Did you know we have a Strategic Plan for the Fire Department?
Though it was flawed and issued unilaterally without normal public process and public comment, earlier this year the new Police Chief published a "Strategic Plan."
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| The latest plan from 2018 |
Apparently in 2018 the Fire Department issued a similar plan. There may
be an alternative process for emergency response and their fiefdoms. I
don't remember seeing the plan at Council or any debate or discussion around
it. Maybe I just missed it, as Fire isn't a core interest here, and at the time it wasn't something we would have examined closely here. (I also searched for "fire + strategic + plan" in the 2017, 2018, and 2019 Council agenda and came up with nothing.) But in general these two plans seem exempt from the normal public process we use for other types of important plans, and that might deserve more attention.
Apart from questions about that process, now with the the selection of projects for the proposed bond measure we have another process, and we should be paying more attention to the plan, including it in the debate and analysis about the bond.
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| 11,000 square feet, mothballed in the 2010s Fire Station 11 (Mackenzie architects) |
The Bond Subcommittee meets Friday the 15th at 1pm, and in the packet is a memo that clearly shows its current shape and main buckets.
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| Main buckets in the current concept |
The Civic Center seismic always seemed like a no-brainer, and it's nice to see the branch library concept. But do we really need $40 million for the Fire Department? We may not have quite enough for branch libraries and affordable housing in the current allocations.
Station 11 was mothballed for several years in the 2010s. As part of the bond analysis and debate, it seems to be assumed that we need more stations. But we already once overbuilt fire stations and did not have sufficient operational funding to keep all of them open.Part of the conversation and analysis for the bond should be the future operational costs any new facilities entail. How will any new stations affect future general city budgets?
And by a different mix of personnel and equipment, can we deliver the same safety at a lower capital cost?
One way we could incent new development in less car-dependent
configurations would be to assess a public safety fee, like a system
development charge, on new single detached housing distant from existing
fire stations. We could align climate, new development, and city budgets
more closely, if we wanted to.
We seem to be applying a 20th century model of service delivery, and we likely need to modify that for the 21st century, with things like smaller trucks, and more medical.
That 2018 Strategic Plan for the Fire Department is just a series of bare assertions and does not include any analysis of tradeoffs.
Still there are interesting things in it. Did we ever "explore alternative non-emergency medical delivery systems"? What about sending fire trucks on non-fire medical calls? The plan does not contain any analysis of staffing or equipment. Mainly it just says we need more.
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| Did we ever do this? |
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| This is written as if it was self-evidently valuable |
The assumption that more is better is especially visible in the discussion of a bond. It is shaped around a PR campaign rather than from any service analysis.
Here is more evidence that going out for a November 2022 bond is premature and we should devote more time, analysis, and debate to the high-level values we want to instantiate in a bond, and to the problems we seek to remedy. Each allocation should have a clear "why" oriented to 2050, and not a why oriented to "we've always done it this way."
Back to the bond meeting packet proper, later in the memo on buckets are some deletions, some of them interesting.
- $24 million reduction on Marine Drive to phase 1 only.
- $3.5 million reduction, half of it, on the Pringle Creek path, calling for the City to use Urban Renewal funds on it.
- $20 million reduction, eliminating the whole project, for South River Road bluff and slide stabilization
- and several other, smaller projects
The committee will also see a few letters from people in support of the protected bike lane concept, but the agenda item is "public comment" and does not seem to be positioning it for serious consideration.
The last item on the agenda is "Committee Recommendation to Council for Bond Package." That sure sounds like they expect to wrap up the project list and send it to Council. If they do wrap, it will be very interesting to see the final shape of the proposal.
2 comments:
I don't recall the year, but prior to Covid and after the Police bond was passed, I recall both a public outreach on fire equipment bond at the Neighborhood aa well as I recall a discussion about whether the City should accept a response time of more than 5 minutes.
I also recall a lot of discussion around the time of the Police building bond about how it was a waste of money to do seismic upgrades to City Hall. That discussion happened at Council when decided whether to go for just a Library bond or both City Hall and Library. You could look it up. The City even had a study done that I read. It is interesting that this idea has been resurrected. Maybe it has to do with the notion that the City Hall is now almost 50 years old and is being celebrated as some sort of iconic architecture that needs preservation. The City has applied for a National Historic building designation, which will severely limit any remodeling. I should be honest and say I am on the celebration committee.
I am not suggestion that I favor the $100 million it was said it would cost to replace the building, but when knowledgeable engineers point out how it will fall down in a 'less than 8.0 earthquake' I have to question spending $30 or $40 million to prop it up. The retrofit is not about making the building earthquake proof, it is just to keep it standing long enough to get most people out when it pancakes.
My personal opinion is that while this bond process is an interesting exercise, I seriously doubt it will pass. At least not on its first attempt. People are in no mood.
Well, what do you know. In a letter to Council this evening, September 12th, regarding Objective 1-G in the Fire plan:
"A few months ago 350 Salem made a public records request to ask for the results of this analysis which was supposed to be completed in July 2020. The response received was that this objective was not completed and that the SFD has no plans to complete it. The response cited the City’s projected General Fund budget deficit in future years as the reason they are not going to pursue this objective. This makes absolutely no sense since successful “alternative non-emergency medical delivery systems” would presumably save money rather than cost more money. It would help resolve budget deficits."
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