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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes - Minutes - City Council - Meeting Date: 3/14/2023City of Glendale 5850 West Glendale Avenue Glendale, AZ 85301 COk &7 Glendale A R I Z O N A Meeting Minutes Tuesday, March 14, 2023 12:30 P.M. Workshop Meeting Council Chambers City Council Mayor Jerry Weiers Vice Mayor Joyce Clark Councilmember Jamie Aldama Councilmember Ian Hugh Councilmember Ray Malnar Councilmember Lauren Tolmachoff Councilmember Bart Turner CALL TO ORDER Mayor Weiers called the meeting to order at 12:30 p.m. ROLL CALL Present: Mayor Jerry Weiers Vice Mayor Joyce Clark Councilmember Jamie Aldama Councilmember Ian Hugh Councilmember Lauren Tolmachoff Councilmember Bart Turner Absent: Councilmember Ray Malnar Also Present: Kevin Phelps, City Manager Jim Gruber, Deputy City Attorney Julie K. Bower, City Clerk Councilmember Malnar arrived at 12:31 p.m. WORKSHOP SESSION 1. FIRE DEPARTMENT UPDATE Presented by: Ryan Freeburg, Fire Chief Ms. Bower read the item by title. Chief Freeburg provided an update on his first 150 days with the Glendale Fire Department. Councilmember Aldama asked for an explanation of the term 'collapsed'. Chief Freeburg said Emergency Medical Services (EMS) and Training and Development had Deputy Chiefs who were doing both functions. One of the Deputy Chief positions in EMS was collapsed into a function of Training and Development. Another Deputy Chief was re -classed into an Assistant Chief. Councilmember Aldama asked if the person whose function was collapsed took on the role of two people. Chief Freeburg said that was correct. Councilmember Aldama asked about the full-time employee that was collapsed and if there was a vacancy. Chief Freeburg said there was no vacancy, and the staff member was reassigned within the organization. Councilmember Turner asked if the term 'assets' included stations and equipment. Chief Freeburg said that was correct. Councilmember Turner asked if assets included personnel in the automatic aid system. City Council Meeting Minutes - March 14, 2023 Page 2 of 5 Chief Freeburg said that was correct. Councilmember Tolmachoff asked about the greater fire response times and if the difference from the goal was attributed to density and traffic. Chief Freeburg said the challenge to reach the goal was density. Glendale was in the 90th percentile for response times. Councilmember Aldama asked how fatigue and turnover was managed for stations that had a higher volume of calls. Chief Freeburg said there was opportunity to use leave time, Kelly days, and MOU items within the City's benefit packages. There was opportunity to bring more service to more hours of the day and provide more assets to distribute the workload. Councilmember Aldama asked if stations were only able to handle the call volume with mandatory overtime. Chief Freeburg said needs were met between personnel assigned and overtime appropriations. Councilmember Aldama asked if staffing was actively addressed in regard to call volume or if the current staffing was sufficient. Chief Freeburg said research was being done to find the best use of resources provided by the City and requests would be brought to Council via budget supplementals. Councilmember Tolmachoff asked if any other stations went out to Daisy Mountain other than Station 156. Chief Freeburg said Daisy Mountain would look at units closest to it, including other cities. The Glendale unit could provide additional support for a neighboring city. Mayor Weiers said the Low Acuity (LA) and the Medical Response Units (MRU) were a reliever for some of the issues experienced and it was his understanding the units were successful. Chief Freeburg said that was correct. Mayor Weiers asked if there was a possibility of adding more units, by way of more trucks and more people. Chief Freeburg said the item was informational, and he was not bringing anything forward for consensus, Any requests would be channeled through the budgetary process. Councilmember Tolmachoff asked if all the MRUs were deployed. Chief Freeburg said all units were deployed and were meeting service requirements as requested. Councilmember Aldama asked if current staffing was sufficient. Chief Freeburg said there was a reliance on overtime as a solution, which could cause City Council Meeting Minutes - March 14, 2023 Page 3 of 5 fatigue. He was researching other options and would bring them forward as a supplemental during the budget process. The assets provided could be deployed more efficiently than what he had observed. There was an opportunity to serve the public that matched the data for peak time and time of day. Councilmember Aldama if there were sufficient units to handle the call volume. Chief Freeburg said with the assets provided, the department was responding to calls. He would continue to review the data. Councilmember Turner noted the high number of calls at 55th Avenue and Thunderbird. He asked if there was an impact due to the hospital. Chief Freeburg said the impact was due to demographics, density, and infill, not the hospital. There were traditionally businesses of cognitive care located around hospitals. Councilmember Turner asked if there could be a diagram for how much time the units were available for a call, not out on a call, and if there was a target for it. Chief Freeburg said it was traditional benchmarking out of the standard of coverage, which was another level of detail he would provide. Vice Mayor Clark said the areas with the most call volumes were historically the densest areas of the City. She said many people in zip code 85301 did not have access to preventative care. There could be a certain mindset to rely on the Fire Department to do things it typically should not be doing. Councilmember Tolmachoff asked if the commitment to fire station activities of thirty minutes per call included travel time to and from the station. Chief Freeburg said that was traditionally correct in an automatic aid system in a metro area. It would take another level of data dive to determine what was being done on the call and the availability and reliability. Once a team was heading back from a call, it would be able to go back into service and go from call to call. Councilmember Turner asked about a potential station at Glen Harbor near the Airport. He said the forecast indicated that a station that far west would still not achieve a four -minute response time to Westgate, the arena, or the stadium. Chief Freeburg agreed and said it was a starting point regarding feasibility. CITY MANAGER'S REPORT Mr. Phelps said there would be a community open house on the evening of March 15th for the Downtown Campus Reinvestment Project. There would be three open houses held simultaneously at three different locations: Heroes Park, Foothills Aquatic Center, and City Hall. There would also be a public open house on March 29th regarding Murphy Park. Feedback would be provided to Council at the next Workshop. CITY ATTORNEY'S REPORT No report City Council Meeting Minutes - March 14, 2023 Page 4 of 5 COUNCIL ITEMS OF SPECIAL INTEREST Councilmember Turner requested a topic of adopting a ban on housing discrimination based on source of income. The issue was discrimination against potential tenants because the source of income might be from local assistance. EXECUTIVE SESSION An executive session was not held. 8. ADJOURNMENT Mayor Weiers adjourned the meeting at 1:38 p.m. I hereby certify that the foregoing minutes are a true and correct copy of the minutes of the meeting of the Glendale City Council of Glendale, Arizona, held on the 14th day of March, 2023. 1 further certify that the meeting was duly called and held and that a quorum was present. Dated this 5th day of April, 2023. Bower, MMC, City Clerk City Council Meeting Minutes - March 14, 2023 Page 5 of 5