Public Safety Sub Committee Minutes January 16, 2014 - Approved
PUBLIC SAFETY SUB COMMITTEE MEETING
REGULAR MEETING - 7:00 AM
JANUARY 16, 2014
CALL TO ORDER
Lisa Heavner, Chair, Board of Selectmen, called the Regular Meeting of the Public Safety Subcommittee to order at 7:05 A.M. on Thursday, January 16, 2014 in the Main Meeting Room of the Simsbury Town Offices located at 933 Hopmeadow Street, Simsbury, CT. The following members were also present: Chief James Baldis, Simsbury Volunteer Fire Department; Nicholas Boulter, Simsbury Police Department; Thomas Cooke, Town of Simsbury, Administrative Services; Michael Delehanty, Simsbury Volunteer Ambulance Association; Geoffrey Giddings, Civil Defense, Chief Peter Ingvertsen, Town of Simsbury, Police Department; Kevin Kowalski, Simsbury Volunteer Fire Department; Burke LaClair, Board of Education, Business Manager; Mickey Lecours-Beck, Director, Town of Simsbury Social Services; Thomas Roy, Town of Simsbury, Public Works; Kevin Witkos, CL&P and State Senator; Nancy Haase, Deputy, First Selectmen; Tony Piazza, Water Pollution Control Superintendent and Jennifer Kertanis, Farmington Valley Health District .
PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE
Everyone stood for the Pledge of Allegiance
PUBLIC AUDIENCE
There was none.
APPROVAL OF MINUTES
Page 2 UPDATES AND REPORTS – “fees” to “EMTs” in the sentence “A lot of voluntary organizations rapidly tend to lose their volunteer base once they start paying “fees”. Also “participation” to “paramedicine” in the sentence “Reimbursement in general for healthcare is changing and one aspect is to try and capture community “participation”.
Page 4 Outage Map Presentation – add “area work center” to the following sentence “There are crews that are dedicated to the Simsbury “area work center”.
Mickey Lecours-Beck made a motion to approve the minutes from the Public Safety Subcommittee Regular Meeting on November 21, 2013 as amended. The motion was seconded by Chief Peter Ingvertsen and was unanimously passed. (Jennifer Kertanis recused herself.)
INTRODUCTION OF WATE POLLUTION CONTROL SUPERINTENDENT
Lisa Heavner introduced Tony Piazza as the Simsbury’s new Water Pollution Control Superintendent.
Tony Piazza stated that he had worked in Bristol, CT at the Water Pollution Control for 13 years and is currently working on a new budget for the town as well as an emergency generator for town hall.
3. UPDATES AND REPORTS
Ambulance - Michael Delehanty reviewed the 2013 EMS Call Data Summary to members. Total EMS Calls were 1,943; By SVAA – 1,613 resulting in 1,172 transports; Non-Transports (refusals, cancels and treat/release) were 441 or 27%; Mutual aid responses to Simsbury were 330; SVAA handled 83% of EMS calls; ALS calls were 56% which are typical. Response time (Priority 1, Simsbury, Car10) were 7.2 minutes. This does not capture Car 4 paramedic’s response time. Numbers were very level with last year.
Civil Preparedness – Kevin Kowalski noted a couple of training events coming up. February 11th they are sponsoring a Chamber event directed toward businesses for emergency management and preparing for disaster and are also including a Fire Marshall inspection. On March 18th, they will partner with Social Services and sponsor a senior pancake breakfast at Eno Hall. Kevin also stated that the low power FM radio is still on track within the 60 day cycle review.
Fire – James Baldis reported that is has been quiet on the fire side, however, they have had a lot of calls for frozen pipes. A cold water rescue drill was conducted last weekend at Town Forest pond and another one is planned in March. Chief Baldis also announced a few promotions and transfers.
Farmington Valley Health District – Jennifer Kertanis noted that a training program has just been completed for volunteers that would be providing support to food activities within shelter operations in Granby. They have also been working with New Britain EMS in developing a training program for people with disabilities and/or the elderly regarding preparation for emergency. FVHD is also gearing up for a state wide exercise sometime in June around a strategic national stock pile, which is the Federal Government assets for antibiotics or any medical counter measures that would be needed. Everbridge system is up and running with some bugs that still need to be worked out.
Police – Chief Peter Ingvertsen stated that a new police commissioner, James Fleming, was appointed on Monday, January 13, 2014. He was recently with the fire department as a commissioner. There are several retirements coming up which will create vacancies. There are currently two officers in training at the police academy.
Burke LeClair noted that the Standard Response Training has been completed with all the schools and that the terminology has been updated and has been passed out to parents of students.
Social Services – Mickey Lecours-Beck was very happy to report that the “Fill the Jar” program was very successful and had over a 100 jars returned which raised approximately $4,000. Mikey stated that Social Services opened warming centers the first week of January for four days. She also noted a Suicide Prevention grant and they will be doing training at the end of February or March which will be open to the public. Social Services will also be working with the schools for their mandatory training and updating the suicide prevention manual, which goes out to every teacher in the school system.
4. NEW BUSINESS
Consider additions to the Public Safety Subcommittee from the business community and the clergy.
Lisa Heaver stated that it was suggested by the Mary Glassman and Chief Ingvertsen to consider additions to the Public Safety Subcommittee as liaisons. They would like to consider adding someone from the business community as well as a representative from the clergy for providing shelter, counseling and communication.
Kevin Kowalski suggested publishing the actual titles of the Public Safety Subcommittee as well as other individuals and organizations involved in town.
Michael Delhanty stated that he believes that the EOC meetings need to be effectively contained to the number of participants in the meetings. He believes that when you have too many people that are not normally involved in the EOC meetings, it is not as functional.
Lisa Heavner noted that this is currently being worked out to try and limit the attendance at the EOC meetings. Kevin Kowalski also noted that anyone attending the EOC meetings should receive training from the National Incident Management. Chief Peter Ingvertsen reviewed the current list of the EOC members.
Kevin Kowalski suggested establishing a council and get representatives for the private schools as well as the day care centers.
Confirm contact information for all Subcommittee members.
Tom Cooke stated that he will look for the official list of members and get back to the group.
Receive memorandum update from the Town Engineer on generator for Tariffville Elementary School.
Lisa Heavner noted that Jeff Shea was not available for this meeting. Tom Cooke stated that things are moving along and noted a memo that was received from Richard Sawitzke which states that there is $242,000 of Town funds as well as a FEMA grant of $59,213 to fund the following:
High School Emergency Shelter – provide back-up power to additional portion of the building
Emergency Operations Center/Police Department – provide a back-up source of power if the existing generator has to be shut down for service or repairs.
Tariffville School – provide an emergency generator to serve a shelter for the Tariffville area of Simsbury or for smaller shelter operations for the Town.
Eno Memorial – connection to serve certain circuits for heating.
Library – connection to serve certain circuits for heating
5. ADDITIONAL AGENDA ITEM – School Update
Burke LeClair stated that the Window Security project has been completed in December. All schools have an extra layer of support to keep the exterior from being compromised from someone trying to physically gain entry into the schools. He also noted that the Salters Transportation did a survey with monitoring cameras on the school buses to monitor moving violations from motorists. The pilot program revealed only about 1% of the existing violations was not going to make sense to install the cameras.
ADJOURNMENT
Kevin Kowalski made a motion to adjourn the January 16, 2014 Regular Meeting of the Public Safety Subcommittee at 7:55 a.m. The motion was seconded by Thomas Roy and passed unanimously.
Respectfully submitted,
____________________________________ ______________________________
Lisa Heavner, Chairman Leslie Brigham, Commissions Clerk