Belleville City Council considers duty crew for fire dept.

There aren’t enough City of Belleville paid-per-call fire fighters during the daytime hours to answer the fire department calls in a timely manner, so the department came up with an idea to fix that.
At Monday’s three-hour-and-12-minute budget work shop the city council heard the proposal for a duty crew that would be on duty from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. It would start with three days a week and increase to five, if possible.
Fire Chief Brian Loranger said this would be a one-year pilot program to see how it works.
Chief Loranger said this would be the best bet to solve the problem that was brought to the forefront by former Councilman Jesse Marcotte.
He said people have their regular jobs during the daytime hours and it’s hard to find people to hire and then require them to get all the training required.
“The best answer is a duty crew,” Loranger said.
“Do we have the staff?” asked Mayor Kerreen Conley.
Loranger said they would try to staff it with Belleville fire fighters first and if that wasn’t possible, they could offer the positions to Sumpter or Augusta township fire fighters who are fully trained.
Fire Captain Christopher Zweng said their home departments would be responsible for their training. He said the duty crew wouldn’t be able to go over 32 hours and if they were on the crew during the daytime they couldn’t go out at night because they would have too many hours.
Loranger said those working three days a week, at seven hours a day, would total 21 hours.
City Manager/Police Chief Dave Robinson said there were hard questions asked of the fire department after the Marcotte incident and they put in the research and came up with the duty crew.
“It would be with added cost, but don’t our citizens deserve it? That when they call in the daylight hours, the fire department will be here?” said Chief Robinson, noting if the council has to raise the public safety millage to cover this, it can.
Loranger said during the day when he is at work, his biggest stress is, “Am I going to cover the medical [calls]?” He said when a call comes in, he checks his communications to see if someone is responding and if that person is trained enough to respond alone. “It’s my worst nightmare.”
Captain Zweng said the fire fighters were at the fire hall the night before and a call came in and they responded within a minute.
Mayor Conley asked if they needed four people, rather than two, for the duty crew, or maybe three because someone may need a vacation.
Zweng said they would have to buy turnout gear for the fire fighters from out of the department. He said for medical runs, it’s just a T-shirt and pants. For a fire run they need expensive turnout gear and maybe that can be rented from Sumpter or Augusta until Belleville gets enough.
Loranger said the duty crew would just not sit around the fire house, but there would be lots for them to do, including going door to door to see if they can find other people to serve on the department.
Councilwoman Kelly Bates said they should put notices in the water bills and advertise in the Independent.
Chief Robinson said the duty crew can go out and set up smoke detectors in the community and Loranger said they have 120 free smoke detectors available, plus 80 C02 detectors. Loranger said they could distribute welcome packets to residents.
Chief Robinson said he doesn’t want them to become Play Station gurus and just sit around the station amusing themselves.
Zweng said they could do health screening days and do other things beside sitting in the station, such as growing a vegetable garden on the north side of the station that gets the sun, and painting inside the station.
Loranger said they could do snow removal at the station and cut the grass and blow the leaves.
The fire department was directed to come up with an estimate on how much this would cost so the council could consider it before its annual vote on the public safety millage.
The next budget session was set for 6 p.m. Wednesday, June 1, after the numbers for property taxes are in. The April 13 budget session was cancelled.
On Monday, the council also discussed:
• Raising refuse rates for residents to cover the raise in rates from Republic so the city breaks even. Also, they discussed raising the water rates to cover the new water rates coming from the provider;
• Turning in two of the SMART buses because the city doesn’t need three. The operation of the buses is fully funded by the general fund because the previous city clerk didn’t fill out the SMART reports as required and the new clerk is starting over with that. Also, the CDBG funds used to be used for senior transportation, but now those funds are being used for other things;
• Replacing the full-time police officer that resigned with a part-time officer who wants that position. This means the department will have to get a new, part-time police officer;
• Replacing police officer tasers because they are the kind officers are not allowed to carry and they are out of date. Because they are the wrong tasers, the current tasers were taken out of service by Chief Robinson. These tasers were ordered incorrectly by a previous police chief, he said. The basic new tasers cost $2,500 apiece and $1,000 more if you add the available bells and whistles. Chief Robinson said they can get new ones for all nine officers or get four and check them out for shifts;
• Updating the recording and water-metering equipment because the current equipment has phased-out technology. Also, the street sweeper is over 20 years old and the repair company no longer will work on it. DPW Director Rick Rutherford said they are sourcing their own parts and a local mechanic is working on it. A new street sweeper costs $250,000; and
• Running Hillside Cemetery. There are 38 cremains sites open and 34 full cemetery plots. The city has a perpetual care fund of $250,000 that is available after all the graves are sold. The cemetery fund is at a deficit now and the city must transfer funds.