pretty even pace.
Plus we had the normal growth in population. So it has helped to maintain that
increase. But you will see that in the slide and a lot of this is just an overview and we will
get in-depth in each of the Bureau's as we talk about. Our fire loss for the year was just
over $2 million or a 39% decrease from the prior year. We were very successful in adding
another $759,000 in grant funding in 2012 bringing our grant total since 2006 to $7 million
and we have a little slide to break that down into who is providing the money and how we
are doing it. Let us move on to the first slide presentation. I will not read the mission and
we have mission statements in just about every Division. So we are not all going to read
them. They have not changed much. Again we are here to save lives and property and
provide services to the community in Fire, Rescue, and Ocean Safety. Some of the goals
through the last year that will continue on to next year are our response to service in
accordance with 17-9 and 17-10 and getting there 90% of the time in six minutes and we
are kind of maintaining that average. It is a little tough. With Kaiakea that helped out a
little bit and some districts we are better than others, only because we have a lot more
stations and their response is a little bit less, versus some districts that are farther away
like Station 1, which has some increased response times because their district is so big.
The staffing all engines with 4 Firefighters at least 80% of the time is really
important as far as Firefighter safety and providing immediate service to the community
members in the real worst-case scenarios. And again, we do that by moving staff around
daily. We have staff assigned in every Station, but on a daily basis the Battalion Chiefs
have to make a decision on what Station has what staffing and how we will maintain that.
And they do that on a daily basis. Minimum of two firefighters to attend the National Fire
Academy during the year, that is part of our succession planning. We were successful doing
that in last couple years and plan on doing it again next year. We will be talking about it a
little bit. One of the things also is encouraged enrollment in the Executive Fire Officer
(EFO) Program. The Deputy Chief will be getting his certificate of completion here pretty
quick. And we have got Captain Dean Lake enrolled into the program and moving forward
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with that. We did a community risk reduction analysis on our Ocean Safety Bureau and
that was actually done by the Deputy Chief in his EFO program. When we are in there
doing the required work in these programs, we can select studies and things to do that
affect our Department locally. So that is one of the good things about it. Plus while you are
there doing it you have the benefit of having discussions with New York City Fire
Department, Philadelphia Fire Department, any number of smaller fire departments, San
Diego, that help maybe they have had some issues with that and it gives them the
opportunity to help build their paper and come back with some good direction for us. We
still have not completed the BORA, the BORA is still part of
our standards recovery for our certification. Again it is a staffing issue and we continue to
try and gather the data but having the personnel to complete that and put that in our RMS
is just a matter of time and staffing.
Chair Furfaro: For the audience, as well, could you revisit the acronym
BORA?
Mr. Westerman: Yes. Building Occupancy Risk Assessment.
Chair Furfaro: Thank you, Chief. Thank you, audience.
Mr. Westerman: Complete our standard operating guidelines, still
working on those. Apply for at least two competitive grants and we have done that. And
we will talk about those more. Outline our standard comprehensive training and promotion
for initial recruit to Fire Chief. We are still working on that. And that program eventually
will be kind of the yellow brick road like we have been talking about for the last couple of
years. What is it going to take for a Firefighter to become a Fire Chief and then along the
way at any given place, they can...they will know what it takes to get there. And again,
moving forward with the succession plan for top management positions within the
Department and one of those issues is again a staffing issue. Without a staffing level to
help us manage at an upper-mid level position. The guys do not like me to say this but it
gives them an opportunity to fail. In other words they make a decision that maybe was not
the best decision, and maybe that is the way to learn it. We do not want to learn that on
the fire ground. We want to learn that prior to the fire ground or in some smaller or where
it has a smaller effect on the Department and not necessarily an effect on Firefighter
safety.
Again, you know our objectives. We have kind of gone over these over the years,
knowing our customers and we base our decision on knowing our customers and being fiscal
and being honest in our responses, providing mutual aid to the Lihue Airport and PMRF
and in most cases, it is them providing service to us which they both have. In most recent
years and recent months, and we will talk more about them. Lihue just helped us out with
a brush fire the other day over at Wal-Mart. So again, maintaining that relationship and
keeping that relationship is very important. Providing for and attending training events
with our mutual aid partners and all of our training opportunities are open to our partners
and they do join us quite a bit of time.
Being accident and injury-free. We had a very good year and I opened up by saying
that Kalani got injured and it was off the job, but he got injured and it happens. Providing
a harassment-free workplace and so our members are free to expand their knowledge and
feel that they are part of the Department and then improve moral of Department members
by providing a quality work environment where their input counts.
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Accomplishments. We moved into Fire Headquarters. That was a major challenge.
We saved money by finally getting moved in. We are saving lease rents. I think we are
pretty much there. We borrowed...we got your hand-me-down table, which is a little bit
shorter version of what you are sitting at and we are finally getting it wired up. And so
that will actually be part of the Alternate Emergency Operations Center breakout room for
the Mayor and Staff and will also be a conference room for me and my staff when we are
not having emergencies.
Grant awards. The 2012 as you know we got the
rescue boat for Station 2 and we funded the matching out of the General Funds. We just
got news we got awarded another AFG grant award for Phase 2 of the Radio System for
$396,000. That is one of the competitive grants. We have about eight Firefighters that
work very hard at working our grants. Firefighter Vaughn here has been the head of that
group with Captain Lake for the last few years. They are very active and they do a lot and
just a side note, they are talking about Mr. Sykos this morning. We are actually putting in
for an AFG Grant to do our Water Safety Guide in multiple languages. So we do realize
there are folks here that are not necessarily English-speaking and English is not their first
languages and we are looking at an avenue to try and provide that to the community.
Chair Furfaro: Thank you very much, Chief.
Ms. Yukimura: AFG is what, I am sorry?
Mr. Westerman: Assistance to Firefighters Grant. I apologize.
Ms. Yukimura: Thank you.
Mr. Westerman: Junior Lifeguards, nine times State Champions and
they are working hard to be number ten. Which in this is a good sense. A new all hazards
education trailer is online and the Prevention Group will be talking a lot about that. We
are happy that that is working very well. We are getting CERT on board to be part of that
group and moving forward. Our driver's training trailer is online and actually I think it is
out in Kalaheo today doing the crew, but KPD has already used it. Transportation is still
trying to find the opportunity to use it. Public Works, we are still waiting on them. They
are trying to figure out how it would fit into their training environment and it actually
turned out that we bought the standard shift for Public Works and we ended up
getting...and you will see a donated tender... and it happens to be a standard shift. Most
everything else that we drive is automatic. So we got that standard shift trainer actually
for someone else and turns out that we are going to use it, so we
do not have to buy an upgrade. So that worked out very well. We also got two water
tenders donated to us and as you saw the donation paperwork came through a few months
ago. They are finally here, Honolulu Fire Department provided us a water tender and U.S.
Forest Service also provided us with a water tender. It cost us to ship it here and it will
cost of us of course to maintain it. U.S. Forest Service we have used for quite a few years to
get Type is from them or Type 2s from them and this year we opted for a water tender.
We had a very successful second WAVE fundraiser that we will talk about a little bit
later. Great support by the community. Again the Deputy completed his four-year
Executive Fire Officer Program. Captain Lake is in that program this year and it will be
four years for him to work his way through that program, but it is a very cost-effective way
for us to get some very upper-level education, fire-based education to our senior
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Firefighters. Then again we had a little bit of savings, of $32,000 in our electrical costs
through reduction efforts that we have made in the Department.
Our challenges and we will talk more about these in each of the sections. Grant
management after award, as you see six years, seven years and $7 million, the toughest
part of grants is not really getting grants in most cases, it is managing the grant
after the fact. Single purchase equipment is easy. Usually it is...you bought it and you
reported it and sometime you have to report use. Sometimes not. But still, that takes time
and effort on someone's part to manage that.
The SAFER Grant has been the toughest one we have had to manage over the last
five years. This is the last year we will do reporting not for dollars now, but reporting for
that we still has the staff on-board from the SAFER Grant. Our staff shortages as you know
we have for the last several years talked about our clerical staff and our Assistant Chiefs
and we still have that. Again in agreement with the Administration, we agreed not to not
put any new positions in the budget this year, but we still, as we move forward, still have a
need for those positions. As we sit here today I have no Clerk. Literally I have no clerk.
One is...we are working hard we got some changes through the Administration and with
their support to reallocate one of our positions because it was really just a revolving door.
Someone would come in and they would get a higher-paid position within six months to a
year and so they would go out. So we are reallocating that and working through the
reallocation process. The other one is my Secretary who happens to be on vacation. We
cannot deny people the opportunity to take vacations, but when they do go it makes
struggles for us. So the rest of the staff does make up the shortage, but it is kind of tough.
Storage in the training space. Our shortages are in the training space. We have a
bid in there and it is been part of the process of our training center. We do a lot of training
and ;I'heard the Police talk about this morning, it is the same issue. We now have a
training room, which provides us some space to do the training on our own schedules that
we can do this classroom training, but if you look at our burn trailer and look at our driver's
education trailer, and look at the equipment we have, we need space and we now move our
burn trailer from place to place and we have to contract to have it moved. So it costs us
money every time we move it. We have to ask Parks to let us borrow part of the Vidinha
Stadium parking lot to do our burn training over there. And again, then we have to
schedule around community events and everything and that is understandable, but to have
a centralized training center, would really go a long way to helping us provide the training
on a more routine basis, and provide better training services to our Firefighters.
Along with that, and we were hoping to move behind Lihue Station, but of course as
you know the County has bought that piece of property and is going to put Affordable
Housing back there. Well, Lihue is one of my largest, biggest stations and the smallest
footprint. So now I have no space for about $6 million worth of equipment. And I will have
to move my temporary hangar that I store them in. Working with Housing they are going
to give me a reprieve to get half of the lot for the next couple of years, but even after that as
that project moves on and builds up, I will have eventually move out of that space. So I will
need a space to do that.
The bigger issue here is all that equipment needs to be readily accessible because it
is emergency response equipment. So it is not like I can store it some place and leave it and
then we have to drive there and get it. It needs to be located or co-located with a central
station. All of those kind of all fit together. The new central station that is in space plan,
which would move Lihue, the central station to a different location, put the training center
in it and gives us the storage capacity for the extra equipment like the boats and hazmat
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trailers and the heavy rescue trailer and the Coms Van. And all the equipment we use on a
regular basis, but needs to be protected in the meantime.
Helicopter hangar funding...we do have that in the CIP and kind of came up with a
dollar estimate and we have finally got the lease signed with the Lihue Airport. You will
see that little bit of increase in our lease budget, but it is only about $9,000. It was a lot of
push and pull with the State to come to a reasonable lease rents for the space. We got the
il
hangar, is through the Homeland Security Grant. We have actually had that approved
when we got the $600 000 funded for the helicopter, and then they were willing to let us
purchase the hangar with Homeland Security money. But they cannot fund construction.
The CIP project is to create the pads, the space and put the hangar up.
Again succession planning, we have been working really hard with our Commission
trying to get a better plan together for them and really, it is two purposes and one is to
work me out of a job, because when I leave we really want to be able to hire within. And so
part of that is having a good succession plan, so that we have members within the
Department that qualify and can do a good job to be the next Chief or the next Deputy
Chief or even as BCs go on and we move Battalion Chiefs, have some kind of succession
plan for the Firemen to know this is what it takes to become a Battalion Chief. We are still
working on that.
The largest wild land fire in history on Kauai, that was the one right behind my
house a few months ago. It was pretty big and it was not without its challenges. So it is
okay when you do the little things and it lasts a day or two, but when you are talking about
doing an extended operation for five days, and you are really only talking about one little
Department in government. You are not talking about all of government being locked down
because of a hurricane. Remember all of the challenges only really become ours. We are
trying to find ways to overcome them in the future. One of the options is that we are
having discussions with The Salvation Army. They have a food wagon and so if we can
work some kind of prearranged, pre-contract with them, that should we go into extended
second-, third- day operations they would be able to bring out their canteen and they would
able be to feed us on-site rather than having people run and get food and get water in a
rehab area. And provide that and come to right here in the community. Believe it or not,
when you are feeding almost 60 people and trying to keep them fed and hydrated, it takes
two or three people to manage that. When all you have is Firefighters that takes two or
three Firefighters off the scene. So we are trying to shift the burden where it needs to be.
Okay, some of our visions for the coming year. New strategic plan and you will see
there is a little bit of funding in the budget this year As we get started with the new
strategic plan, our strategic plan is kind of old. It was originally written almost ten years
ago and we have just kind of modified it. And we think it needs a really good going over or
a rake-through or whatever you want to call it. Maybe a whole rewrite and the intent is to
get a larger community involvement, community meeting in each community, inputs from
all Departments and how we interact with all Departments on to improve the process. A lot
of this goes a long way towards our accreditation and they expect us to have those kinds of
relationships as part of our accreditation.
The improvement in the Community Education Program. You will see that we are
doing a lot of that in Prevention. I do not want to take their thunder so I will leave it there.
Community risk reduction and all the efforts we do are based on five Es. Emergency
response and how we do it safely and how we do it as quickly as possible. Our education
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programs, our engineering, and enforcement through our Prevention Bureau. Again what
is the economic benefit to everything that we do in the community? Again the vision is to
have that Fire Chief to Chief program done by the end of the year. Again you will see some
uses of technology and how we are currently using them and what we are planning on doing
in the future and complete our smart phone conversion that we talked about last year and
possibly into the iPad upgrades for efficiencies in our Prevention Bureau.
There is the budget. It is about the same as last year, although there are some
reductions. As you can go through, you can see Training is up a little bit. Prevention is up
a little bit. Administration is down a little bit. OSB is down a little bit n
a d Operations is
down a little bit. The ups and downs like I said came out to about a 1.88% reduction or
about a $560,000 reduction over the entire year. And we think it is enough of a budget to
provide good service to the community through the year. Yes, sir?
Chair Furfaro: Just looking at that last chart, so Administration, OSB,
Operations overall, but your biggest investment in budget seems to be along the line of
Training and Prevention?
Mr. Westerman: Yes.
Chair Furfaro: Okay. Thank you.
Mr. Westerman: And Prevention you will See there is a little bit of
increase for overtime with the Prevention Education Trailer and that is getting out in the
community for education. Again, this is kind of the typical breakdown. This is where the
money is broken down into the five major groups. Salary and wages of course is always the
biggest. Benefits then are a good part of that and again that is where we made our savings
this year with OPEB, the Other Post Employment Benefits was reduced and that gave us a
significant savings. Utilities, vehicle, and equipment leases and operations. You will see a
little bit of a tick up there in vehicles and utilities. 1%. And again, we will talk about that.
That is the engine that is going to go on lease for the next year.
I know this is kind of busy. I got another slide after this one, but this was kind of a
breakdown of the $7 million of where...how much money came in from where and what it
was kind of used for over the last few years. As you can see some of the
biggest ones right now are the State and the SAFER, and those are all salaries. So I mean
that is fairly significant, that is $2.3 million of salaries that are actually funded by someone
else for us. The SAFER of course we have gotten all of that money and we have expended it
and we will get no more SAFER. The Ke'e Beach one, the $850,000 as long as the State
continues to wish to contract with us, it is a grant from them to manage Ke'e Beach.
We are having no shame. We have grants that are like only $2,300. So if we can get
it, we get it.
Here is by grantor. Here is who gives us grant funds. The State of course in the
upper left side, the State is.. that is Ke'e Beach. DOFA, the Department of Forestry and
Wildlife. They were the ones that were given us $50,000 a year to help support the wild
land effort. Through the last few years have increased, as much as $96,000 a year and that
helps to fund some wild land training and helps to fund wild land equipment, replacing
hoses, and they give us money to borrow their truck that we have to pay to ship over here
and it pays to ship those trucks over here to use them.
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The other one is the Department of Transportation. That fund we apply for and we
do things like getting reflective vests, because we work on the highways like Police, we
were able to attach these funds. And so we do things like the Hamatra tools, the rescue
tools, the Hearst tools, and the reflective rain gear, tele scribing... Then on the right are the
Federal grantors and the top one is Homeland Security. The next one is Assistance to
Firefighters Grant and the next is the Community Development Block Grants. The next
one is Fish and Wildlife and the next one is the Department of the Interior. I am sorry I
had those acronyms up there, but the names would take up the slide if I put the names up.
Ms. Yukimura: What is AFG, Chief?
Mr. Westerman: Assistance to Firefighters Grant, the competitive one
out of the Federal Government and we have applied every single year for the last five years.
And I think we have been successful in almost every one of those. We have some great
grant-writers.
This is a grant dollar by year. What is significant here was, 2009 is when Homeland
Security Grants and Assistance to Firefighters Grants came in, and up to that point we
really received some pretty minuscule grants. We also got SAFER Grant at that time,
which is a five-year grant. So that is some pretty significant funding after that. As you can
see, grant dollars are waning. Hopefully we will not be back down to 2006, 2007, or 2008
levels, but we will just have to see what happens with the Federal Government. I did talk
to Senator Schatz on Friday and he imparted to me that the sentiment in D.C. is to
continue to fund those grants...SAFER, AFG and prevention and safety grants at the same
levels. So that is good.
So that is kind of me, and we can go into Administration Bureau, if you want to.
And then we would be going into a major Division, if you wanted to go through
Administration Bureau because that will not take very long. Or we can do questions now?
Chair Furfaro: We are going to do questions.
Mr. Westerman: Okay, sir.
Chair Furfaro: Very nice presentation, thank you.
Mr. Westerman: You are welcome.
Chair Furfaro: Some of these questions were not necessarily in need of
the answers at this point. We will be, from the staff, we will be sending them over and if
you can give them a quick turnaround, I think we would appreciate that very much. First
of all, thank you very much for your presentation. And the focus you have had on our
safety needs in the Department.
First question, on the grant funds, and I think Ken from Accounting and Finance is
clear on what I am looking for. On grants that actually credit our manpower, any grants
that we have that credit manpower, we would like to know how the financial is credited.
And where we could look at where those credits are located? The staffing of the four
Firefighters wherever possible 80% of the time. Do you know if it has helped us in any way
with any kind of insurance grading from homeowners or businesses? Do you know?
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Mr. Westerman: Well, it does. The ISO rating that we get from the Hawaiian
Insurance Bureau and actually, we have been very successful in the last few years getting,
like Kapa'a improved and we are working to get the Kawaihau District improved even more
because the Kaiakea Station, but part of what they look at is our staffing levels. They have
their own criteria, but we know that if we are able to provide the 1710/1720 standards that
it helps to keep that rating up. The age of the equipment, how much training we do, and
certification process. There is a whole plethora that they look at.
Chair Furfaro: Chief, your Department now over Civil Defense...you
are taking direct responsibility for our Community Emergency Response Teams (CERT)?
Mr. Westerman: We work closely with Civil Defense and again they are
the ones that cover them. They decide when we need them. As a matter of fact this last
Saturday we just had a CERT graduation ceremony at Lydgate Park and we had 30 of our
members show up. Part of the ongoing effort with the CERT Program is to incorporate
them with the Prevention Bureau in the education part for our community. So when we are
out doing just non-school events, but we are out at other events we do not just have fire
prevention, but tsunami preparedness, hurricane preparedness, and everything that we
are teaching them and to help them teach that as people walk through the event and
encourage people to join the CERT.
And we also have included the Red Cross in that. They work very close in hand with
us, Ken has done a wonderful job since she has been in the office. For our guys, the
community is kind of small. So the volunteers for CERT are the same volunteers for the
Red Cross and we encourage them to get both trainings. So that as soon as the emergency
response is over and you get into the long term, the staff at the Kilauea School Gym, they
turn their hat around and they are Red Cross volunteers. It is a good partnership and it is
working really well.
Chair Furfaro: I want to congratulate all of those who participated on
the Energy Management System within the County. Countywide, our costs for power has
not increased that much mostly due to the fact that kilowatt hours have been reduced.
Could I ask you in this question we will send over, the $34,000 savings in power, dollar
power, could you convert that from the energy bills and tell us where we are at for kilowatt
hours? And the reason we are interested in that is obviously, we have a new Fire Station,
which is included in the kilowatt total, but we will send that over as a question.
Mr. Westerman: Absolutely I can. I have by station by kilowatt use by
month for the last seven years and can provide that to you. You are right, that photovoltaic
system at Kaiakea is saving us money.
Chair Furfaro: How big was the wildfire on the west side?
Mr. Westerman: Around 3,000 acres.
Chair Furfaro: Do you know how that...in 1964 I would come in the
summer to visit with my aunt from Namolokama to Kolopua in Hanalei, do you know how
big that fire was?
Mr. Westerman: I have been told that one was 2,400-2,500, that was the
one up by the Robinson land.
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Chair Furfaro: Actually that one went over to the valley at Lumahai.
That ridgeline that separates that is Kolopua. So that one was 2,400 acres?
Mr. Westerman: Someone kind of made that comment to me about how
big that fire was. I would have to get some old historians to find the right answer.
Chair Furfaro: I just wanted in my head to compare it. I am a North
Shore guy and do not get to the west side that often. I just wanted to know for a visual.
Mr. Westerman: It just goes to show you it does not have to be dry to
have a fire.
Chair Furfaro: That is true. Salary credit we talked about and I really
appreciate your vehicle aging list.
Mr. Westerman: And I apologize I did not put that in the earlier slides
for some reason, that and the staffing levels I completely forgot. So I included them in the
additional package that I handed out today. The last two pages, one is our vehicle
replacement plan and has our age and anticipated replacement dates and of course the
other one is the staffing. I apologize I did not include in the earlier package.
Chair Furfaro: So it looks like we have about fourteen engines and
trucks combined? That is in service right now with two in reserve?
Mr. Westerman: There are sixteen. One engine and one truck in every
station.
Chair Furfaro: Okay.
Mr. Westerman: And you are right, the two reserves are on top. One is
actually going out of service. It is just not maintainable any more. And that is the one we
are going to replace in this year's budget.
Chair Furfaro: So that one is in the budget?
Mr. Westerman: One is in the budget this year and one we plan on
putting in the budget next year. And that will replace two of the older engines that will
stay around, but they will go to the reserve status and they will still have a couple of years
left on them before we have to replace them.
Chair Furfaro: Just because I do not have the list in front of me, do you
ti know that the hangar for the helicopter, is that in the Bond Fund or is that General Fund?
Mr. Westerman: I have been told it is in the CIP Bond Fund?
Chair Furfaro: CIP Bond Fund. Part of the Bond Fund? They are
shaking their heads. Okay. Chief, I am going to make a few queries later when we actually
get to the operation of the helicopter. Okay? But for your presentation, I want to thank
you again. I have no more questions. We have to take a tape change. When we come back,
I am going to let the other members talk to you about the presentation and so forth and the
new things we will go into later. B.C., can we do the tape change now? Okay. Let us take
a 10-minute break at the same time, so we do not have to interrupt anybody. We are on a
recess for ten minutes.
April 8, 2013
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Chair Furfaro: Members before I go around the table, clarity on the
question that I had asked, the construction of the hangar is actually in the Bond Fund.
While the lease for the ground the hangar is on is actually in the operating budget. Okay.
Yes. So we are all clear. And a little later I will have a few more comments on the
helicopter operation but for now, Mr. Hooser, did you want to start?
Mr. Hooser: I will hold my questions?
Chair Furfaro: JoAnn, you want questions on this presentation so far?
Ms. Yukimura: Yes, I do. Thank you.
Chair Furfaro: You have the floor.
Ms. Yukimura: Chief, congratulations on a great report. You missed
one accomplishment however. Performed with excellence, especially the Chief, at the
County Christmas Program.
Mr. Westerman: I had hoped that would have been forgotten.
Ms. Yukimura: It was outstanding that it stands out in one's mind.
Mr. Westerman: Thank you.
Ms. Yukimura: I wanted to ask you about the training room...you said
that now you have one.
Mr. Westerman: Right.
Ms. Yukimura: But your long-term goal is a training center?
Mr. Westerman: Training center.
Ms. Yukimura: Okay. And the loss of the Lihue storage lot, I do not
know if I spoke about it on the floor or in other context, but there is no possibility to make a
second floor storage, in there? Because your storage is roll on/roll off kind of equipment, is
that what it is?
Mr. Westerman: Yes.
Ms. Yukimura: Okay. And that is all it is? Or is there other storage as
well?
Mr. Westerman: There is other storage besides that. There is two
conexes of storage. There are some records that we must maintain and stuff that we buy in
bulk and store until we use it. So there could be a second floor. That whole complex could
go to a second floor, but it is not going to gain the space needed for storage of the trailers,
vehicles, and equipment.
Ms. Yukimura: And the vehicles, okay. You know, it may not be
analogous, but the Automotive Shop has solved at least for the short-term some of their
April 8, 2013
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12
problems by creating a second-floor storage, which is going to allow them to do more of that
equipment work on the bottom. I do not think that is your situation with the Lihue...what
do you call it now?
Mr. Westerman: Storage.
Ms. Yukimura: The whole Lihue facility there is that the Lihue?
Mr. Westerman: Lihue complex. The station.
Ms. Yukimura: Lihue Station, yes. Okay. Your CERTS, this improved
your 2014 vision improved community education program. Does that include the CERTS?
Is that where CERTS come in? Is that also your Prevention education?
Mr. Westerman: Yes.
Ms. Yukimura: I am just trying to understand what your program is.
Mr. Westerman: You are right, it is not fully explained there, but my
charge to the Bureaus are working together to expand our education efforts. Most of our
education efforts are based on prevention. And when you talk about community
prevention, most of it is with fire prevention with Sparky and the schools. We have some
prevention efforts that go forward with Ocean Safety and we are working on a proposal to
put an Education Specialist in Ocean Safety, take one of our positions and move it to an
Education Specialist. And then we have the CERT Program, which is run by the
Department but it is basically two Firefighters that run the program, when they are not
being Firefighters. So my charge to them is if one is there, they should all be there. So if
we are doing prevention education, we should be doing fire prevention education and
disaster preparedness education for all age groups and we should do Ocean Safety
prevention and education and if we have the opportunity, depending on what the event is,
the engine companies should also be there if it is an event in their town. So that also gets
the community that is close talking to all the different aspects of our prevention program,
in the community, at one place at one time. So right now we are kind of hit one here and
hit one there and we are part of this one and we are part of that one and we are at the
trying to make it all done at one time , every time to give more opportunity for the
community. An all hazards approach to education.
Ms. Yukimura: That sounds like a good idea. I want to just give you
some feedback, your prevention education trailer is getting rave reviews, but I recently met
a mother who said she has this extinguisher in her home for years and she never knew how
to use it and finally learned, along with her child. Thank you very much.
Chair Furfaro: Vice Chair?
Ms. Nakamura: Thank you for your presentation.
Mr. Westerman: You are welcome.
Ms. Nakamura: I wanted to ask you about the backup Emergency
Operating Center (EOC). I have not had a chance to go visit recently, but I wanted to find
out, you said there is an EOC back up and is there a training room there as well or a
dual-purpose room?
April 8, 2013
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13
Mr. Westerman: It is dual-purpose, it is our training room, but in an
emergency, if it needed to be, it is being configured to be a backup Emergency Operations
Center and a backup dispatch and as a matter of fact, I just walked in that room this
morning...they have two of the consoles up and operating for the dispatch center in there
and we also have a breakout room, like I discussed this older table that you have that I now
have. Is in there to be like a breakout room, which is over there. And we are still getting
furniture. So the move-in is not really complete, but we are in the office.
Ms. Nakamura: How many people could be accommodated?
Mr. Westerman: If we do the table configuration right we could probably
accommodate 30-35 people in the Emergency Operations Center, operating as an EOC. If
you just put chairs and wanted to do a presentation about something, you could probably
put 50 in there. As an EOC, that is about the maximum you can get in there.
Ms. Nakamura: How often is this room used?
Mr. Westerman: We use it every day. Either training or doing
something. We use it every day. The intent, the Police's intent is to exercise the Alternate
Dispatch Center at least once a quarter and as we move forward, however much Civil
Defense or the Police wants to exercise the alternate EOC, that is fine with us. At least
twice a year we should exercise it so that we know that it works. We should exercise it at
least every quarter.
Ms. Nakamura: Whose plan is to do the backup? Is that in Civil
Defense's plan to make sure that the backup center works?
Mr. Westerman: We have worked with them and got all of their IT needs,
monitors, computers, we are actually going to go wireless in there. The County standard is
all Department Heads have laptops and we will have some there to be assigned and then
again the EOC is the dispatch center. So if that whole complex became unusable for some
reason, they could literally take their operation and come over and take over operations in
there.
Ms. Nakamura: How much space are you looking for in the Lihue area to
accommodate the loss of your existing storage space?
Mr. Westerman: Well, that is a really complicated question. We probably
need at least just to replace the storage, we probably need a quarter acre. Just to put the
building on and put all the equipment on it.
Chair Furfaro: 10,000-square-feet?
Mr. Westerman: Yes. Because the tent is only about 30 x 30, 30 x 90. So
it is only 2,700-square-feet. 2,900-square-feet, something like that.
Ms. Nakamura: And since the station is fixed there, what distance are
you looking at?
Mr. Westerman: What we have done now with Housing is they have
given us a reprieve for a couple of years to say we are only going to take the upper half.
April 8, 2013
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14
That is just where our tent is, so we are going to have to in the next year figure out how to
move the tent to the lower-half of the property and put in some macadam down and put it
in the lower half and they can build in the upper half. We have been looking at property
around the area to see if there is something close to lease, because it needs to be close to the
Station because it is a matter of Firefighters running there and getting the vehicle. We do
not want them running to one vehicle to get to another vehicle.
The long-term plan, if I have a pitch submitted and it is a long-term plan for about
eight years from now to replace that Lihue Station, the training complex, everything into
one complex, the Central Lihue Complex. And we have kind of built our stations and
moving our stations to accommodate that, because a lot of our movement is based on
response times. As we move Kapa'a this way, as we built Kealia and it allows us the
opportunity to move Lihue more towards Puhi as it builds up. So they have a better
response time for Puhi. So it is kind of a big-picture kind of thing. So somewhere central
Lihue, or mauka of the highway, in Lihue, by the church back there would be a
good location for a central station headquarters, central station engine company, and our
training center. And one of the things that we do not have and have not listed and have not
worked on in a while is for our mechanics. Our mechanics still work in the environment
and we have two mechanics and they have to literally go to the Fire Stations and work
there. We have no complex for them to work on the vehicles. Most cases that is a good
thing, because we do not really have a lot of trustworthy spare engines and getting the
engine in the station fixed right away is a priority and that is how we do it.
Ms. Nakamura: Thank you.
Mr. Westerman: Sorry, I know it was a bit complicated.
Chair Furfaro: Mr. Hooser?
Mr. Hooser: If this is more appropriate it another area, let me know.
The Fire Department deals with hazardous materials, is that correct? So if you are called
for an oil spill or other chemicals that people complain about, does the Fire Department
have a map or list? There is compressed gas and regular gas stations and there are
pesticides/herbicides and all kinds of stuff around the island and when you are called to a
fire or incident, do you have a way in advance of knowing what chemicals are there?
Mr. Westerman: Yes, we receive the Tier 2 reporting that goes over the
Battalion Chiefs and they maintain that list where all the chemicals are stored and
everybody is required to report it by law and we report it to that station.
Mr. Hooser: And Tier 2 is for those of us who do not know?
Mr. Westerman: Hazardous materials storage, large quantity reporting
of oil, chemicals, any of those that you just discussed and they have to report that and pay
for that when they report that and some of the funding comes to us and we use that to do
training on hazardous materials.
Mr. Hooser: Is that reported to you through the Department of
Health? Who?
Mr. Westerman: The Department of Health, yes.
April 8, 2013
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15
Mr. Hooser: The Department of Agriculture too?
Mr. Westerman: No, just the Department of Health.
Mr. Hooser: Thank you.
Chair Furfaro: Chief, before we move on to the rest of your
presentation, I am going to read something and I would like to hear from the Fire
Commissioners on a portion of the Charter that can be implemented and it is dealing with
your Department's recovery of expenses that says, "County personnel and Departments
involved in the rescue operations shall keep an itemized record of recoverable expenses." I
assume that we do that now. That we track with each rescue, the helicopter time and so
forth, but by Charter this should be happening. "Especially those resulting from
a rescue operation. Promptly after the completion of a rescue operation, the appropriate
department shall certify those expenses to the Office of the County Attorney. A submission
of a claim, the Office of the County Attorney on behalf of the County shall submit an
itemized claim for the total recovery of expenses related to rescue and those that were
incurred by the County for that rescue operation." It goes on to say and this is 6-13.3 "the
County may bring Civil action for the recovery of those recoverable expense against any
and all persons responsible for the placement of this individual's in a situation of distress or
peril, which results in an actual rescue operation." I just wanted to say it exists in our
Charter. I would like from the standpoint now that we have a $380,000 investment coming
up to build a hangar for the helicopter, even if it is only for the recovery of fuel, I think it
needs to be a discussion with your Fire Commission. I know there are large groups that go
off and they get caught in a valley and so forth and then we end up shuttling 20 people at a
time and so forth, where we could also call their option...some of these other firms. But it is
just basically the Charter allows an itemized claim of recoverable expense for emergencies.
I am not saying that I do not have the compassion and understand that we are going to
send somebody a $3,000 bill, but you know, if we could find ourselves having this discussion
at the Commission's level, I would appreciate it. I think our helicopter burns about $300
worth of fuel an hour is what I'was told. I do not need to know the exact amount. I would
just like the Commissioners to have an honest discussion about this section that exists in
our Charter. So I will pass this Ricky is reminding me I am reading from the Code book
and not the Charter. I am sorry. If I said Charter, I meant the Code book. So I will pass
this on to you. It exists.
Mr. Westerman: And if I am not mistaken Chair also in 6-15 it
identifies...they would have not have put...intentionally in harm's way and the County
Attorney and I have gone back and forth do they have the ammunition to make the charge?
So it would be good to have that discussion to get through the different parts of the Charter
that address it and come up with a decision to do, absolutely.
Chair Furfaro: Again, I just want a healthy discussion about it and not
just between you and the County Attorney, but the Commissioner.
Mr. Westerman: Yes.
Chair Furfaro: Thank you very much. We will let you go on with your
discussion. Who shall I leave with this page from the Code book? I will just leave it with
you folks. Okay?
April 8, 2013
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16
JOHN BLALOCK, Deputy Fire Chief: Good afternoon Chair, Councilmembers
for the record Deputy Chief John Blalock. We will continue on with the PowerPoint.
Mr. Westerman: We will try to go through these a little quicker.
Chair Furfaro: I will move my chair.
Mr. Blalock: The Chief did a real good job of the overview and we are
going to look at the Administration again and basically covering something that he has
already touched on like moving into the new headquarters, things and accomplishments
that were done with administrative staff. We are continuing to do cross training and thank
you again to Finance that we got the P-card process going up. We are ongoing with
Laserfiching of our documents for all eDocuments.
Some of the challenges that we are looking at and the Chief touched upon these a
little bit. The challenges, improving processing of confidential information, increasing
efficiencies, priority lapses due to lack of clerical staff. Again we are a Department of 192
personnel and we have one administrative assistant, one accountant, two account clerks,
one Secretary, and we have one senior...it says "clerk," and it is actually going to be going
to a Secretary position that is vacant. We are going to be filling that now. A lot of these
again are what the Chief touched upon with succession planning. The first one is the
Departmental Staff Assistant. And we have a great Administrative Assistant and she will
not like this, but Rose Bettencourt. And again, it is something that we have identified as
far as succession planning. If she left today, and she can, where would we be? These are
just things that we need to address as we continue to move forward and do not get a hiccup
in the road. Administrative Service Assistant would help along with the Bureaus that we
have right now as far as the Training, Prevention, and Ocean Safety Bureaus to have just a
body there for them and then one more Senior Clerk, in which the position that we lost
originally, which is kind of our Receptionist, but also does a lot of different tasks for us.
Challenges on the Laserfiche, it does take up time on the limited staff that we have.
We are trying to improve capabilities and our staffing as far as training and not only in
grants management, but also in...I want to say labor matters and in and although we have
HR, we still need to do things in our own area. We have two acronyms, SUGA and GASB. I
had to go look it up too. SUGA is our Sun Pro Users Group Association, which the whole
County uses with the AS400 and GASB is Governmental Accounting Standards Board.
And these are just some of the trainings that we do that is needed as far as our staff as we
do cross train.
Again, just time that we need to do succession planning and training of cross
training. Again, it does take time and it does take personnel to do that. Again, attrition of
senior administrative personnel. We are looking a couple of those that are there, you know?
Again Alex Keliipio is also moving up there and those that have been with us and they are
great and trust me, we could not survive without them and the support that they have
given us throughout the years. I go back and ask them and they are historians because
what did we do and where was this? And we go back and we use their manao to help us get
through these things. Again, working with DPS on reorganization for the Ocean Safety
Bureau is one of the bigger things that we are working on and jurisdictional concerns on
who will take on what tasks. I can take questions now. We can call up another Bureau.
April 8, 2013
Fire Department (ss)
17
Chair Furfaro: Why do you not let me ask questions now? I think that
is why they put that name, "Chair" over there. Councilmember Yukimura, you have a
question on the presentation?
Ms. Yukimura: On your Laserfiche work, that is being coordinated with
IT and the overall project right?
Mr. Blalock: Correct. As we do the inputting, we know we need to
get to a place to where we want to be.
Ms. Yukimura: Have you explored the option of having summer hires to
do that work?
Mr. Blalock: We have used summer hires. We have used interns
from the college to help do some inputting. Some of the Laserfiche work again, there is
some confidentiality in there as far as documents that they may be inputting. But again we
have exhausted some of those avenues as far as helping us do data-inputting especially
with prevention. We have done that inputting to help us with what the Chief talked about
earlier, the BORA, the Building Occupancy Risk Assessment stats that we have been
putting in.
Ms. Yukimura: Does it work?
Mr. Blalock: It has worked. And like I say we continue to do that.
Ms. Yukimura: Okay. Are you able to do contract hires for a certain
amount of years or months to take care of that or is that mainly a budget issue?
Mr. Westerman: We currently use some free labor from KCC.
Ms. Yukimura: That is even better if it works.
Mr. Westerman: We got into their intern program and they send us over
a person on Friday for a couple of hours to do data-input. Trying to get all of the records
electronic is one thing. The other part is that we still have to maintain the paper records.
Until we figure out the system of getting rid of all of the paper record and what is the
legality of getting rid of a personnel record or an accounting record and how long we have to
maintain them? We still have to store them and it is almost like why waste the energy to
go electronic if you cannot use electronic, but we are still doing both. That is our biggest
challenge and as we find more records that we can put into Microfiche and as we work with
IT and we fill up terabytes of data, we have to make sure they can handle that. That is
kind of where we are at. It is not that it is not obtainable. It is just that we get a jump and
then we have to kind of walk a little bit and we have used in the past intern and summer-
time help to do those things.
Ms. Yukimura: You are describing what everyone, including Council
Services has to look at in terms of going paperless. And if you can with current activities be
able to input electronically, then you have a finite backlog you have to work with right?
You do not have to go to paper and then to electronic. If you can go directly electronic, it is
true, you would need IT support in setting up the technology to do that. But it may be wise
to spend the money there, and then at least you do not have this ever growing backlog of
stuff to input. And we did hear a very encouraging report from IT, although they like all
April 8, 2013
Fire Department (ss)
18
the other Departments are operating under the strain of not having enough financial
resources. In the long run that is probably going to be the cheapest, most cost-effective way
to go.
Mr. Westerman: We understand and we understand that they are in a
dilemma too. So we are pushing for them to get what they need to help us out.
Ms. Yukimura: Okay.
Chair Furfaro: I think just the way Councilwoman Yukimura
described, that is what we are doing here at the Council, keeping current with the business
we are doing now, but at the same time we are going back and slowly working on the
records dealing with five years ago. So it is a good approach to resolve that slowly, but
continuously.
Mr. Blalock: Chair, we understand it and even in our operational
side, we have been working towards that as far as getting, even like our maintenance, our
requests and things like that onto our RMS, which is again working towards getting all of
these e-Documents. And that is something that we worked towards even on the operational
side to get everything on a database to pull out data that we need or reports that we need is
where we are working towards. At least on the operational side we are not trying to
duplicate and then go paper and putting it back into Microfiche.
Chair Furfaro: Good. Sound like we are all square on that. But more
importantly, make sure you have a good way to index and catalog what you have
electronically. Go right ahead.
Ms. Yukimura: I have some questions about rescue, but if it is more
appropriate to ask in the next unit, I will do that.
Chair Furfaro: It might be. That work for you, JoAnn?
Ms. Nakamura: Yes.
Chair Furfaro: Vice Chair?
Ms. Nakamura: I am looking at the Administration budget, and I
wanted to ask you about the 100% increase in the telephone costs?
Mr. Westerman: Yes. There are a couple of line items that we moved all
of that funding into one central location is what we did. Yes.
Ms. Nakamura: And the consultant services are for a strategic plan?
Mr. Westerman: Yes.
Ms. Nakamura: I noticed it was for $50,000 for two years, so how do
you...how will you...are you able to do it with the $25,000?
Mr. Westerman: Well, as we had discussed, we had toyed with a bigger
contract and bringing somebody in who has done this everywhere, but we were afraid we
would get a cookie-cutter strategic plan. So we want to be very participative in the process,
1
April 8, 2013
Fire Department (ss)
19
so there is less funding required for a consultant to use for a local consultant just to help us
keep it organized and put it together, not to just go do the whole thing for us. So we liked
the idea of doing it that way and we saved money doing that way, but that is what the
funding will be used for, the local consultant to help us arrange the meetings and help us
organize the plan and put it together. But we want to be the most active participants in it.
Ms. Nakamura: Good to hear that you are taking that leadership role to
make those happen for your Department.
Mr. Westerman: Thank you.
Ms. Nakamura: Thank you.
Chair Furfaro: Any more questions as it relates to Administration?
Deputy Chief, thank you.
Mr. Blalock: Thank you.
SEAN HOSAKA, Battalion Chief: Good afternoon, my name is Sean Hosaka,
one of three Battalion Chiefs and just so happened I was on duty today. I am going over
the Kauai Fire Operations. We have our mission statement, which the Chief does not want
me to read out. Operating locations and equipment, we have five Fire Stations located in
Kapa`a, Kalaheo, Hanapepe, Lihue, and Waimea. Each shift consists of one Captain, one
Firefighter II and three Firefighter I. Each of those stations has one fire engine and one
utility truck. The fire station at Hanalei has one Captain, one Firefighter III, three
Firefighter I, they also have one fire engine, one utility truck and nineteen foot rigid hull
inflatable rescue boat and one Jet Ski. We have one hazmat station at Kaiakea, one
Captain, one Firefighter III and three Firefighter II. They have one fire engine and one
utility truck and one hazmat truck and one mule... those are like an ATV usually used up
in the mountains or on the sand. Off road terrain. We have one fire/rescue Station, which
consists of one Captain, one Firefighter III and two Firefighters I. They have one fire
engine.
Chair Furfaro: The rescue station is Lihue?
Mr. Hosaka: Yes. They have two companies there. The other one,
the rescue company has one rescue Captain,one rescue Firefighter III, and two Firefighter
II. They have one rescue truck. One heavy rescue truck, one 26 foot Radon rescue boat.
Two Fire Engine Mechanics, with two vehicles, one helicopter hangar, one helicopter and
three contract pilots. Our other operating location equipment consists of the one storage
location, which the Chief talked about behind our station. They have a mobile air unit
which we use to fill our SCBAs. Hazmat command trailer, confined space and rescue
equipment trailer. Our CERT vehicle, two reserve fire engines, two reserve utility trucks,
two water tenders, one mule, a fire-burn trailer, fire-education trailer, and a driver-
simulated trailer.
And Chief went over this graph. As you can see the red line indicates the visitor
count, and as more visitors come to our island we respond to a higher volume of calls. Our
2013 accomplishments would be the communications van. We have used this at both Kokee
brush fires and also used it to assist KPD with the search for the fugitive in Kalalau...at
the Kokee fires there are some areas where we do not have radio contact so we placed the
Coms Van and used it as a repeater and it allowed us to talk to all agencies involved.
April 8, 2013
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During the KPD search, Captain Tamura put the Corns Van up at Kalalau at the top of the
lookout and put in a TRICS package, which is Transportable Repeater Inoperable
Communications Systems package and it afforded us the ability to have communications in
the valley. Those trick packages will be used also during hurricanes. Also some of the
capabilities of this van, we have auxiliary power, we have radios, computers, satellite
communication, interoperable communications, phone communications, and storage,
deployable Coms packages, and other miscellaneous receptacles and equipment.
Mr. Westerman: This grant was to provide an alternate communication
source should we lose communications islandwide. So it is a replica of kind of like the
completes commands post and our intent is to deploy one north and one west if we were to
lose communications in between and be able to communicate back to the EOC. That is why
the satellite dish is on the top of that and so that is really what it was purchased for and we
are using it day-to-day for our operations to make it safer.
Mr. Hosaka: As the Chief stated earlier, we got two tenders that
were donated. This one is from the Honolulu Fire Department. This tanker is already in
service and has the capacity of 1,750 gallons. This tender we acquired from Forestry and
the we are working to get the men trained and it has a standard transmission and the
capacity of 2,200 gallons. We replaced seventy Motorola portable 800Mhz radios...using
the Homeland Security Grant and we also acquired vehicle tele trucks. All our engines
have them by the way of the DOT Grant. They are used to stabilize vehicles when our
members are performing patient extrications at the accident scene. We have got a 19'
Boston Whaler for Station 2, attained through the AFG, Assistance to Firefighters Grant.
The grant was $77,000. KFD's matching cost of$24,700.
Some of our challenges as the Chief stated is, the grants and management award,
getting paperwork done on time, ordering monthly, quarterly and annual reports.
Succession planning we are trying to encourage our Captains, Firefighter III, Firefighter II,
and Firefighters for promotion by continuing their college education, and attending the
National Fire Academy. The Kokee wild land fires really stretches our resources and we go
into overtime by the second day. The Pokii fire cost us $52,000.
Shortage of training space due to the fact we do not have a dedicated training
facility. We have to move our training equipment to different locations to conduct our
training we are not capable of moving our burn trailer on our own, so we need to make
arrangements with Public Works to get it moved.
Loss of the Lihue storage lot, which the Chief went over. We have to give up half of
this lot by the end of 2013, and the rest of it by 2015. And last Station 2's boat storage
facility, which will not be big enough to house our 19' Whaler. That is the storage lot
behind the Lihue Fire Station and this is our boat storage facility.
Chair Furfaro: Are we were working to put our County logo on the
tenders and the water truck?
Mr. Westerman: Yes, we are. We discovered that the other day. We saw
it going down the road the other day and you can kind of see the faded Honolulu Fire
Department logo. We will see that Honolulu Fire is not on it.
Chair Furfaro: Can I ask you to go back to the slide relating to visitor
counts and just for the future Chief and you do not need to do it this year, but one of the
April 8, 2013
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things that is also happening here is when you roll back to year 2002, you will find that the
average stay was only about 3.2 days. When you get here to 2012, the average stay now is
7.2 days and part of that is related to the fact that 48% of our inventory is time share. So
these people that come and really to choose to come to Kauai, they stay longer and they
explore more and more places, which may also relate to them finding themselves in difficult
spots. So if I could going forward, as you have done for ten years, put another bar in there
to show what the average length of stays are and you can get that from the Kauai Visitors
Bureau and it would be interesting to do a draft across the bar there. When it comes to
your firefighting needs up in Kokee, do you have a facility up there, where you can reserve
and store some equipment and facility needs to respond to fires in that area? Do you share
that with the State?
Mr. Westerman: Good question, Chair. When I was Fire Chief out of
PMRF, we did, we had stored one of the loaners from the State. It got to the point where it
was not a useful piece of equipment as it was not checked regularly or tested regularly. The
State does maintain equipment there and when we fight fires up there, we have the State
to assist us. We have a mutual aid agreement with the State of Hawaii, Forestry and
Wildlife Division and we do joint resources. So we pretty much do, but still because it is
infrequent, we store very little up there. There is some, but not very much.
Chair Furfaro: As we talk about the need for storage, at the same time,
we had to respond as a team with the State, maybe some of the redundant equipment we
could actually put an engine or hoses or whatever you might see. So have you explored that
before?
Mr. Westerman: Yes, sir.
Chair Furfaro: Okay. JoAnn do you have questions?
Ms. Yukimura: I do. Thank you.
Chair Furfaro: Followed by Vice Chair. Go right ahead, JoAnn.
Ms. Yukimura: Thank you very much for the graph, and the point we
have been trying to make to the State Legislature, that the Counties carry a lot of weight to
the Visitor Industry. We have to carry a lot of costs that the visitors have on our islands
and the impacts on our island and you can be sure that we will be using that graph and I
think the Chair's point about looking at visitor days is well-taken, too. There is probably a
greater increase which you put in visitor stays. I wanted to ask you about the rescues. I
am going to ask how many rescues do we do every year for the last five years and how many
were visitor-related? Because that would be some valuable information for us. And
recently there have been these mass rescues with 20 or 30 people and these look like tours.
Are they tours that have been happening in the Na Pali and elsewhere?
Mr. Westerman: No.
Ms. Yukimura: No they are not?
Mr. Westerman: No, they are just groups of people that go in.
Ms. Yukimura: And they just got caught in Hanakapiai or wherever?
April 8, 2013
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Mr. Westerman: Yes.
Ms. Yukimura: Okay. I think what the Chair was also pointing out
there is a County Ordinance that allows recovery of expenses, but how practical is that?
Mr. Westerman: I am sorry?
Ms. Yukimura: How practical is it to recover expenses?
Mr. Westerman: Anything is possible. I mean there are companies that
make business for recovering funds for Fire Departments for their services. Literally every
auto accident and everything else.
Ms. Yukimura: Really?
Mr. Westerman: Oh, yes. I think the Chair was right with the
Commission and with the support of the Council to have a good discussion on all of that and
we had an earlier discussion several years ago about what happened in Colorado, they were
using helicopter and rescue gears and their option was to put a fee onto the folks who came
to their town, the next year and next year their tourism count went down and down, more
so then the cost of the fee were recovering and more than the cost of the fees to run the
helicopter. They probably had more information to be able to track the information. Again,
your suggestion that I tell you how many people we rescued are tourists. I can give you
that information, but I do not know how accurate I can be, because we do not ask that
question. We do not ask are you a tourist or are you a resident? Sometimes we get the
names, fifty people stuck in Kalalau, we took twenty people in the helicopter and we did not
ask their names. We picked them up and moved them, we picked them up and moved
them. We picked them up and moved them as fast as we could to get them out of that
island that was in the middle of the two. So how many were local and how many were
tourists, I do not know.
Ms. Yukimura: Well if you just ask them for their resident address you
would know. And I think at one point the Fire Department gave us that data by that.
Collecting the resident's addresses, I do not know. It might be easier to collect resident
address as opposed to collecting money for the rescue. I am guessing that a tourist tax is a
better way to pay for these rescues rather than to ask for reimbursement. So if we collect
the data and can show it is visitor-related, that gives us grounds to argue for a visitor tax,
which may be the better way to pay for it, then to ask on an individual basis for
reimbursement. So any data you can give and then we might give some thought to whether
you could collect that data somehow?
Mr. Blalock: JoAnn, as we try to grab as much information as we can
and sometimes depending on the incident itself, it is not practical to even get that
information. And the situation has not presented itself, but if they can, we do and we try to
put in as much data into the incident, so that when we pull these out, we can. So it will
give you some, but the accuracy of it, you know? I think another thing that you touched on
again, and again, I think it is a bigger forum in how we address this. And you know, one of
the things that we talked about is the economic benefit. There is an economic benefit to all
that we are doing especially on the helicopter operations.
Ms. Yukimura: If we capture that benefit.
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Mr. Blalock: I do not know how quantifiable it is.
Ms. Yukimura: If we can capture the cost.
Mr. Blalock: If you could capture it, again, but the Hawaii Visitor's
Bureau spends anywhere from $800 to $1,000 a day. Every visitor, tourist that is here. So
how do you quantify that, even if the stays are longer?
Chair Furfaro: I want to qualify that, if I may, JoAnn. The information
that is most accurate, you folks remember that you had a Water Safety guy by the name of
Pico? This lifeguard used to come to all the hotels, at least once a week and he would brief
the time-share concierge about water safety and it is important for us to also understand
where these people that are staying on vacation. If they are at the Hyatt, the Hilton, the
Sheraton, they are going to a breakfast briefing, but if not, the information would be really
helpful, not only from the standpoint where our weaknesses are, but also to convey to the
State our need to keep the TAT money. It is a two-prong thing. I do not know if Pico is
with us anymore, but he did a great job on his own, because he sincerely cares for people,
but he is going to hotels and not to time share and stand-alone vacation.
Mr. Westerman: We will talk about that in Ocean Safety. Pat Durkin
does our WAVE Program now. We got a significant amount of those to come to our
presentation. That is a group we are having trouble contacting about the dangers of the
ocean...well-taken and we agree 100%. We can gather the information that you want and
have the discussion to figure out ways, if there are ways to charge and that is what you
want to do. Again, like the Deputy was saying what is the economic benefit? If we could
figure that out, that would be wonderful also. We are willing to help do that.
Chair Furfaro: I think that is really Councilmember Yukimura's point.
That data we could use for the right reason, for the right purpose and it is good for us to
have.
Mr. Westerman: We just would need to try to figure out how to quantify
it. We do about 250-350 rescues a year. They are not all with a helicopter. So how do we
separate that? Do we have our helicopter data? Do we know how much we did with the
helicopter over the year? And we have our RMS data. How many rescues we had? So it
would take some time to decipher through the data to quantify each of the different ones.
That is not going to happen in 48 hours. That is going to happen in three to four months.
Ms. Yukimura: Even if we knew of those numbers of rescues that you
have mentioned. How many are visitor-related we can take that to the State Legislature
and say that County operations are being used to support and protect visitors and impacts
to County budget are being caused by visitors, which gives us a basis to argue for money
that we can then use for your operations.
Chair Furfaro: Before we go on, may I make a housekeeping
announcement? Chief, I believe we still have Prevention, Training and Ocean Safety,
right?
Mr. Westerman: Yes.
Chair Furfaro: And we have one hour and ten minutes to do three more
Divisions.
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Ms. Yukimura: Thank you for the reminder.
Chair Furfaro: Go ahead.
Ms. Yukimura: You said your Pokii fire cost how much? How much did
the fire cost?
Mr. Hosaka: $52,000.
Ms. Yukimura: I just want to end by saying I am so grateful for the
work that your Firefighters have done in these really exhausting and drawn out efforts to
protect and save life and property. I just wanted to thank you publicly.
Mr. Hosaka: We are more than pleased to help out the community.
On the note about the RMS, the Chief does not really regularly check what goes on the tabs
when they go out on call, but they added a box that says, "visitor." So we can track that.
Ms. Yukimura: That will be helpful.
Mr. Hosaka: That incident where they took our fifty people or twenty
people. If they are not injured a lot of time we do not get the information because they are
not an EMS patient, and we are just shuttling them out and they just say thank you and
get out.
Ms. Yukimura: Thank you.
Chair Furfaro: Vice Chair Nakamura?
Ms. Nakamura: I am looking at the Fire Operations budget. I wanted to
ask you about the water and sewer fees have gone up 58% in 2013 and a 103% compared to
your actual in 2012. So I wanted to find out why the increases are so large?
Mr. Westerman: The addition of Kaiakea Station for one, and the
continuation of the water and the continuation of the watering to get all the grass and
plants going. And as the water goes up, that is also on a sewer system. So we have to pay
the sewer fee on irrigated water. We are trying to work that out, but right now, we are
anticipating that to still be up. Plus the cost of water and one of the charges that I have put
on the Firemen is that I want the Stations to look nice. I do not want them to look like
deserts. I do not want them to be parks, but we have intentionally tried to reduce expenses
by not watering and our facilities kind of look kind of bad.
Ms. Nakamura: At the Kaiakea Station on the other side of the culvert,
it is nicely landscaped. Is there any functional use for that property?
Mr. Westerman: On the left?
Ms. Nakamura: Yes.
Mr. Westerman: There is a big hole there. In the design of the Station,
there is a big ditch behind it also. We have to maintain all the water that comes off that
hill. We have to be able to capture it in a big rain. And so, the engineers decided that they
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needed a swimming pool, and so we keep it grassed, so is it does not collapse on itself. That
is kind of the main reason.
Mr. Blalock: It is the 100-year flood, I think it washed it off
everything across the road.
Mr. Westerman: The other option was putting big drainage underneath
the highway and that was like a quarter of a million dollars to pave. You could not just
pave the section. The State says you have to pave a half-mile. So that got to be too
expensive and it was cheaper to build a retention basin. That is what you call them.
Retention basin, yes.
Ms. Nakamura: I know you had a high infrastructure cost.
Mr. Westerman: Yes on that project.
Ms. Nakamura: And you knew it would be ongoing to maintain that?
Mr. Westerman: We started to reduce some of the watering, because
some of is it designed to survive in an environment without a sprinkler system and we are
reducing the amount of watering that we are doing.
Ms. Nakamura: And on the equipment another huge increase from last
year. I think it is repair & maintenance, equipment.
Mr. Westerman: Which one was that?
Ms. Nakamura: 4302. I am under Fire Operations. The 1,057% increase
over the 2012 actuals.
Mr. Westerman: I do not know why it is 1,057.
Ms. Nakamura: I think it is because it was $4,000 in 2012 and $46,250
in this coming budget. So I think that is the 1,057% increase.
Mr. Westerman: I am thinking that we moved different purchases in the
budget, like the engine got moved, and some training dollars got moved. But I am sorry.
Ms. Nakamura: Under "automobiles leased," might have been moved
too.
Mr. Westerman: That was the addition of the engine and they were
moved. The expenses for lease were all morphed.
Ms. Nakamura: Into this?
Mr. Westerman: Right.
Ms. Nakamura: Thank you.
Chair Furfaro: You have Vice Chair's question, so we can get the
appropriate reconciliation on what was moved?
April 8, 2013
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Mr. Westerman: Yes, 4302. As I look to see what all the expenses in
that, we consolidated all of like the software and ongoing maintenance for the different
things like the Motorola radios and MDT. Plus we consolidated all of the expenses for the
MDTs coming online and that is for them to communicate in the network.
Chair Furfaro: But because there is so much new in there, we would
like a response there writing.
Mr. Westerman: All the items are listed right there, Chair, but yes, I can
do that.
Chair Furfaro: We will no often go to the book every time.
Mr. Westerman: Yes. And I should have looked at it and given you the
answer right away. I apologize. Go ahead.
Chair Furfaro: But I wanted to make sure that you understand what I
am saying. If there was change from another line?
Mr. Westerman: It was an addition.
Chair Furfaro: All additions?
Mr. Westerman: Yes.
Chair Furfaro: Still send it back to us, okay? Is there any more on this
side? We have three more sections, go ahead.
Ms. Yukimura: Battalion Chief Hosaka made such a good case for the
communications van and it is really to your credit for you to get it. How are you doing the
maintenance and then the replacement? How long is this van good for? How are you
keeping it up in a preventative maintenance way to keep the life as long as possible? And
then, I know you have a replacement plan for your fire engines, which I really commend.
What about something like this? Do you put it on a replacement schedule? Do you write
another grant?
Mr. Westerman: It is currently on our replacement schedule. It is on
that list that I gave you. The item 4302 we just talked about, some of that was the ongoing
maintenance for that communication equipment. The satellite, the TRIC packages,
servicing on the vehicle are all related to that communications, which is about $5,000 a
year.
Mr. Blalock: And on top of that, Homeland Security has also afforded
us to do sustainment cost where we could not do it prior. So some of the moneys that we get
from Homeland Security can be put into sustainment.
Ms. Yukimura: So in addition to giving you money to buy it, they give
you money to maintain it?
Mr. Westerman: They are now.
April 8, 2013
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Chair Furfaro: This is new, right?
Mr.Westerman: This is new. And of course the money is reducing, too.
It is not like you can buy bigger pieces to do sustainment costs with it.
Ms. Yukimura: Thank you.
Chair Furfaro: Mr. Hooser, any questions on this section? We have got
72 slides left? Would you have a problem if I asked you to go through all the slides before
we brought up Prevention and Training? Could we do that?
Mr. Westerman: I can go through their slides.
Chair Furfaro: But I have got 72 slides related to three more
Departments, right?
Mr. Westerman: Three more Bureaus.
Chair Furfaro: Could we go through all the slides and then list
questions as we go?
Mr. Westerman: Sure.
Chair Furfaro: Thank you very much for your presentation.
Mr. Hosaka: You are welcome.
Chair Furfaro: Do you mind, Chief?
Mr. Westerman: No, I do not mind.
Chair Furfaro: It is 3:30 now. Chief, did you hear me? We will have
questions as we go?
Mr. Westerman: Sure. That is fine.
DARRYL DATE, Fire Prevention Captain: Good afternoon, Councilmembers,
for the record Darryl Date, Fire Prevention Captain.
Chair Furfaro: Go ahead and introduce yourself.
JEREMIE MAKEPA, Fire Inspector: Good afternoon, Jeremie Makepa,
Fire Inspector for the Prevention Bureau.
Mr. Date: The Prevention Bureau consists of four personnel.
Chair Furfaro: You have one more coming up introduce yourself.
RON BUSH, Firefighter: Firefighter Bush with Training.
Mr. Date: One Captain, one Lieutenant, and two Firefighter III.
This is our mission statement and our goals.
April 8, 2013
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These are the objectives of the Prevention Bureau.
These are our accomplishments for the calendar year 2012. The most impressive
accomplishment that the Prevention Bureau has done is to acquire a trailer through a
FEMA Grant award. We got awarded grant about a year-ago. And the trailer cost
$130,000, and it was 80/20 grant. The County needed to come up with the 20 percent and
we got the assistance of a few businesses on the island to help donate some moneys to help
offset our costs.
We have been utilizing it out in the community, basically since January. This is a
picture of a Cub Scout Pack that we did last November. These are some of the numbers of
participants that have gone through our trailer since January. In March there is a
significant decrease in number and that is basically due to the spring break of the students
and the week that there were two holidays in it. So we have been bringing it to community
events, as well as every elementary school on the island and we are just about halfway
through, a little bit more than halfway through all of the schools.
The total number of participants that have been through is 4,407 consisting of
adults, teenagers, and children. This trailer is the hands-on educational tool that will teach
fire safety to the citizens of Kaua`i from keiki to kupuna. There are live fire demonstrations
and fire extinguisher training. There is a simulated kitchen fire with an oven, stove,
cabinet and toaster and one of the main goals is to educate the public about kitchen safety,
because in the kitchen is the number one area where home fires start. Parents, adults,
learn proper extinguishing techniques through digital fire extinguisher training. So the
fire that you see in the oven, stove and cabinet are digital flames. Within the trailer are
smoke machines and heat-producing devices and a smoke alarm that goes off. So it is very
realistic. Children learn what to do when they are awakened by the sound of smoke alarms
and smoke-filled rooms. Another portion of the trailer is a bedroom setup. We teach them
to find two ways out of every room and to go to your safe meeting place once outside. There
are adequate Firefighters on hand to make sure that events are conducted safely and
effectively.
The input of all Kauai businesses into the fire RMS system, the fire RMS is the
Records Management System and we have done is compiled every business that we could
find in the telephone book and inputted it into our RMS System, as well as inspection
reports. A lot of this work has been clone by the interns that have been coming to the
Department. Files are now sorted and stored in the computer database. The fire RMS
System is an efficient search and history of business records and is an efficient process of
conducting inspections and pre-plans, it is environmentally friendly, easy to access from
any computer with Fire RMS software. It is portable. So it can be used out in the fields.
And data can be used for emergency response on calls.
Fire RMS pre-planning and MDT training. MDT is the mobile data terminal. What
we have done, the pre-plan and inspection data can be used on calls. So we went out and
taught every crew and every station on how to gather and input data. And when they do
the company inspections, this is the data that they input. And it can be shared by all
responding personnel. The address and contact information is made available en route to
any emergency scene and hazards are instantly identify. So what we did, we populated the
database, so personnel can utilize the MDTs when responded to emergencies. The picture
that you see here is the picture of the monitor that is mounted in every fire engine.
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National Fire Academy training. Provides fundamental knowledge of building and
fire codes and provides interpretation of codes and standards and how to apply them, the
relationship of fire and life safety within code and standards. It is a valuable networking
with other fire service professionals. I know that the Chief mentioned one of our goals is to
send two personnel to the National Fire Academy in Emmetsburg, Maryland and we
recently sent Inspector Makepa and they do offer all sorts of training and when I am
mentioning here is primarily prevention-related. As well as Inspector Vaughn has also
attended recently.
The NFP, National Fire Protection Association Conference and informational
sessions. It is an expo that they hold every year and the newest innovation and trends in
the fire protection industry are provided. It also provides a preview of the latest fire
protection equipment. It provides a preview of the public education products and tools,
seminars, NFP board members and code professionals are made available. You can learn
about changes in upcoming additions of codes and standards and it is another valuable
networking tool to meet other fire service professionals.
NFPA Certified Fire Inspector Program. There are three levels of NFPA
Certification. It is to recognize and provide evidence of competence in NFPA 10-31 as
related to the standard for professional qualifications for Fire Inspector and Plan
Examiner. It ensures proficiency in the use of codes and standards and promotes
professional development, ensures the uniform training and development of current and
future personnel, and it also enhances our professionalism, and inspector Makepa is almost
done with the Fire Inspector I Certification.
Mr. Makepa: Good afternoon Council, Jeremie Makepa, Fire Inspector Unit.
It is my privilege to present the future of the Prevention Bureau. So this is the 2014 vision,
real quick. What we want to do is build on the accomplishments of 2013 to enhance the
product, vision, and safety production of our Bureau and increase the use of new technology
to serve the community effectively, efficiently, and safely. So like Captain Date talked
about, our fire safety trailer has been very popular in the community. We continue to get
more and more requests to get it out there because of the program that we have developed.
By attending training like the National Fire Academy, we meet with professionals that
already have these programs going on. So we have been able to speed up the process on
getting this program to a high-level of efficiency. So in 2014, we want to continue to do the
public elementary schools as we have already done. The private schools have already been
requesting the trailer. So we have had a number of private schools
already go through there and we are going to do large community events. We try to get at
least 150 people through it any time we run it and we will continue to do that and present
public education. We get a lot of requests from businesses to do safety training and we are
getting a lot of requests to do fire extinguisher training. Instead of just doing ten at a time
or 20 at a time, what we want to do is rotate it around the island and do all the businesses
in the Lihu`e area at one time or the North Shore, so we can get all of those requests done
at obvious. For future fire safety events, what we want to be is the catalyst for all public
agencies and put on a presentation so everybody can participate, whether it is at the
schools or community events. This is one of the ideas that we have maybe by partnering
and networking with community businesses, we can get inflatable things like this and some
of you had the opportunity to see our program at the schools. What we do is that we have
them practice stop drop and roll, and crawling low when there is smoke on the ground. An
inflatable like this would give us the opportunity to keep the kids clean, inside and there
are fire safety messages on the wall. We are trying to keep public education fun so when
April 8, 2013
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people want to learn more and keep coming back through and it sticks in their mind that
education is fun.
Another part about prevention is managing the trailer. A lot of manpower goes into
managing all the requests that come in, to keep this trailer going and run through the
amounts of people that participate in it. So we have already gone through and enhanced our
website to consistently update information, so that people can find out where and when this
trailer will be by using our calendar. It is a web-based event calendar. So a lot of time is
spent by our Inspectors, putting in data, so that the public can find out information readily.
What we are working on now is putting together a training package for businesses
with fire and safety...with extinguishers and home safety, and putting that together, so
that they can register online. So that when we do the community events in each area, each
business can register online, and reserve times to send their employees to go through it.
And then we want to enhance the website by putting pictures and videos, so people know
what they are going to be coming to and see what they are going to learn before they even
get there.
We talked a little bit about the fire RMS data. Fire Record Management System. So
that is an ongoing project. The initial input of the data with the businesses was one step
and now we have to keep going through and updating the construction, changes of
ownership, contact information, any protection systems and hazards that are inside the
businesses. We have to keep going through and updating that information on a consistent
basis.
Continuous training. Captain Date already went through some of the training that
we have already done. This is a list of training opportunities that we have and we try to
attend when we have time to go there. Our scope in the Prevention Bureau is very broad.
So we have a lot of training that we need to keep up with. So we try and attend this, as
much as possible. What we try do, because we only have four staff in the Prevention
Bureau, to handle education, plans review, engineering and all the education that we do, is
we try to use the new technology to enhance our efficiencies. So what we want to do in
future is get web-based permit application and processing, so that any time a plans review
comes through, we can just E-mail them invoices and it can be paid online. We are trying
to get through and get any permits that we want to do...it has not happened yet, but we are
working on the process so that people can apply for permits online. The vision is like the
ellawaii.gov, where you can pay your General Excise (GE) taxes online. Something similar
in that view, but that is what we are going to be working on in the future. And then we
want to keep updating our Fire Department information with common questions that
people come in and call to the Prevention Bureau. We can add that onto the website, so
that they do not have to call and staff does not have to consistently answer the same
questions. It will be listed on the website. And then this just makes it convenient access
and customer satisfaction for anybody in the public, if it is readily available, they can find it
on their own there.
We want to use new technology to help us with our enforcement. Because again, we
only have four personnel in our Bureau, sometimes it is hard for us to get around with long
inspection cycles to go in and check on the maintenance of all of these systems. We do a
good job on the initial phase of making sure that they are certified, but because there are so
many different companies that go through that they are supposed to certify the
maintenance of the system and they have different report formatting and it makes it
difficult to read the reports so we want to make a computerized system and one standard
April 8, 2013
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format so it makes it more efficient to see what maintenance is insufficient. So this is a
sample of one of the software companies that we found at the NFPA Conference. This is a
building report software. The records of each maintenance company can be readily
retrieved by our Prevention Inspectors through a Smartphone application, or through
website, so it red-tags any maintenance that has not been completed by all the facilities.
And it will show up on the top of our list saying oh, so and so company has not completed
this and we should send an Inspector out immediately.
We are using technology to manage had we are doing and also, it shows who
completed the work, their certification and the exact time it was done. So we can keep
track of the certifying companies to make sure that their certifications are up to par, so the
guys certifying the systems have the right certifications for it. We also want to use
technology by using mobile office. Because a lot of our activities are done outside of the
office, we need to use technology to continue to do our work wherever we are. By combining
a Smartphone and a laptop with a WiFi connection, we can get all of the conveniences of
being in the office from anywhere we can get a connection to the internet. That is why it
has been our priority to transfer a lot of our data into the Fire RMS database, and have all
of that data readily available. So when we are able to change over to this type of mobile
office system, we can still access all of our data. And of course, with the new technology, we
get benefits. In the County it is the initiative of being green and saving trees so by storing
data electronically, we can E-mail and send invoices electronically instead,of mailing. Our
code books are an extensive library. We can go into eCodes and access those online and use
online training rather than hard-copybooks and it just reduces wastes of duplicate copies.
It saves electricity and when we are out of the office we do not have to use our lighting and
air conditioning and the smaller mobile electronic devices will use less electric. It also
saves fuel by not having our Inspectors have to go to the office and we can go directly into
the field, wherever we work, and then from home to the office, that is also saving in fuel as
well.
This is just the numbers of Prevention Bureau Activities that we have done in
separate categories. And this is the fire loss and damage estimates for the last four years,
for your information. And that is it from the Prevention Bureau, if you have questions?
Chair Furfaro: Chief, did we just have Training and Prevention?
Mr. Westerman: Just Prevention.
Chair Furfaro: And Ocean Safety Bureau? Okay. We are going to ask
questions then.
Mr. Westerman: Okay, in the interest of the time, what would you like us
to do?
Chair Furfaro: We would like to be done at 4:30.
Mr. Westerman: Oh, okay. Great.
Chair Furfaro: A couple of quick questions. This was Prevention and
Training?
Mr. Westerman: Just Prevention.
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Chair Furfaro: Because I saw some of your slides with "training" on top
of it.
Mr. Makepa: We handle a lot of training, as far as inputting
the...that is the training that we go through as Inspectors and we are required to go
through certification. So those are just some of the trainings that we attended as the
Prevention Bureau.
Chair Furfaro: So for Prevention that might tie to training, let me ask,
Training and Prevention, who is inspecting the fire hydrants in the County? Is that the
Water Department only or Water Department with Fire?
Mr. Westerman: It is the Water Department's responsibility to test them
and inspect them, but we flow them regularly while we are out working in the field and any
discrepancies we find, drips, et cetera, we turn them in to the Water Department.
Chair Furfaro: Who is checking the wet stand pipes, is that you folks?
Mr. Date: Fire protection companies go out to the business and
inspect them annually and put their tag on the system. That is one thing we check for.
Chair Furfaro: That is one of the things that bothered me in my hotel
career, because everybody pointed to somebody else's responsibility and I will give you...I
dealt with Ernie Lau both for the Sheraton Coconut Beach and the Hilton and there is
coordination between the Water Department and the Fire Department to me is very
necessary. For example, up at Mount Kalepa there is a switch valve, that when there is big
demand in the morning for water in Kapa`a, the valve directs water north. And then in the
evening, the valve switches again and the water goes only through the Lihu`e cycle. For
weeks at a time, the alarm at the hotel goes off, because when the Water Department
switches the pressure to service Kapa`a, the wet stand pipe pressure drops. The float goes
up, because there is no water in the pipe, and the entire hotel's alarms go off. And it was a
very difficult coordination, because the Water Department says that is their normal
procedure and the Fire Department would say that is not something that we check and
then they would say, what the hotel should have it checked and but we only contract one
inspection for the whole year. We do not arbitrarily go out to these complexes and check
those systems to see what kind of water is floating in the wet stand pipes?
Mr. Westerman: No, sir, the responsibility is the business, to make sure
that their system is operational and they contract a business, like Kauai Fire Protection to
maintain their system. What Firefighter Makepa was talking about in that software,
because there are so many and all of these big hotels have them, it is difficult for us with
the Inspectors to go and check them all every month or when they are do routinely,
quarterly, monthly, that with the software, working with those businesses, and then
inputting the information, we can kind of keep them on their toes to make sure that the
red-flags, what we call "Why haven't you done it?" As for the aspects of the amount of
water pressure you are getting from Department of Water, that is the argument between
the business and the Department of Water. We have no control over it.
Chair Furfaro: I understand your part and for me, I want to say after
dealing with stuff like that from the Sheraton Coconut Beach to years later dealing with
the same thing with the Hilton, my insurance company would say well that is not
something that we cover you for. That is the Department of Water that had lowered the
April 8, 2013
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33
flow to your wet stand pipes. So I just thought that was something that would be in
Prevention as having this understanding. That is starting to go towards a more private
question, but it seems to me the reality is that there is some liability to the County, if
someone has staffed the facility with wet stand pipes and the County does not maintain the
right water flow. That is a very preventative thing. I am good with that. Nice
presentation. If you could put that somewhere on your hit list to talk with the Water
Department about. Eventually Ernie Lau got it worked out.
Mr. Makepa: I can answer a little bit on that part. As far as what you
are talking about, a lot is done during the planning phase of the building and when the
engineers put together the wet system that goes into it, they do not account for that drop in
pressure with the County. So if it is happening, it is more of the responsibility of the owner
of the property, who knows that this is happening and they would have to maybe install a
fire pump to keep that pressure up, with a storage tank. So as an owner, you are
responsible for your system.
Chair Furfaro: I am no longer an owner. So you understand, I am
asking this question as it relates to the liability of the County. Because I tell you what you
just told me, these hotel companies have a lot of legal guys that would just argue that
totally differently than you just did. Okay? And it happens at the.South Shore and I just
want to know, if there is some interaction between ou people and the Water Department.
artment.
Y
p p p
You are mandating to us about wet stand pipes. You mandate to these hotels about dry
stand pipes, but in between, we have the Water Department that is providing the service.
And guess what? At 7:10 a.m., the alarms go off every day. You know why? Everybody is
getting up to take a shower. Everybody in Kapa'a and Lihu`e has got water running.
Mr. Makepa: And that is probably something that in the future when
we look at plans review, we may have to require that there is a fire pump in there to
account for that, so that that can be delayed. So that is engineering and planning.
Chair Furfaro: I would take your footnotes with engineering and
planning that future planning comes in that you check the backup.
Mr. Makepa: Good idea. We will leave it at that. JoAnn,
Prevention?
Chair Furfaro: Yes, thank you. Nadine, you have questions for
Prevention?
Ms. Yukimura: Your line item on "overtime" shows the 400% increase
from 2013 to 2014 and a 380% increase from 2014 over your actual expenditures in 2012
and just wondered about the explanation for that?
Mr. Westerman: I am sorry, JoAnn, what line item?
Ms. Yukimura: I am looking at Fire Prevention, regular overtime.
Mr. Westerman: The regular overtime has been increased for the
education and added that program to help in the coming years.
Ms. Yukimura: That is a large increase.
April 8, 2013
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34
Mr. Westerman: It is a very large increase. So I guess my question
is...where is my question? How do you know if your efforts at Fire Prevention are working?
Mr. Date: What we do, everybody person who comes through, we
give them a survey to fill out and on the survey are a few questions asking them what kind
of information they know before and what they may learn after?
Ms. Yukimura: So have you a pre-and post test?
Mr. Date: Yes.
Ms. Yukimura: And those are showing that the kid and adults are
learning things?
Mr. Makepa: So far what we collected, it does. I guess the main
progress that we get is when kids go through the trailer at their school, and they see it at a
public event again, and they already know each step in the trailer we know we have
succeeded in teaching them. They can bring their parents through and teach their parents?
Ms. Yukimura: So when you say they know each step, they know the
answers at each level?
Mr. Makepa: Yes, we have objectives that we want to teach them in
the trailer, each part, whether the kitchen or bedroom or outside with the fire extinguisher
and a lot of kids will bring their parents to the community event and show their parents
how to do it.
Ms. Yukimura: That is really excellent and they say, too, when you are
teaching that you have shown that you have really learned it. The next level is to know
how long they retain that information. Maybe you will test for that. So I guess you would
expect that where fires happen because of lack of information, those fires will be much
diminished into the future, because you are teaching the young people, right?
Mr. Makepa: Yes.
Ms. Yukimura: How many of the fires that are being caused during
these times are caused by lack of information? How many of fires do we have each year?
Mr. Date: On Kauai, we have sixteen structure fires in a year and
nationwide the kitchen is the number one area, inattentive cooking and people start
cooking something and forget about it and that is one our goals with the fire safety trailer
to teach that.
Ms. Yukimura: So you do analyses of the fires that we have every year,
right?
Mr. Date: Yes.
Ms. Yukimura: And are they kitchen fires? Are they fires started in the
kitchen?
Mr. Date: A few of them, yes.
April 8, 2013
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35
Ms. Yukimura: And from a lack of knowledge or people trying to put out
kitchen fire with water?
Mr. Date: From unattended candles, you know? Some due to
electricity malfunctions.
Mr. Makepa: A lot of times, too, people are ashamed to report the fire
and they will get a small kitchen fire and try to put it out on their own and the numbers
that we are getting are just become emergency responses that we had to respond to.
Ms. Yukimura: Inspector Makepa, are you part of the County's Green
Team?
Mr. Makepa: I am not.
Ms.Yukimura: You seem to be a member. I wanted to commend your
efforts to go green. Thank you.
Chair Furfaro: Vice Chair Nakamura and then Mr. Hooser.
Ms. Nakamura: This is a follow-up question from last year. I did not see
anything this year about the number of inspections that you do per year. And I am not sure
if it is in the Prevention Bureau Activities. Am I not seeing this how many inspections
were done to businesses?
Mr. Date: I believe there is the number on the chart.
Ms. Nakamura: I think this came up, why do you not show me first.
Mr. Date: This is occupancy inspections.
Ms. Nakamura: So that is 95.
Mr. Date: Yes.
Ms. Nakamura: Last year you said the Bureau averages 200 inspections
a year?
Mr. Date: Yes.
Ms. Nakamura: What happened there? What is concerning is what the
State Law says that you are supposed to do it every five years?
Mr.Date: Five years. Yes. Yes. Because we...with the four
personnel need to cover every aspect of the prevention duty and with this educational
trailer, a lot of our efforts have been focused on the trailer and we had to cut back a little on
something else and inspections was one of them, unfortunately.
Ms. Nakamura: Are all the other Counties not complying with this State
Law?
April 8, 2013
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36
Mr. Date: I would have to research that question.
Ms. Nakamura: Thank you. I am kind of curious, because it seem it is a
mandate, but it is probably unfunded. Is there any liability for the County if we do not do
these inspections on the cycle that is required by the State?
Mr. Westerman: Well, Councilmember...
Chair Furfaro: We do not have to answer that now, Chief if you want to
research it.
Mr. Westerman: We will research it, but we have looked into this in past
and I do not think there is a County getting them done. If we were to get them all done in
the amount required it would probably take quadruple our Staff. It is just that horrendous
of an inspection cycle and it is so bad that City and County of Honolulu turned the airport
back to the Airport to let them do the inspections in the airport complex because they could
simply not keep up with the airport complex. With that being said, we made a conscious
effort a couple years ago when we had the discussion of turning the airport complex back
over to the airport and try and get every one of ours done and caught up. Again, it is a lot
of businesses on a cycle and some years we might do 95, we did a couple hundred last year
and a couple hundred the year before that. The other part of it is that businesses come and
go so rapidly. The charge is trying to keep who got inspected and what is the new business?
What business is five years old? So that is a challenge for the Bureau too to maintain that.
So hopefully those reports in the automation that we put into this, which is what they are
struggling to do now will help.
Ms. Nakamura: I just see it as a strategic decision to go one way versus
the other.
Mr. Westerman: Right.
Ms. Nakamura: And to put the overtime...I mean I love the program. I
have seen it. And I have seen you work with the kids and I think it is a great way to
outreach and educate. I just wanted to know what the trade-offs are.
Mr. Westerman: Right. And just like you said, you saw the increase in
the overtime staffing for that. Again, it is a new product and we are trying to get it to
everybody right away, and then we will go back to our cycle of not every single class in
every elementary school. What grades are we doing?
Mr. Makepa: We are going to do 1st and 3rd in the future to introduce
it in 1st and evaluate it in 3rd to see what they are remembering.
Ms. Nakamura: Thank you.
Chair Furfaro: Mr. Hooser?
Mr. Hooser: I understand we are going talk about Water Safety, if
we have time, hopefully. I could not help thinking, what a great job you are doing with the
Prevention, with the fire prevention. And so, with eleven people drowning in the last year,
is there any partnering in terms of when you go out to the schools with our prevention
ii
April 8, 2013
Fire Department (ss)
37
education,is there a water safety component? I know we can talk about that too with water
safety component.
Mr. Makepa: With our staff, we carry our Beach Safety Guides and
we carry the Disaster Preparedness Guide from Civil Defense and we are working with the
Ocean Safety Bureau into our program with the community events. At this time, since it is
still a pilot program, we have only been doing it for three months, the schools we are mainly
focusing on Fire. Like I said in the future, we would like to bring in more public agencies
and create an event for public safety at the schools, during the times that we get there.
Mr. Hooser: Thank you.
Chair Furfaro: Before we go any further, Chief, I want to tell you, I
think on the Water Safety, I will bring you back for Water Safety. On the afternoon of April
19th. Can you record that, please? Do we have the space on the 19th in the afternoon?
1:30 p.m.? Okay. Go right ahead.
Mr. Hooser: Just a follow-up on that. Because I was going to
mention it later. If the Water Safety people can think about moving forward more maybe
than they already have. I would like to hear what are the plans to get better at what we
are doing? There has been a lot of tragedy, a lot of people who have died and we have a
tight budget. At the same time, there is a real tragedy unfolding and happening everyday
and given the resources that we ever and the resources that they need, what I would like to
see when you come back, for want of a better way, emergency strategy to get a handle on
this as best we can? Whether it is education or whatever it is. I would really is your
Bureau to come back with thinking about that. When we talk about emergency diversion
plans, just something that reflects the urgency of the situation and I know there are lots of
moving parts and Dr. Downs and different volunteer groups are helping, but when you
come back, if you could present something like that, I would appreciate it. Thank you.
Thank you, Chair.
Mr. Westerman: I had to double check my calendar because on the 19th
we are doing opening for the kiosk at the airport, which is one of the things that we are
doing for education but in the afternoon it works.
Chair Furfaro: Since I have been on the Council, we added twenty three
water safety people. So I think Mr. Hooser's comments are well-received in the sense to
have more of a strategy about the educational issues derived. So we will do Water Safety at
1:30. Staff I know you folks have agreed you could stay until 5:00 p.m. today, but I do not
want to rush through Water Safety. So we will finish up training here, and we will go our
way at 4:30 p.m. today. Did you have your hand up?
Ms. Yukimura: Just a follow-up to Vice Chair's question about business
inspections.
Chair Furfaro: Go right ahead.
Ms. Yukimura: You said you put in all the businesses from the phone
book, which must have been quite a job. So your goal ultimately is that they be certified
and then maybe renewed or rechecked every five years is that the basic framework?
April 8, 2013
Fire Department (ss)
38
Mr. Makepa: Yes, to create a more efficient plan for the business
inspections, what we wanted to do is compile the database first. And have all the
businesses on Kaua`i listed and then we can go ahead and start inspecting to keep an
accurate count of when the inspections have been done. Our Fire Record Management
System has an inspection cycle to input when each business should be inspected whether it
is by the Prevention Bureau or by the Companies.
Ms. Yukimura: And that pops up?
Mr. Makepa: That will pop up. And what we can do is manage that
from the Prevention Bureau's side, but before we can do that, we need to make sure all of
the data is there, so that we can manage that cycle. So that could be why a lot of our efforts
has been towards using technology. So now that we have those records in there, we can go
ahead and started scheduling inspections more on a rotational schedule. So that we can
meet the code.
Ms. Yukimura: This is a State requirement, is it? It is a State Law?
Mr. Makepa: Yes.
Ms. Yukimura: And do you feel that it is a purposeful law that is these
inspections really prevent fires?
Mr. Makepa: What it does, the inspection cycle, it keeps the public
safe. So it requires the business to maintain a safe environment for their customers and for
their employees. So by using technology, where we talked about the business software, it
will help us to manage and prioritize which businesses we go to first, so we can use the
limited manpower that we have to go out and get those inspections done by red-tagging this
one is priority. Let us go get that one now. Where we can kind of shuffle back on the ones
that we know that are always being checked all the time.
Ms. Yukimura: Well, I really commend your use of technology, if though
the real doing has to be inspections. Then the Chief is saying that might be...it seems like
in Honolulu it is impossible, and then maybe a new system is required. That they be
privately trained and then what is called third-party certification, that they have been
trained and they have passed inspection or else that we set a fee for this kind of renewal,
that gives you enough money to hire the adequate bodies to do it on a needed basis, as long
as it is not busy work. Government does sometimes create busy work and you create this
whole infrastructure to do something that does not really achieve the goal. But if it really
does keep our people safe, and I guess what comes to mind is theaters. You know, you have
to have proper exits and whatever you have to do, because it is a situation of a lot of people.
If there is a real public purpose there, maybe we need to think about another way to meet
that need.
Mr. Makepa: The mechanism is already in place. Businesses hire
are protection companies to go out and inspect their systems. So wh at we a e doin g is
managing those companies to make sure that they are providing the service at an accurate
level. So we are going out and checking that those guys are doing their job and that the
businesses are going out and hiring them to do their job. As well as going through and
checking the maintenance of the business itself. So an inspection covers the business
owner's responsibility, as well as the private fire protection companies.
April 8, 2013
Fire Department (ss)
39
Ms. Yukimura: I am just asking that you give some thought to how you
might create a more efficient system of doing that.
Mr. Date: Councilmember Yukimura, it is only recently changed
in the State Law that it is now a five-year cycle. Before it was three years. And just
recently, a year or two ago, it changed to five, because nobody would be able to keep up.
Ms. Yukimura: Are you able to keep up with the five-year cycle is the
question and what is the cycle that you need to basically achieving protection? Thank you.
Mr. Date: You are welcome.
Chair Furfaro: Any more questions before we go into Training? And it
is 4:15 p.m. and I do want to end at 4:30 p.m. Mr. Bush is going to do this?
RON BUSH, Training Bureau: Yes, sir.
Chair Furfaro: Introduce yourself.
Mr. Bush: Ron Bush, Training. Our mission statement, I am going
to go over success and achievements in Training this last year. Our first-responder training
is done by community college instructors who happen to be paramedics also. Our annual
CPR recertification is done through the American Heart Association and done by
Firefighters who are CPR-instructor trained.
Our United States Lifesavings Association, each year's class, this class provides
opportunity for training on all shores of the island and highlights those conditions that each
shore may have. Water rescue craft operations are included. We use Station l's Jet Ski
and the rescue boat. We use Station 3's rescue boat, Station 4's jet boat and this class also
provides scenarios to practice lifeguard rescue techniques, search-and-rescue operations,
water rescue operations, boat safety, and helicopter safety, water rescue operations, while
emphasizing Firefighter fitness, communication and safety. Our driver training,
contributes to our Department's risk reduction, driver awareness and driver responsibility.
The emergency vehicle operations class is the first one that the Department has had since
1999, and this class emphasizes safe driving and solutions on how to practice safe response
to all 911 calls and review traffic calls and rules specifically made to drivers and changes to
emergencies. We have our driver simulated training that we do that provides extreme
training scenarios in a safe environment. Like approaching vehicles, people running in
front of fire vehicles, running red lights, et cetera.
Our hazmat, hazardous materials tactics, and recertification class was done by
Station 8, Kaiakea Station, Kaiakea technicians and they certify all hazmat technician
level personnel, which is about 90% of the Department. Classes included in the field and in
the classroom exercises.
Every year we have a CST training exercise. And this gives us the invaluable
opportunity to work and communicate during hands-on scenarios with the Coast Guard,
with the Police Department, with the Department of Health, and the Civil Defense. In our
fire attack training, we use our burn trailer and instructors provides us scenario-based
training for online companies and recruits using this burn trailer to practice fighting fires
prior to real-life situations. Using this burn trailer they are able to practice job skills in a
controlled environment like search-and-rescue, fire stream management, and ventilation
April 8, 2013
Fire Department (ss)
40
while emphasizing safety and teamwork. By incorporating this resource participants have
demonstrated better hands on fire ground skills.
Other accomplishments are a public safety diver program. For our rescue divers to
be compliant, two Firefighters will have completed three week diver instructor class and
p g p
will start certifying the rest of our Department. It will focus on diving situations including
zero visibility, diving entanglement, prolonged bottom line, and underwater rescue
communications. The new Record Management System enables Prevention, was already
mentioned and it also carries over to our Training Department.
Some more accomplishments. We started an unknown hazardous samples sent from
DOH to Kaiakea Station 8 through our Training Department and this Station 8 Hazmat
Technicians use these unknown chemicals for training scenarios to practice id'ing them and
communicating results with the Department of Health. The Department of Health
compares results Statewide with other hazmat stations who participate in this program
also. Our physicals improved yearly physicals results in better morale and safety for our
Department.
Challenges. It is always a challenge to upkeep our vehicles, as far as our two
reserve fire engines it has already been said one engine needs to be replaced. So actually
we only have one reserve fire engine. And we also mentioned that we have one, which will
replace that in this year's budget.
Staffing is also a challenge. We also went over the lack of permanent training
storage areas.
Future initiatives. Training for our Department using the new driver simulator
began March 14th. The driver simulator was purchased by funds through the AFG Grant.
The Police Department is also using it, while the Transportation Department is acquiring
software to use it as well. Our fit testing equipment has been repaired and will start
testing personnel in the near future. The 24th KFD Recruit Class started on March 5th
with five new recruits.
Other future initiatives. I mentioned we are working on completing the
development of an initial fire attack program. We are continuously seeking out resource for
further training and education. We are trying to continue to improve our system of logging
and tracking as we mentioned earlier and constantly trying to strengthen relationships
with anyone that we would be working with.
We are committed to excellence. We are striving to provide state-of-the-art training
for the safety of our personnel and island residents and visitors alike.
Chair Furfaro: Okay. Chief, I will check if there are any more
questions. We have about three minutes left hear for today. First of all, I think I share
with my colleagues the pride we have with our Fire Department, even based on the
presentation today, very well-thought out and very clear and we certainly do plan to send
over a few questions. We would certainly ask to you to respond as quickly as possible. But
we take great pride in the Kaua`i Fire Department, and we want to extend our appreciation
for your entire team. I would also like the thank Mayor for being here all day today and
thank you, Mayor.
1
April 8, 2013
Fire Department (ss)
41
Before I summarize, any questions on their Training today? No? So Chief, we have
an agreement on a couple of things here. First of all, Water Safety and only Water Safety
will be back on the 19th at 1:30 p.m. Okay? On a follow-up item we asked and gave you
the Section of some concerns that we have about a discussion that needs to happen amongst
the Fire Commissioners on the helicopter being able to discuss potential recovery costs for
rescues that are allowed under our Charter. Also want to make sure that they have some
discussion about the relationship with the Water Department, especially when it
comes to reviewing multiple unit apartments, business complexes, hotels as to these
criteria about water pressure in wet stand pipes. Also, we are understanding and I want to
make sure we are very clear on Council Vice Chair's questions and Councilmember
Yukimura's questions, you folks understand the concern about compliance on the five-year
business inspection that we raised today and we would like you to have some more dialogue
about it. The rest of the questions that came up, we will send correspondence to.
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for being here today, for a very, very
thorough presentation. On that note, if you folks are okay, we are going to go into recess
for our budget meetings, and thank you everyone.
There being no objections, the meeting recessed at 4:30 p.m.