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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes - Minutes - City Council - Meeting Date: 4/21/2015 City of Glendale 5850 West Glendale Avenue Glendale, AZ 85301 ri7I i 11 Meeting Minutes - Final Tuesday, April 21, 2015 1:30 PM Workshop Council Chambers - Room B3 City Council Workshop Mayor Jerry Weiers Vice Mayor Ian Hugh Councilmember Jamie Aldama Councilmember Samuel Chavira Councilmember Gary Sherwood Councilmember Lauren Tolmachoff Councilmember Bart Turner City Council Workshop Meeting Minutes -Final April 21,2015 CALL TO ORDER Rollcall Present 6- Mayor Jerry Weiers, Vice Mayor Ian Hugh, Councilmember Jamie Aldama, Councilmember Samuel Chavira, Councilmember Lauren Tolmachoff, and Councilmember Bart Turner Absent 1 - Councilmember Gary Sherwood Also present were Richard Bowers, Acting City Manager;Jennifer Campbell,Assistant City Manager;Michael Bailey, City Attorney;and Pamela Hanna, City Clerk. WORKSHOP SESSION 1. 15-262 BOND REFUNDING RECAP Staff Contact: Tom Duensing, Director, Finance and Technology Staff Presenter: Tom Duensing, Director, Finance and Technology Guest Presenter: Mr. Kurt Freund, Managing Director, RBC Capital Markets Mr. Duensing said this item was to provide an overview of the four refinancing transactions the city recently completed. He introduced Mr. Kurt Freund, Managing Director, RBC Capital Markets, who assisted in structuring this refinancing. Mr. Freund said his firm was hired to look at the city's debt and look for opportunities to refinance that debt. He explained there were four bond financings that were identified. Those included excise tax revenue bond, general obligation bonds, water and sewer revenue bonds and transportation excise tax revenue bonds. He credited Mr. Duensing and his staff with putting this together in a very short amount of time so the city was able to take advantage of very good interest rates and excellent savings. He said the sales were staggered so all the bonds were not coming into the market at the same time. He said the city realized$48 million in current dollar savings. Mr. Freund provided information regarding interest rate movement over the last year. He explained that as they moved forward with these transactions, interest rates were very low during the sale and the city was able to capitalize on those low rates. Mr. Freund said the city was able to refinance about$59 million in transportation excise tax revenue bonds. He said the city realized$5.3 million in savings. He said the great work by city staff helped the city get its bond ratings confirmed. He said there was a very broad group of investors. The water and sewer revenue bond refinancing had a similar story, and the city realized more than expected. The ratings were also well-received. He provided further explanation on the interest rates on the average life of the bonds. Water and sewer also had a very broad investor base participating in the transaction. The excise tax revenue bond refinancing provided benefit back to the city's general fund, and he said the savings were significantly higher as the rates were lower. The city saved over$25 million in this transaction. He said ten investors participated in this sale. Mr. Freund said the general obligation bond refinancing went well and because of the low interest rates, it made sense to refinance more bonds. He explained general obligation bonds are the best credit quality bonds and this sale was well-received, as well. He congratulated the city on excellent results. City of Glendale Page 1 Printed on 6/2/2015 City Council Workshop Meeting Minutes -Final April 21,2015 Mr. Duensing said this transaction was very well-received by the investor community. City staff and Council were complimented by these investors. He also credited Mr. Freund for his hard work to get successful results for the city. Mayor Weiers said the city saved$48 million up to 30 years. Mr. Duensing said it was$48 million up to 30 years. He said they pushed the majority of that savings up front, with the majority of savings over the next 3 to 5 years. Mayor Weiers said the city is looking at$4 to$5 million savings per year and then it will start going down as time goes on. Mr. Duensing said that was correct. He said the majority was over the next 3 to 4 years. He said they have the latitude to do things in the General Fund, such as pre funding Public Safety personnel. He said that is a long-term investment for the city and it took off a lot of pressure for the fund. He said it also gave the Water and Sewer fund about $14 million in unanticipated savings. 2. 15-269 COUNCIL ITEM OF SPECIAL INTEREST: PUBLIC SAFETY UPDATE - POLICE DEPARTMENT Staff Contact: Debora Black, Police Chief Mr. Duensing said the recommended budget took many months to compile. He explained the General Fund Budget holds the line on costs and is a structurally balanced budget going forward. He said they anticipated adding about$3 million in public safety services. Subsequently, a court ruling has come down which is going to impact the General Fund Budget about$4 million annually, and this will impact to the General fund begins with the FY17 Budget. He said this caused staff to look at this budget at more of a strategic level. He recommends any changes in service levels should be done strategically. He said any changes in services should be reviewed in context with all services and come back in the next budget cycle to make recommendations. He said a budget workshop has been scheduled on May 5 to get Council direction on a few outstanding items. Chief Black said the Police Department's mission is accomplished through current staffing levels. Staffing levels have been constant since FY14, with 426 sworn officers and 129 civilian positions. She said 10 positions were added in FY15 through the COPS grant and 7 school resource officers were added that are not General Fund supported. She explained staffing is the product of a reorganization in 2013, which consolidated sworn functions, realigned civilian administrative functions, reduced staffing in communications and detention and eliminated vacant positions. The department also reevaluated patrol deployment strategy, realigned mega event staffing models and enacted a new alarm ordinance. Chief Black said several efficiencies are currently being implemented. These include potential false alarm program charges, on-line reporting system, enhanced records management system, and expanded use of technologies. She said they also hope to implement business intelligence led policing, as well as an on-officer camera. She said some agencies have seen an increase of 25 percent in administrative time with these added features. Assistant Chief St. John next discussed response times, calls for services and crimes. He explained how calls for service are prioritized and said the amount of priority 1 calls for service have risen slightly since 2005 and priority 2 calls have remained steady, with a slight downturn from 2013 to 2015. He explained the national standard is a response time of 5 minutes or less to priority 1 and 2 calls and he provided a chart which showed the percentage of time the department met that response time. He said they are not City of Glendale Page 2 Printed on 6/2/2015 City Council Workshop Meeting Minutes -Final April 21,2015 hitting the mark on their response times for these calls. Assistant Chief St. John said the standard response time for priority 3 calls for service is 15 minutes and priority 4 is 35 minutes, and there has been a significant increase in these calls from 2013 to 2015. He explained when the new computer aided dispatch was implemented in late 2013 they reviewed the way calls for service were prioritized over the national standard. Some city calls were prioritized different than the national standard. He said over 100 changes were made on how the Police Department prioritizes calls and how they respond to those calls for service and that changed the graph and how they measured the calls. He also said they were able to capture a true picture of what the officers were doing in the field with the new computer aided system. He said priority 3 and 4 response times are very good. He also said response times to priority 1 and 2 calls are increased if an officer is called away from a lower priority call to respond. Assistant Chief St. John next discussed violent crimes. He said aggravated assaults and robberies have gone down. He explained the increase in rapes is a result of a change in definition under the UCR codes. He also said the homicide rate has remained fairly constant over the last several years. He said thefts are always very high due to the number of box stores, the mall and convenience stores that exist in the city. He said they enter into a smart policing initiative with convenience stores and discovered there were a high number of thefts that were not being reported. The department made a decision to go after the individuals committing those crimes, believing they may also be responsible for other crimes. He said this did result in a spike in crime because all the crimes were now being reported, but the department is starting to see the results of the initiative to stop this sort of crime, and they are confident this number will continue to drop over the next several years. Councilmember Sherwood asked when that initiative began. Assistant Chief St. John said it began in 2011. Assistant Chief St. John said there has been a downward trend in burglaries and property crimes detectives are working those crimes within patrol divisions and this has had a positive effect. He also said stolen vehicle crimes are being driven down valley wide. He explained that total property and violent crimes in 2014 was the lowest it has been in 10 years. Violent crimes have been reduced by over 42 percent since 2006 and property crimes have returned to the same level as 2006. Chief Black said the purpose of CALEA's accreditation program is to improve the delivery of public safety services. The police department has been accredited by CALEA since 2000, and has just completed its 5th accreditation process. She said the department partners with education institutions, residents and businesses and federal, state and local law enforcement agencies. She said they are working on a partnership with a student working on his doctorate about job satisfaction and millennials to assist with officer retention. She said the outreach efforts, such as coffee with a cop and block watch efforts are very successful. She said the department also shares information effectively with other valley cities and other state and federal agencies to assist with crime prevention. She explained they also rely on grant funding from the state and other agencies for various crime prevention programs. She explained the Police Department has maintained service levels by using technology, partnerships and department reorganization and realignment. She said employees have worked smarter with fewer resources and remain committed to accomplishing the mission. Councilmember Aldama asked if the Police Department benchmarked the cost saving efforts of consolidation City of Glendale Page 3 Printed on 6/2/2015 City Council Workshop Meeting Minutes -Final April 21,2015 Chief Black said the only benchmarks they have are the calls for service and crime measures. She said they deployed existing resources to maintain service levels in the most critical areas like patrol. Councilmember Aldama asked if there was a way to quantify the savings. Chief Black said 10 vacant positions at$624,000. Councilmember Sherwood asked for an explanation of the 25 percent for body cameras in terms of adding work. Assistant Chief St. John said they do not really know what the body cameras are going to do in terms of workload in the patrol divisions. He said if they mandate officers review body camera footage before writing their reports that will increase the time officers spend writing reports. Councilmember Sherwood said it seemed the footage might not be something an officer would look at all of the time, possibly just when there was a question. Councilmember Sherwood asked if they expected to get the same type of results from grant funding as they have had over the last couple of years. Chief Black said they were promised grant funding for officer cameras from the federal government, but no one has seen any funds. She said they are not expecting the COPS funding to come through for any positions. Councilmember Sherwood said it probably for DUI enforcement and traffic safety will be all they can expect. Chief Black said they have a great partnership with GOHS and she hoped they could retain that funding. She said they can be aggressive in seeking funding opportunities, but said she is not optimistic. Councilmember Tolmachoff asked how the percentage increase in calls was broken down, either high or low priority. Assistant Chief St. John said the easiest way to explain the increase was the self-initiated activity. He said these were crimes involving drugs, curfew violations to any type of part 1 crimes. He said officer self-initiated activity is spread out across all call priorities. He said, based on what the officers do in the field, the majority of those calls would be in priority 3 and 4. Councilmember Tolmachoff asked about the 10 non-sworn positions that were lost and how that loss affected the department. Chief Black said those positions were vacant positions. She said as officers are added, they see the effects of those lost positions in detention and communications. She said they do have retention issues for the communications'staff due to the demands and workload. Councilmember Tolmachoff asked how many accident investigators the department would like to see on staff. Chief Black said those civilian accident investigator positions were lost in the first round City of Glendale Page 4 Printed on 6/2/2015 City Council Workshop Meeting Minutes -Final April 21,2015 of reduction in force in 2007 or 2008. She said those positions are very effective and hired quicker and at a lower rate of pay than patrol officers. This would also free up patrol officers for other duties. Mayor Weiers asked if those employees could also be used for parking enforcement. Chief Black said that would be within the range of duties for those employees when they were not on a call. Mayor Weiers said that would be a nice thing to have. Chief Black said this would also be a great way to increase patrol officer availability. Vice Mayor Hugh asked how they stood on the 20 minutes proactive patrolling. Chief Black said officers do fall short of that, but she did not have the numbers in front of her. Vice Mayor Hugh asked if she knew how close they were. Assistant Chief St. John said their numbers got close to 15 minutes, but they saw significant departures in the sworn areas, for various reasons. Vice Mayor Hugh asked if they had a plan to hit the 20 minutes. Chief Black said part of that is due to staffing needs in patrol. She said their ongoing commitment is to hire for vacancies. She for the time being, they continue to cover some of the shifts on overtime. Vice Mayor Hugh asked how many officers would have to be on patrol to hit the standard. Assistant Chief St. John said the numbers from 2014 suggest the department needs 197 officers in the patrol division to hit the mark, and the department currently deploys 190 officers at full staffing. He said they are not at full staffing and have 20 vacancies, with the majority of those carried in the patrol division. He said their first goal is to recruit and fill those vacancies in hopes that the numbers for 2015 will be closer to what the 2015 statistics indicate are needed to hit that 20/20/20 mark. Chief Black explained the numbers drop comment to mean through online reporting and potential changes to false alarm response that the calls for service numbers can drop. Vice Mayor Hugh said the numbers haven't changed a lot since he first asked the question a couple of years ago. Mayor Weiers said they just need officers to go through the academy and said the FTEs would provide the cost to take care of that. Chief Black said the current number of 426 is every position filled, but it is not realistic to keep every position filled. She said they would come closer to that to meet their needs. Mayor Weiers said we are using overtime to meet some of those needs, so we are getting half the officers and paying twice as much money. Chief Black said that was correct. City of Glendale Page 5 Printed on 6/2/2015 City Council Workshop Meeting Minutes -Final April 21,2015 Councilmember Sherwood asked what number the department had on civilian accident investigators. Chief Black said it was about 6 forty hours positions. Councilmember Sherwood said there will always be turnover and it takes a year to get an officer on the street. He said he would like to have a conversation in the near future about getting closer to those numbers by shooting for a higher number than what is authorized. An example would be if authorized for 100, allow for 10%overage or a target of 110 knowing that this gives one a better chance of obtaining the 100. He said the salary savings that is taken up with overtime doesn't seem efficient. Councilmember Tolmachoff asked if hiring accident investigators would cut down on overtime and help in accomplishing the 20/20/20 standard. Chief Black said it would assist the department achieve a better balance in patrol, and it could also potentially reduce overtime. Councilmember Turner asked how the city's crime trends compare to national and regional trends. Chief Black said most other communities are seeing a similar reduction in crime. Councilmember Turner asked if the 42 percent reduction in violent crime is similar to the national average. Chief Black said that is what communities are seeing across the country. Councilmember Turner asked how online reporting will affect the number of reports that are filed for future statistics, and will it have an impact in response time. Chief Black said agencies using online reporting have seen between a 5 and 15 percent reduction in calls for service response time, but it does not mean a reduction in crime. Councilmember Turner said it might free up officers and see a faster response time for those reports that require an officer to respond in person. Chief Black said that would be their hope. Councilmember Turner asked about the 10 vacancies in the community action team and said those positions were not always vacant. Chief Black said there were 10 officer vacancies in FY13 or 14, but clarified they did not lose 10 community action team members through a reduction in force. Mayor Weiers said police staff work hard to have contact with staff and the internet reporting will lose some of that contact. He asked if staff was concerned about that. Chief Black said this might be seen as a reduction in service and if the public wishes to have an officer respond, they will certainly do that. She said the online option is really only for citizen convenience and not a requirement. She said it is similar to when they used to take reports over the phone. She said she has asked staff to provide a feedback mechanism so she can see how the public feels about this. City of Glendale Page 6 Printed on 6/2/2015 City Council Workshop Meeting Minutes -Final April 21,2015 Mayor Weiers asked for examples of what types of reports can be submitted online. Chief Black said reports such as theft or a stolen bicycle would be the types of crime reports that can be submitted online. Mayor Weiers said having an officer in the area and responding to citizen calls goes a long way to establish trust. Councilmember Tolmachoff asked if body cameras are in the budget. Chief Black said yes. Councilmember Tolmachoff asked about the voice to text function and if that is being used in conjunction with body camera footage. Chief Black said she did not know of any agencies using those technologies together, and said they are a few months away from full implementation of the new RMS system and voice to text options. Mayor Weiers asked if any small tests were going to be done or if they were just going to order them. Assistant Chief St. John said they are in the process of implementing a pilot program of speech to text. He asked if Mayor Weiers was talking about body cameras. Mayor Weiers said he was talking about the body cameras and the potential increase in public records requests. He said he knew there would be a lot of other costs included with the body camera. He said there are two different brands of cameras and asked if tests would be done to determine which camera was better. Assistant Chief St. John said they have had presentations for 6 different brands, attended technology conferences and have done other research to determine the best product. He said the type of camera is not as important as where it is placed on the officer. He explained lapel mounted cameras seem to be more effective than chest mounted cameras. He said it is hard to speculate where they are going with capturing and releasing of camera data regarding state law. He spoke about public records requests and redaction of data. Chief Black said Assistant Chief St. John is the project lead. He did include one FTE records technician to assist with managing the incoming data and public records requests. She said they will benefit from the experiences of other agencies this size. Mayor Weiers spoke about other new technology purchased by other departments that the officers did not like and wasn't a good fit for the job. He wanted to make sure they test the cameras and purchase the right camera. She said the project team is very good and should be able to choose the right fit for this project. Councilmember Turner asked how many cameras will they be buying and when will they be put in service. Chief Black said just under 300 cameras have been budgeted. Assistant Chief St. John said they are working on the RFP and hope to get it out by late May. He hoped deployment will occur in October. City of Glendale Page 7 Printed on 6/2/2015 City Council Workshop Meeting Minutes -Final April 21,2015 Councilmember Turner asked if there is a public information component to this process. Assistant Chief St. John said the public will be included in the RFP process and will be allowed to ask questions and have some input. Councilmember Turner asked if there could be a public comment or awareness campaign at the time of deployment of the cameras. Assistant Chief St. John said the public will have certain rights regarding the cameras and officers will be instructed to provide those rights to the public, and this will occur for many years to come. Councilmember Turner is excited about this and it will be good for the department and the public. He also asked about the online reporting. Chief Black said they have done media outreach for this online reporting. She said their soft launch had less than 100 reports. She said these types of reports are usually something that needs to be done for insurance purposes. Councilmember Turner said people will need to make reports for insurance purposes only, but the data will also be analyzed and tracked. Chief Black said that was correct and patrol officers can focus more on patrol time and other duties. Councilmember Turner said this is new and better service to provide to constituents. 3. 15-268 COUNCIL ITEM OF SPECIAL INTEREST: PUBLIC SAFETY UPDATE - FIRE DEPARTMENT Staff Contact: Mark Burdick, Fire Chief Chief Burdick introduced Assistant Chief DeChant. He provided information on what the Fire Department has done to improve effectiveness and efficiency. He said they have an automatic aid system and they do not recognize jurisdictional boundaries. He said a firefighter's 24 hour schedule is an efficiency, and they are able to run with a smaller department due to this staffing model. He spoke about mobile computers that have AVL, automatic vehicle locator, so they know exactly where their trucks are and where the closest local trauma centers are. He said they employ resources very effectively with this tool. He said the training center allows partnerships with many other agencies. He also discussed the Certificate of Necessity which they are in the process of applying for. He also said the Fire Department is accredited, which holds the department accountable. Chief DeChant said the last accreditation review was in 2012 and said this report is a continuation of the Fire Department's response to the customer based on the strategic planning process. Two of the external customer group concerns were to make sure the budget is not restricting the ability of the Fire Department to move forward and to assure the service delivery of the Fire Department is adequate throughout all areas of the city. He explained they used TriData to evaluate response times throughout the city. He also provided information about call volume and types of incidents for 2014. He provided benchmark comparisons with other cities of similar size. He broke down the information for low, moderate and high volume calls. Chief DeChant said there has been an increase of over 2 percent on the number of incidents per year and he provided information on City of Glendale Page 8 Printed on 6/2/2015 City Council Workshop Meeting Minutes -Final April 21,2015 increases in the number of incidents with similar service delivery over the next five years. He also provided data showing a comparison of incidents by unit and TriData comparison from 2014 to 2019. Chief Burdick said the data shows that 2,000 calls annually is the best deployment model for a fire station. As the number of calls increase, other units may have to respond from farther away and this increases response times. He said the data shows that the city has units in the very high call range and this may cause service delivery issues. Mayor Weiers asked about the city's population decreasing from the last census and with potentially new growth to the west, how the Fire Department is going to fix this. Chief Burdick said they can look at options of building a new station at some point or creating a County Island Fire District and servicing that with other agencies. He said with the model as it stands, they would have to add units to existing stations. They do have the capacity to add in additional personnel and they could do this with minimal cost instead of building a new station. Mayor Weiers asked where Stations 154 and 156 are located. Chief Burdick said station 154 is at 44th Avenue and Peoria and 156 is at 69th Avenue and Deer Valley. Mayor Weiers asked about the calls at station 154. Chief Burdick said about 40 percent of the calls from this station are in Phoenix. He said Phoenix and Glendale work together pursuant to the automatic aid agreement with stations that are close together. Mayor Weiers asked how they work that out if many of the calls Glendale receives are in Phoenix. He said he understands how the automatic aid system works, but feels those numbers are incredibly high. Chief Burdick said Phoenix did build an infill station to try and take some of that call volume off Glendale, but the area produces a lot of call volume. Councilmember Chavira said it is just a concentration of people that live in that area. He also said the annexation that will take place near the Hwy. 303 will be very large. He also spoke about sleep deprivation working a 24 hour shift. He asked if the Fire Department had staffing up to national standards based on the city's size. Chief Burdick said they enjoy automatic aid that provides the ability to respond. He said national standards for a city of this size would have several more fire stations. Also, in cities of this size, staffing levels might be 300 to 400 firefighters. He also said they are bringing this information forward today to let Council know they do need additional resources and can start making a plan for the future. Councilmember Chavira said Chief Burdick is a subject matter expert on this issue. He said they are trying to do more with less, but there comes a time that should not be the standard. He said they are still feeling the pain of the recession. Councilmember Chavira read a statement about public safety services and spoke about his own health scare. He said expenses for public safety are only 7 percent of the budget. He said he does not want to put the citizens at risk. He said this is one of the most important services the city provides. City of Glendale Page 9 Printed on 6/2/2015 City Council Workshop Meeting Minutes -Final April 21,2015 Councilmember Tolmachoff asked if they had breakdowns in each zone of fire calls, advanced life support calls and other types of calls. Chief Burdick said they can break down the call content for each zone, and he can provide that information. Councilmember Tolmachoff said there are more residential group homes and more homes that have frequent calls to the fire department. She asked if those types of calls were tracked. Chief Burdick said those calls were tracked by address and they do review that data. He said the assisted living type homes do have a higher call volume, and these calls are usually more serious in nature. Councilmember Tolmachoff asked if he had more detailed information as to what the calls were in the high call areas. Chief Burdick said that information can be provided. Councilmember Tolmachoff said she wished the city had the money to give them everything they wanted. She said public safety is the first responsibility to the citizens. CouncilmemberAldama asked how many employees are on a truck when it goes out to a call. Chief Burdick said they have an/GA with Phoenix and it spells out staffing requirements and it does say they have four people on a truck. He asked for clarification on the word consolidate used by CouncilmemberAldama. Councilmember Aldama asked what the results would be if they were to remove one firefighter from the truck and if it would affect national standards. Chief Burdick said the four person trucks are a staffing level that has been maintained for many years. He explained studies have shown that is an effective way to provide the service. He said previously, they would send two trucks, and six firefighters on every call. To be more efficient, they consolidated that to four firefighters on one truck. He spoke about a study about emergency medical services and the most efficient way to deliver service is through four person staffing. Mayor Weiers asked what is the percentage of medical and fire calls. Chief Burdick said 85 percent of the calls are medical calls and 15 percent are fire and other. Councilmember Tolmachoff asked if Chandler was part of the automatic aid system. Chief Burdick said yes. Councilmember Tolmachoff asked about the two person response units, and asked if it is allowed under the automatic aid agreement. Chief Burdick said it was allowed and said the fire chief can make a decision on how to deploy personnel. He explained that the Chandler station where they were running two City of Glendale Page 10 Printed on 6/2/2015 City Council Workshop Meeting Minutes -Final April 21,2015 person trucks had a very low call volume compared to Glendale fire stations. He said with the very large call volume, that model doesn't work as well. He said they might be able to do something like that in the future. Mayor Weiers said Mesa has been doing something like that, and suggested adding a two person medical unit to respond to the medical calls since there is so many medical calls. Chief Burdick said that can be done. He would like to add two additional four person units, which are engines assigned during peak times. He explained the reasoning and methodology behind adding trucks and personnel. Mayor Weiers said his point was not to make it a permanent situation, but use it as a stepping stone until the economy recovers and other options are available to the city. He asked if that could be a stepping stone. Chief Burdick said he would never refuse help and they would look at any available resources. He said they are making Council aware of what they have now so they can address this in the future. Mayor Weiers said they are not asking to cut anything out of the proposed budget. He said the answer is a better economy. Councilmember Turner said the data was focused on call volume. He asked Chief Burdick to discuss impacts on response time. Chief Burdick said the national response time benchmark is 6 minutes and 30 seconds and Glendale's response time is 8 minutes and 11 seconds on 90 percent of calls. Councilmember Sherwood said response times are high and asked for an example on a drowning. He asked if 8 minutes 11 seconds is an acceptable response time. He asked per the standard the Fire Department is accredited to, what is fire's desired response time. Chief Burdick said accreditation has a benchmark of 5 minutes 12 seconds. Councilmember Sherwood asked if they have ever met that benchmark. Chief Burdick said no. Councilmember Sherwood asked what a good standard would be for the city. Chief Burdick said they always strive for national fire protection benchmark which is 6 minutes 30 seconds. Councilmember Sherwood asked what peril are they putting the citizens in by responding at the 8 minute time frame. Chief Burdick discussed the American Heart Association standard of brain death occurs in 4 to 6 minutes. He said they want to get there before 6 minutes. He said that is achievable through additional resources which they work towards. He also talked about the difference between dispatch, turnout and travel time. Councilmember Sherwood said most of the time they are not coming close to a 6 minute City of Glendale Page 11 Printed on 6/2/2015 City Council Workshop Meeting Minutes -Final April 21,2015 30 second response time. Chief Burdick said yes. Councilmember Sherwood asked if there was a standard where automatic aid would come to the rescue. Chief Burdick said the city's response times have remained about the same from 2010 to 2014. He said response times are not getting any worse, and because of the volume, other trucks are coming in to assist. Councilmember Sherwood said they are taxing the automatic aid system. Chief Burdick said the agreement is for sharing resources and they don't count calls. He said response times are not getting any worse, so the system is supporting that. He would not like to see if getting any worse. Councilmember Sherwood asked about Station 154 and the amount of calls going to Phoenix. Chief Burdick said they go out of Glendale about 6,000 times a year and automatic aid comes into the about 4,000 times a year. Other cities have greater distances to cover. Councilmember Sherwood asked about overtime and burnout. Chief Burdick said the fire department is not seeking overtime. He said they are getting closer to forced overtime. Staff is looking for relief from that and it does lead to some burnout. He said the economy has made the department unable to get ahead of these problems. Councilmember Sherwood asked about the 8 minute response time and how it affects patient care. He said he would have thought response times would have gone up with the increase in incidents. Chief Burdick said Phoenix and Peoria have added stations close to Glendale and that has been to Glendale's benefit. He also said the relocated ladder 159 to also try and address some of those issues. Councilmember Sherwood said they understand the importance of public safety and the desire to get to a 25 percent fund balance to stabilize the city. He said he doesn't see how they can hit the 25 percent fund balance and is concerned about public safety if they don't start funding some of this stuff now. He is concerned with burnout and the call volume continuing to go up. Councilmember Tolmachoff asked about CON and service. Chief Burdick said if they are able to obtain the CON and get into the business of transporting critical calls that provides additional resources to the department. They would also be able to transfer calls more easily. Councilmember Tolmachoff asked about a two person response unit only for advanced life support. Chief Burdick explained Tucson Fire has done this for many years and it provides the City of Glendale Page 12 Printed on 6/2/2015 City Council Workshop Meeting Minutes -Final April 21,2015 department some relief, as well as additional units in the system that can handle emergency calls. Councilmember Chavira spoke about the CON and how units can get back in service more quickly. Chief Burdick explained how the system works now when a paramedic has to ride in the ambulance, which keeps trucks out of service longer. Councilmember Turner asked what percentage of the calls they answer at the national standard of 6 minutes 30 seconds. Chief Burdick said they can provide that information to Council but he didn't have it with him. Mayor Weiers said when a fire call comes in;the firefighters seem to have a different energy about them. He asked how many times they go on calls which do not require a major response and how many times they go on life threatening emergencies. Chief Burdick said the dispatch system has been changed and they can only go by what the dispatcher tells them. They may go on a call that appears to be minor, but is in fact very serious. Mayor Weiers asked about the response times for non-emergency calls. Chief Burdick said the 90 percent response time is for emergency calls. Mayor Weiers asked if the responses are only Glendale firefighters. Chief DeChant said they are only Glendale unit responses. Councilmember Chavira said he wants the best for the citizens in Glendale. He asked Council to take another look to see if they can do something. Councilmember Aldama thanked Councilmember Chavira for sharing his passion for his job. He said the financial pie can only be cut up so many times. He said they need to start working on a comprehensive plan that funds both police and fire. He wants to exceed the standards of the neighboring cities. He supports public safety and they need to come up with a comprehensive plan. CITY MANAGER'S REPORT Acting City Manager Bowers had nothing to report. CITY ATTORNEY'S REPORT City Attorney Bailey had nothing to report. COUNCIL ITEMS OF SPECIAL INTEREST Councilmember Chavira said Councilmember Aldama is having a fishing event at Bonsall Park. He said everyone is welcome to this event. Councilmember Tolmachoff asked to look at providing a resolution to address a transfer to the enterprise fund as part of the budget process every year. City of Glendale Page 13 Printed on 6/2/2015 City Council Workshop Meeting Minutes -Final April 21,2015 Councilmember Turner said they need to start thinking strategically down the road about the budget cycles upcoming. Mayor Weiers agreed and pointed out what has been done to get the city headed in the right direction. He said the bond refinance timing was unbelievable. He said the taxpayers saved a lot of money. He said they all think public safety is a priority. EXECUTIVE SESSION The City Council moved into Executive Session at 4:15 p.m. City of Glendale Page 14 Printed on 6/2/2015