ALBEMARLE COUNTY FIRE/EMS BOARD

FEMS BOARD MEETING

COUNTY OFFICE BUILDING, MCINTIRE ROAD – ROOM 241 WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 28, 2019 – 1800 HOURS

A meeting of the Albemarle County Fire/EMS Board was held on Wednesday, July 24, 2019, at 1800 hours in Room 241 of the County Office Building, Stagecoach Road, Charlottesville, Virginia.

The following members were in attendance: Dan Eggleston, Albemarle County Fire Rescue Noah Hillstrom, Charlottesville Albemarle Rescue Squad Larry Devault, Crozet Volunteer Fire Department George Stephens, North Garden Volunteer Fire Company Mike Grandstaff, Scottsville Volunteer Fire Department Brian Kester, Seminole Trail Volunteer Fire Department Greg Frazier, Stony Point Volunteer Fire Department Kostas Alibertis, Western Albemarle Rescue Squad

Others in Attendance: Kim Brown, Albemarle County Fire Rescue Chuck Pugh, North Garden Volunteer Fire Company Heather Childress, Albemarle County Fire Rescue Scott Lambert, Albemarle County Fire Rescue Alyssa Mezzoni, Albemarle County Fire Rescue Howard Lagomarsino, Albemarle County Fire Rescue Chip Walker, Albemarle County Fire Rescue David Puckett, Albemarle County Fire Rescue Will Schmetzler, Charlottesville Volunteer Fire Department

I. Call to Order Chief Alibertis called the meeting to order at 1800 hrs.

A. Moment of Silence Attendees observed a moment of silence.

B. From the Board: Matters not Listed on the Agenda

i. Update from Chiefs – matters of importance from stations There were none provided.

ii. Addition of Agenda Items Chief Stephens and Chief Childress said they had items to add

C. From the Public: Matters not Listed on the Agenda

There were none presented.

II. Work Session There was no work session held.

III. Consent Agenda

A. July 2019 Minutes MOTION: Chief Stephens moved to approve the Consent Agenda as presented. Chief Hillstrom seconded the motion, which passed unanimously (7-0).

IV. Committee updates A. Executive Committee Chief Alibertis stated that the EC minutes were included as an attachment, and they had talked about strategic planning, with Chief Grayson and Nelsie Burch present at that meeting. He commented that it seemed like a very positive meeting.

B. Training Committee A report was provided.

C. Operations Committee An attachment was provided.

D. Recruitment & Retention An attachment was provided.

E. Quartermaster There was no meeting.

F. Apparatus Committee There was no meeting.

V. Unfinished Business A. Station Alerting Chief Puckett reported that the CAD integration contract would soon be finalized, and he was working to finalize the station design by the end of August and would be sending it out to the stations for a final review. He said that he was hoping for an October 1 purchase order, with an estimated November start date for installations and completion by April 2020. He noted that the installations included 7-10 days at each station.

Chief Puckett reported that he had discussed the project management with Facilities and Environmental Services (FES) because the project covers IT, facilities, Fire/Rescue, and individual agencies. He said that once they move into the installation phase, FES would take over the project management. He stated that they have discussed having a preconstruction meeting that would include contractors, FES, and Fire/Rescue — with a high-level overview of the project and clarity on points of contact.

Chief Puckett explained that as they come out to each site, they do an onsite meeting for each station, to include the contractors, FES, Fire/Rescue, and points of contact for individual stations. He said that stations would have an opportunity to answer questions, as well as providing direction on where devices should be placed. He noted that if they did not already have a clearly defined station contact, they should let him know so there would be someone present who is empowered to make decisions.

Chief Puckett explained that the station alerting is a quasi-part of the response mechanism, so the equipment itself will remain County property and be maintained and be supported through the County and then through the vendors. He said that each station would be able to access the administrative setup, with options for standard setup — such as the doorbell message or color indicator lights — but other areas may be managed within the station.

Chief Puckett said that installers would go in and install everything, with as much in-wall installation as possible but may have to run a conduit on the outside of a wall if there isn’t an inside option. He stated that any touch-up such as conduit did not have to be painted, but the stations could do that individually, as would removal of any old devices.

Chief Puckett explained that each station would get 24 licenses for their app, which is similar to an active-911 but there is also audio of the dispatch; additional licenses are available at the station’s expense, and that may have to be managed through the maintenance and support contract on the back side.

Chief Puckett stated that one item they had to figure out was the network connection to each station, which requires CAD integration and high reliability within that. He said they settled on a “cradle point,” which is similar to what’s found on some field apparatus. He said that there would likely be questions or concerns about the integration of the two networks — but this network can remain separate from a station’s network. He noted that the cradle points allow for wired and wireless, and this has already been tested at each station from a cellular capacity with both Verizon and AT&T.

Chief Puckett stated that they recommend using both a wired and cellular connection as a redundant backup, but they may initially go cellular only, with a second DSL line installed and managed by the County to offer a wired connection. He said that if there were issues with the DSL, router, or ATX controller, County IT would troubleshoot those problems. He said that they wouldn’t start off with that, and he would like to know if any stations were opposed to that idea. He added that cellular data acted as a redundancy to pick up the information, and there was a third redundancy with two-tone paging that provides a station alert (but not any data).

Chief Puckett explained that dispatch voice automation, known as “Samantha,” was used in other localities and had positive feedback. He said that one of the goals was to decrease the amount of time it took to dispatch calls; ensure personnel got the dispatch information as soon as possible, regardless of how that is provided; and ensuring

consistent volume, speed, and pronunciation in dispatches. He noted that Samantha would provide the alerts in the station in the app as a default, and ACFR was currently working with ECC and CFD to use the system over the air – and that could be heard on the 800 MHz channel now. He added that this would require splitting out the 800 MHz and the UHF, which currently all goes out together. He noted that this would ensure that the information still goes out, but you don’t have to listen to 10-20 seconds of tones, so there is just an alert tone that goes straight into call information. He said that on the UHF side, they need to program in a slight delay so the tone can go through before the information.

Chief Puckett stated that there were still parameters to work through beyond the concept, and some of that got fairly technical. He added that CFD and others in the region were also part of this, so there would need to be streamlining. He noted that this would be the last phase of the project, which would likely take place in spring of 2020.

Chief Eggleston asked if it was possible that units might start marking up before the tones are finished in the UHF part.

Chief Puckett responded that it would be on the response side, not the dispatch side.

Chief Puckett explained that currently, a dispatcher opens the dispatch, looks at the call, then hits dispatch, which triggers the alerting procedure — but before they can announce anything, they have to wait on radio traffic to be open on the dispatch channel. He said with the new protocol, the dispatcher can dispatch numerous calls, and the system monitors radio traffic, knows when there’s free airtime, and puts out the next dispatch.

Chief Puckett added that the system was intuitive enough to monitor the amount of calls pending, and in crisis times such as stormy weather, it can be set up with an alert tone, short dispatch information, then a repeat of the tone but with longer information. He said that it can also be configured so that once the threshold gets to this level with so many calls, it will shorten that and truncate it, and you only get the information once.

Chief Puckett commented that he did not find any localities that were displeased with the system.

Chief Kester asked if Active 911 would still work with this

Chief Puckett replied that there shouldn’t be any change in that.

B. EMS Inspection Chief Puckett reported that this was the first year in which applications had moved to the online portal, and information could be updated directly into that – with files such as insurance forms able to be uploaded. He said that he found the portal navigation to be challenging, and asked that stations contact him if they encountered problems. He

noted that if stations didn’t upload materials in advance, the inspections could take longer.

Chief Puckett said that the inspections were targeted for the weeks of October 14th and October 21st, with specific dates to follow.

Chief Alibertis commented that it would be helpful to get the information out sooner since more was required now.

Chief Puckett stated that there was a new EMS agency license signature page, which is a one-page document in which the agency signs off, OMB signs off, and the locality signs off. He said that he would print off one for every agency and put the agency name in it; when they get the exception reports run, they will be taken to the County Executive’s Office for review and signature – which would mean they would only be asked once to review it instead of repeatedly.

Chief Puckett reported that once the Board adopts the performance objectives, which are used for the Office of EMS as well, they can do a countywide emergency response plan. He said that the original plan was written very broadly, with coverage maps, stations, career versus volunteer staff, etc. – and he could share that to preclude each station from having to keep their own individual plans updated. He noted that the performance objectives had to match the Board-adopted performance measures.

Chief Puckett said that with the exceptions report, looking at response times in a very specific area for one station did not see to match up to standards of cover. He said that they have run a response time report that is countywide and has all the exceptions of development versus rural areas, with a station-specific turnout time report. He noted that Chief Walker said that was acceptable as long as the stations signed off on it, so that was how they were planning to proceed – with reports and data provided over the next few weeks.

Chief Puckett stated that he was shooting to have all the reports done by September 16th, with the County Executive’s Office having the signature page to pick up. He confirmed that he could send some documents such as insurance copies out by email, which he would do in advance. He said that he was using the Albemarle County Code Chapter 7 ordinance that combines all the agencies, which he could distribute as a PDF.

Chief Grandstaff mentioned that they would also need the call and 911 data.

Chief Puckett responded that Ms. Mezzoni was working on that and should be finished shortly.

Chief Stephens suggested that items that were common across all agencies be put out in a package to make the process easier and more consistent.

Chief Alibertis asked Chief Walker to comment on the FCC radio license question.

Chief Walker responded that he would like for stations to have a binder with the current FCC license, including a written authorization to use it if necessary, and it may well be available from the last inspection. He clarified that the primary thing he was looking for was the owner if the station was not the owner of the frequency.

Chief Alibertis asked that the packet information be sent out as soon as possible.

Chief Walker stated that his office had developed a “how to” document to help people navigate the online inspection portal, and inspection times have ranged from 1.5 hours to 8 hours.

Chief Childress said that she would be glad to help, as she had done inspections in Lynchburg.

Chief Walker noted that the inspections have generally been better, with five of the documents uploaded ahead of time, and the plan is for all of it to eventually be online.

C. Strategic Planning Chief Eggleston reported that Nelsie Burch’s team did a substantial review on a tech assessment, a comprehensive review of the County’s technology to determine areas of efficiency. He said that Ms. Burch also had significant experience with strategic planning, and Chief Greg Grayson, a retired chief and current volunteer in North Carolina, was also present.

Chief Eggleston reported that Ms. Burch and Chief Grayson had made a broad presentation to the Executive Committee on their process for strategic planning, and they sent a draft proposal of the process to ACFR that would be shared with the EC at their next meeting — followed by a presentation to the full FEMS Board. He commented that it would be similar to other strategic planning processes where there was a series of interviews and stakeholder groups along the way.

Chief Alibertis mentioned that the EC had emphasized to them the importance of having the FEMS Board meet as a group.

Chief Eggleston noted that they had also indicated there could be a representative from every department, along with the FEMS Board itself.

VI. New Business A. ACFR Organizational Restructure – Alignment of Personnel & Workload Chief Oprandy reported that ACFR was contemplating an organizational restructuring, with an effort to achieve efficiency and effectiveness as much as possible, reorganizing work and people in the organization, better distribution of work among the deputy chiefs – of which there were now three. He said that the County was undergoing a lot of high-

performing organization (HPO) work, so ACFR was hoping to align with that, and they were also looking at business operating principles to ensure it was aligned, with an eye toward the future.

Chief Oprandy stated that the process actually began in the fall of 2018, when several chiefs met with Chief Tom Labelle and shared their input on the deputy chief role and what could be structured differently. He said they hired a Division Chief of Volunteer Services, looked at forming a steering committee, and getting some input on how they could structure the departments – with most of the work done within the organization. He explained that this has been presented to ACFR staff, field staff, and the Operations Committee – with three different recommendations of choices of how they could approach this and restructure.

Chief Oprandy said that several of the things that emerged from the meeting with Chief LaBelle were that the Division Chief of Volunteer Services was overwhelmed with tasks and projects, partly because when that position was hired, more things where shifted there than originally intended – so they want to balance that workload. He said that they want to align the restructuring with those findings, and the deputy chiefs should all be advocates for the volunteer system and not just one person.

Chief Oprandy stated that there was also feedback from field and office staff that there was a disconnect of communication between them, which has been discussed before. He said that there was also feedback regarding duplication of efforts and the need for a more effective decision-making process, as well as clearer priorities and accountability, along with the responsiveness of the ACFR office.

Chief Oprandy said that the strategy is to redistribute the work among all three division chiefs and distribute the staff, with the bulk of them falling under the Operations Deputy – and nine staff moved under Volunteer Services, but they would be bringing a lot of existing work with them and this would not create additional capacity. He stated that other priorities include equitable distribution of projects issued between career and volunteer staff, and aligning the deputy chiefs to support all the FEMS committees.

Chief Oprandy explained that they categorized the work before assigning deputy chiefs – with one being over volunteer and career operations, including logistics such as the quartermaster, facilities, and apparatus role. He said that this could also be either operations or administrative. He said that the volunteer services chief would be a main point of contact, but there would also be volunteer and career training, health and safety to include medical physicals, flu shots – most of which were personnel-related tasks. He stated that the third chief would cover prevention and fire marshal’s office, emergency management, volunteer and career administration – and could function as a chief of staff to coordinate among all deputies, as well as handling budget and finance.

Chief Oprandy stated that they were trying to meet specific goals, and the personalities could change either from reassignment, retirement, departures, etc. – so the primary focus was on structure and not personnel. He emphasized that there would be reactions

to any change, which needed to be acknowledged, but any assignments they made would be done with a lot of thought and communication.

He presented the three suggested alternatives:

Three deputy chiefs, with all staff – including ACFR volunteer staff and career staff – under the operations chief, who would also coordinate the FEMS Operation Committee. The second chief would cover the human resources and personnel matters, who would coordinate a lot of volunteer and administrative activities; there is currently a part-time fire/rescue assistant, and there would be a human resources person; and the training division had six EMTs who would be assigned under the volunteer and administrative chief. The third deputy chief would handle risk reduction, emergency management activities, community engagement and PIO, and possibly logistics. The chief of staff is a civilian position.

Without a chief of staff, the administrative functions would be brought under the third deputy chief, and IT and community engagement would stay there.

Logistics would come under the operations deputy chief, and the chief of staff position would remain.

Chief Oprandy presented the overarching question for feedback: which option best serves residents, visitors, and customers – and what option would bring the most advantages and the most challenges.

Chief Stephens said that he had thought that in the earlier portion of the presentation, Logistics had been shown as one of the options under the second Deputy Chief.

Chief Oprandy replied that it was not.

Chief Grandstaff noted that on the current organizational chart, the FEMS Board was shown to the right. He asked where the FEMS Board would fall in the new organization.

Chief Oprandy replied that something very similar to this would be done.

Chief Puckett said that in the illustration, as Chief Oprandy had mentioned, Group 1 knows which committees under which Deputy Chief are responsible for the FEMS Board.

Chief Alibertis noted that this was by ordinance.

Chief Eggleston noted that this wouldn’t change. He likened the scenario to a retirement account that over time becomes unbalanced. He said this was a way to try to balance out responsibilities to be more effective and efficient and try to provide for some commonality among the divisions as much as possible.

Chief Grandstaff asked who would be doing Operations and asked if the Chief Oprandy could handle both Operations and Logistics, or if Logistics would need to move elsewhere.

Chief Oprandy replied that currently, he is fine with this, and that there are factors that may come into or leave Operations. He said this could be difficult to do initially and that they will have to figure out what this will feel like in the future. He said to some degree, if he bases the situation on what he does currently, many of the human resources tasks will leave and although there aren’t many people handling it, it involves a lot of processes. He said this would help to a degree. He said that Logistics is in support of Operations and perhaps if it is supporting, it may not matter where it falls in the organizational chart.

Chief Grandstaff said that it makes sense to place it under Operations, due to dealings with apparatus.

Chief Stephens said that his concern lies in the priorities. He described an example in which one Chief (for Logistics) sees apparatus as a major priority from an Operations standpoint, but that for Deputy Chief 3, it may be a lesser priority because for him, community risk reduction may be what the community is pressing him for. He encouraged the board to look at the aspect of competing priorities and potential conflict.

Chief Eggleston remarked that this may be the reason why the other version of the organization had Logistics falling under Operations as Logistics’ biggest customer is Operations.

Chief Grandstaff agreed.

Chief Puckett said that an earlier slide described Deputy Chief 2 being the primary point of contact. He noted that, based on earlier discussion, this would not be the primary point of contact for everything but that this would stay within disciplines. He said for Operations, Deputy Chief 1 would be contacted and that for human resource issues, it would be Deputy Chief 2. He said, however, if someone doesn’t know who to contact or if their inquiry is in regard to agency support, the point of contact would fall back to Deputy Chief 2. He said they wouldn’t necessarily want to purposely system where one Deputy Chief is called that one knows will reroute them across the hall.

Chief Grandstaff said that he and Chief Alibertis agreed that if it’s an Operations issue, Chief Oprandy would be called, but some people may call the Volunteer Services chief.

Chief Puckett acknowledged that many things were being duplicated and that the new organization would solve some of the issues.

Chief Alibertis asked how to provide Chief 2’s responsibilities between career recruiting and volunteer recruiting.

Chief Oprandy replied that career recruiting and hiring is being handled now by one of the Deputy Chiefs and that that chief would be moved over under Deputy Chief 2. He said they would still do these activities and that the activities would be coordinated by Deputy Chief 2. He noted that that Deputy Chief would continue to work on volunteer recruitment, working directly with the FEMS Recruitment and Retention Committee.

Chief Oprandy continued that they do not want to ignore the perception or concern that this Deputy Chief’s job is being watered down related to volunteer interaction. He said this would be balanced out by providing some staff, and the staff would have other responsibilities. He said the staff would be responsible for volunteer and career, and that if the chief is responsible for very similar (but different) activities, it will achieve some efficiencies. He said they would still work directly with the Recruitment and Retention Committee on the volunteer recruitment aspect. He urged the board to voice their concerns about this.

Chief DeVault asked which alternative Chief Oprandy felt was the best balanced.

Chief Oprandy asked in what way did he mean “best balanced.”

Chief DeVault responded that he meant in regard to workload and responsibility.

Chief Oprandy replied that in terms of balancing numbers of people, Logistics moving over to Deputy Chief 3 spreads the workload more thinly. He said some of the same discussions were had amongst his group as far as whether this makes sense, given the customer base, and he thought that priority was a good way to describe this attribute. He said he felt it could still be accomplished but that this was something to consider.

Chief Oprandy indicated to an option that spreads out the personnel the most.

Chief Grandstaff asked if money was currently in the budget for future staff.

Chief Oprandy said this was a great question for two reasons: that this would not be a new position but an existing Deputy, and that two half-time positions would be combined into either a Volunteer Administration Assistant or Human Resource Specialist to take on some of the additional work. He said no new positions are being requested, but that a half-time position would be created into a full-time one. He said this would involve a negligible amount of money.

Chief Oprandy noted that there will not be a tremendous amount of capacity achieved from this because there are no new personnel and still the same number of people doing the work, but that there would be efficiency gained as well as control over discretionary projects. He said if the Deputy Chief has a group of staff, they would have the capability to accomplish some projects.

Chief Alibertis asked to see the slides again. He asked if there was any reason why committees had not been assigned to 1, 2, and 3.

Chief Oprandy replied that this was done to keep the personalities out.

Chief Stephens noted that there is one that should be named because an interview process was conducted to select that chief. He said if a name is not applied there, their work early on was wasted.

Chief Eggleston said that this issue came up during a staff meeting and noted that this was an incremental change. He said he didn’t see any of the positions changing and that Chief Puckett would still be under Operations, and that Chief Childress would likely move over soon to the same role she has now but with expanded Human Resources tasks. He noted to Chief Oprandy that the Community Risk Reduction Committee should perhaps be called Community Resilience.

Chief Eggleston addressed the uptick in the number of Human Resource issues that F&R is dealing with, particularly doing a better job of onboarding people. He said this was a process that was normally done by the F&R assistant (formerly Patrick) and that there was a desire to formalize this process and focus more on Human Resources. He said he was comfortable with those positions staying as is. He noted that in the future, for the development of the people in those positions, they would likely consider a rotation, but that this was not on the immediate horizon. He said he would want to provide experience to rotate Deputies at different levels in the future.

Chief Stephens asked, hypothetically, about grants, noting that there is a lot of time and effort spent on them and that those responsibilities are sprinkled around. He asked what this would look like, as he could see someone getting wrapped up in a lot of effort towards grants.

Chief Eggleston replied that at this point, grants are handled by Ms. Mezzoni, but if F&R was to apply for another grant, it would require everyone’s input. He said that to apply for and manage the grants would still fall under the Chief of Staff.

Chief Stephens added that there are grants available that may be more applicable to volunteers that have less support, which is different for a system-level grants which is many times being put forth.

Chief Eggleston said it could be grants specific to Operations and that once the division focuses on the grant, it will be up to F&R collectively to apply and manage it. He said, for instance, that Chief Lagomarsino received a couple federal grants for prevention, which were collectively put together and that Ms. Mezzoni had the final say on it and oversees the application of the awarded grant to ensure compliance.

Chief Alibertis asked if the difference between Options 1 and 3 was the move of Logistics.

Chief Oprandy replied affirmatively.

Chief Alibertis asked if there is a Chief of Staff budget, how do they interface with someone who comes to the Chief’s budgets. He asked if this person goes through Chief Childress, Ms. Mezzoni, or both.

Chief Eggleston said this was a good question and that he did not know.

Chief Oprandy said this would change a lot.

Chief Childress said they did not anticipate any change in this process whatsoever.

Chief Alibertis said he was asking and that he did not have an opinion about it. He asked if this becomes the sole responsibility of one person.

Chief Oprandy replied that because Chief Childress would still be handling budget and finance activities, she would still coordinate this with the Chiefs directly.

Chief Eggleston said that the majority of this was handled by OMB the prior year.

Ms. Mezzoni responded no, that it was handled by her department. She said they have taken over the majority of the interaction. She said OMB still needs the final recommendations for the County Executive’s budget but that her group serves at the intermediary.

Chief Eggleston remarked that this seems to be working well.

Chief Alibertis said his question was about if the new organizational structure was perhaps taking some of the tasks from Chief Childress and assigning them to Ms. Mezzoni, or if this would still be shared responsibilities.

Ms. Mezzoni replied that the budget would still fall under her. She explained that Chief Childress had been involved that year.

Chief Oprandy said that through the process, there was a question about training funds and if this goes to Deputy Chief 2 or to Operations. He asked if it should go to the subject matter expert to obtain background information to support the budget.

Chief Alibertis asked if Chief Oprandy was looking for a recommendation from the board.

Chief Oprandy replied that he didn’t necessarily expect a recommendation so much as feedback. He said the board could state immediately if they have particular answers to those questions, and as far as which is the hard option and why, as he wished to hear that feedback. He asked if everyone felt collectively strong about an option.

Chief Alibertis asked if the Chiefs wanted to think about it.

Chief Oprandy said the structure options could be sent out.

Chief Grandstaff suggested it could be valuable for everyone to take the time to answer the questions and review.

Chief Alibertis said that unless someone wanted to state their opinion, Chief Oprandy could send them out to give everyone time to think it over. He asked if a work session is required, if it could be done in September.

Chief Eggleston responded that they were looking to make a decision before then and that they were looking at any issues with or strong opinions on one option or the other. He urged the chiefs to think about which option would better serve the customers, residents, and the board. He noted he didn’t hear any objections, though there were perhaps some issues around Logistics that were worth considering further.

Chief Grandstaff asked how all the chiefs would benefit from that discussion. He asked that if Chief Oprandy sends out the questions, and every chief sends something back to Chief Oprandy, if a summary would be sent so that he would have the benefit of knowing what the other chiefs’ concerns and questions are.

Chief Oprandy replied that feedback has been collected from the group to make the decision and that this should be made clear as to whether they will collect all the feedback for the chiefs to review and decide upon, or if this was not the case.

Chief Eggleston asked if there was anything in the options that strongly concerned anyone, or if it was simply a matter of making tweaks with Logistics. He said that if anyone felt like one of the options was a great idea, they should discuss it. He said he took it as a good sign that no one had any objections to the options.

Chief Grandstaff said his main concern was that Logistics should stay with Operations, as that is where it lives mostly, and that Chief Stephens had echoed this.

Chief Stephens said this was his concern because of where the priorities lie, in that regard. He said looking across the board, this was the greatest thing that he saw could be a conflict. He said that likewise, it is likely valuable to consider other things and determine what would be accomplished in priorities from one area to the other. He said that Logistics would be the biggest, if it was moved over to Operations.

Chief Alibertis said it would be helpful to know committees that are assigned to those, as it seemed like the only piece that was missing in the proposal.

Chief Oprandy said that they are somewhat self-evident, and that the Operations Committee would fall under Operations. He said that wherever Logistics goes, the Apparatus Committee would follow them, as well as the Master Committee. He said that Deputy Chief 2 has training and recruitment/retention, and Deputy Chief 3 has budget.

Chief Childress asked if Deputy Chief 2 would keep Executive Committee.

Chief Oprandy said Deputy Chief 2 would coordinate the Executive Committee in support of FEMS.

Chief Stephens said that he was more for Logistics being Operations, but asked if this creates an unfair balance between the Deputy Chiefs.

Chief Grandstaff asked for more information about Deputy Chief 2 coordinating the Executive Committee.

Chief Childress replied that this was something that Volunteer Services is currently doing.

Chief Eggleston said they not only support the Executive Committee, but FEMS as well. He noted it was more of a support role.

Chief Grandstaff said he could understand this in regard to FEMS, but that the Executive Committee is by ordinance assigned to the Chief, not to the Deputy Chief. He said he didn’t know what role was seen in this committee.

Chief Oprandy said it would be around the agenda, reminders, and other support tasks and that the Deputy Chief delegates those tasks.

Chief Alibertis asked about job responsibilities and amount of work, and how balance can be achieved.

Chief Eggleston said that what Chief Stephens said is exactly what they have been struggling with – that it makes sense to move Logistics to Operations, as 80% of what they do is in support of Operations, but that this could possibly weight Operations too much and to consider if this was possibly unfair.

Chief Oprandy asked if it would suffice to have the Executive Committee and the FEMS Board assigned elsewhere. He said his thought process was that it would almost be ill-received if it was moved elsewhere.

Chief Grandstaff said he was asking for clarity so that everyone could appreciate that this was another thing.

Chief Oprandy said it could be moved to Deputy Chief 3.

Chief Alibertis said it could even be moved to Chief of Staff or its division.

Chief Oprandy asked if there were any feelings about this, as long as it is coordinated.

Chief Childress said it involved about an hour of work for the Executive Committee every other month, noting it was not much.

Chief Alibertis said it made sense to keep it where it is, but it was the question about the distribution of committees across the Deputies and balance.

Chief Alibertis asked about Health and Safety and what this entails. He said he was trying to figure out how to balance Chief Childress’ role. He asked if any of this could be moved to Deputy Chief 3.

Chief Childress said that the structure did not mean that she was necessarily doing the work, but that she would be supervising.

Chief Alibertis responded that this was still work.

Chief Childress acknowledged that it is, but that it is more fairly distributed.

Chief Alibertis said they were not slimming down the span of her control, because even if she oversees the work, it is still a responsibility.

Chief Eggleston noted that there was a lot of commonality between this work and the Human Resources aspect. He said those two things cross quite a bit.

Chief Oprandy said that it was unrealistic that they would have one person solely committed to Health and Safety and that this person would likely have to perform many tasks during promotional and hiring processes. He said to consider this in regard to moving.

Chief Alibertis asked if this was a new responsibility that was being added to this position, stating that he would have issue with it if it is, as it is already a busy position.

Chief Oprandy replied that it wasn’t necessarily a new position. He said they are already doing physicals, whether they are initial physicals from [inaudible 7:25:18] for career staff, as well as flu shots, fit testing, and other health and safety tasks, adding that these tasks seem to be all over the place. He said this would be assigned to one person and that in the future, they would like to make some progress in Health and Safety and whether or not this could be a reality was too early to tell.

Chief Stephens expressed that there were opportunities to make improvements by grouping some of the tasks together. He said that while he were some opportunities to say that while these things are being made available to career staff, if adjustments are made then volunteers could go, too. He said that grouping some of the tasks and looking at it differently, there are opportunities that could be shared across both sides of the organization.

Chief Eggleston said the intent was to try to align some of the functions as much as possible.

Chief [7:26:42] said that this would need to be run for six months one way and then tweak it from there.

Chief Eggleston said the benefit of this was that if they realize, for instance, that Logistics is not working well under Operations, there is an opportunity to move it. He said there is no transformational change that would cause them to lock into one role.

Chief Alibertis asked if the chiefs could provide their feedback within two weeks.

Chief Oprandy asked what a fair turnaround would be.

Chief Eggleston recommended to provide the feedback by the end of the next week.

Chief Alibertis asked if there were any thoughts.

Chief Eggleston offered that it was a good conversation.

Chief Alibertis said they would aim for providing feedback by the end of the next week.

Chief Oprandy said he would send out the email.

B. OEMS Compliance Reports & Demographic Data

Chief Oprandy said that for those board members who are part of an EMS agency, they receive a quarterly OEMS compliance report. He said there was a change made that requires demographic data to be updated on the state site (Image Trend). He noted that each agency has to do this individually, and there was information sent out by Christina (and sent out again the prior week) because as a dues report, all of the agencies still had not done it. He said it was a specific process that everyone would have to go through, and that there were some directions sent out.

Chief Oprandy said that once everyone does this, they will learn that though they have been completing patient care reports to 100% validity, that validation is done locally on the system and then the reports are uploaded to the state, enabling their own validation. He said it is the same set of rules being used. He said on the state’s validation, the county’s reports are returning 80-90%, so there is a gap.

Chief Oprandy said a couple weeks prior, he was trying to determine why this would happen, as all is being done is downloading and running the report without a different set of rules. He said he determined that the state’s latest copy and the local copy show the same. He figured out that the state used specific rules and determined that the local rules do not all match the state’s rules, even though it indicates it is the same copy.

Chief Oprandy said that Damon is working on this with Image Trend to find out how this could be possible and how it could say that it was uploaded but wasn’t. He said that they haven’t figured out how to fix this yet, but it could be as simple as downloading the rules again and reinstalling them, but before doing this, they need to understand the problem and whether or not this would solve it. He said he would provide the board with more information about this as soon as he has it, and whether they need to go back and fix reports or fix them going forward.

Chief Oprandy said he would contact the state the next day, noting that Chief Alibertis had called him earlier that day asking questions about it and expressed that he had no control over this, as his agency is at the mercy of Albemarle County to keep everything up to date. He said he would like for the state to know this and was willing to send them correspondence that states this and explaining that they are working on it.

Chief Grandstaff said that the main thing he noticed when logging in was the Patient Contact Time. He said arrival is required in their system, but Patient Contact Time is not, which is what was giving the state 80-90% but showing 100% locally.

Chief Oprandy said that this was one of the validation rules that is completely different in the local data than in the state’s, noting that he did not know how this could be.

Chief Grandstaff said the statistical data part is the part they are not compliant on. He said that in his report, he had nothing that wasn’t filled out that was statistical yearly [inaudible].

Chief Oprandy asked if he meant the demographic data.

Chief Grandstaff replied affirmatively.

Chief Oprandy asked if he had fixed it.

Chief Grandstaff said he put something down in the report, and that they would see how the next report come out.

Chief Oprandy explained that there was a way to check whether or not the demographics are up to date on the report, but he may just be thinking about the validation. He acknowledged there was a problem.

Chief Grandstaff said this was sent out every so often.

Chief Oprandy said that they probably thought they had had it fixed but it turns out that it wasn’t. He said there was an odd occurrence where they had a space or period in the field that caused the problem.

Chief Grandstaff said that his still shows inaccurate.

C. Fire Incident Reporting – Outstanding Reports

Chief Oprandy recalled that the Incomplete Incidents Report used to be sent out monthly with all the outstanding reports that hadn’t been completed. He said this has not been done since they moved to Image Trend, and he has been working with Damon to get this reinstituted. He said in this process, he has uncovered some things that need to be changed as well as some possible updates and validation rules changes in the NVRS fire report.

Chief Oprandy said that next month, he should be at a point to be able to unveil what the Incomplete Incidents Report looks like to get the board’s feedback, and then start sending it out in order to catch up. He said there will be changes to the NVRS form that they were using to complete their fire reports.

Chief Oprandy acknowledged that filling out reports is tedious and that he would have some staff meet on September 16 who would be designated to complete the reports. He asked the chiefs who their “report gurus” are and encouraged the chiefs to help change things as they are fixing the other issues in order to get one new version of the report. He said he would send out an email and asked to be thinking about who the chiefs would like to send to this meeting.

Chief Alibertis asked if they make changes to the validation rules, if they would have to review the old reports to update them.

Chief Oprandy said he would insert a date in the validation so that he wrote the rule today, for instance, it would only be applied to alarm time past tomorrow. He said in validation, it already ignores everything from the past.

D. Volunteer Budget Submission

Chief Childress said that the following week, she would send out an email with information about the budget submissions for FY 21. She noted that Ms. Mezzoni would not be able to come into work over the next couple days and would be coordinating with her on the budget submission. She said the budget submissions would be due back to her by October 18, then would be scrubbed and discussed with Finance and OMB. She said when everyone reconvenes, Ms. Mezzoni would be back from maternity leave, as well as Andy from OMB, likely meeting again in December.

E. Volunteer Tax Break – Albemarle County

Chief Childress said work will begin on this in October and that envelopes would be distributed then with the list that was submitted last year. She asked the board members to make whatever corrected they may need and said these are due back by December 31. She said there would be a few reminders about the tax lists are due and that she hasn’t received them, she would be reaching out to get them. She said these would be processed beginning in February.

Chief Stephens asked if these would be in an Excel format rather than a PDF file.

Chief Childress said she would make sure to use an Excel file or something that is easily modifiable.

Chief Childress added an item not on the agenda to address regarding PhoneSoap, which is a device that cleans phones. She said that Ms. Huff inquired about products, which are about $60 each, but she asked about buying in bulk at a discounted rate and the company donated the products to the county, adding that no county money was used. She handed out the devices and explained that it is plugged in and cleans germs off the phone in about 10 minutes. She said that keys can also be put in or anything that is small and is able to fit. She noted that phones are about 10 times dirtier than the average toilet seat. She said this would be one thing to help prevent the spread of germs at the stations.

Chief Stephens said they would be hosting a remembrance service for 9/11, which would be the Sunday before 9/11 on September 8 at 10:30 am at the North Garden station. He invited the board to spread the word and attend. He added that refreshment would be provided afterward.

Chief Alibertis said there were significant issues with the ER entrance and that he and Chief Eggleston had discussed this.

Chief Eggleston said he had a meeting the following week with Tom Dairy, who may not be directly involved but is one of the point of contacts. He said they would be speaking with another person at UVA about this issue, noting that the ER there is cramped.

Chief Puckett said he didn’t know what the final plan was.

Chief Alibertis noted it is there final plan.

Chief Puckett noted that some of the sure lines don’t seem to match up to where the units may be.

Chief Alibertis said that giving five days’ notice was inadequate and that there were certain bullet points that needed to be addressed including the lack of notice, lack of opportunity to see it, and that there are issues with the space being tight.

Chief Eggleston asked how many accidents they have had there.

Chief Alibertis replied there have been four in the past six days. He said he was involved in one that day and that he had a picture of a truck not having pulled all the way in, with the tail end sticking out over the yellow line. He said they went around it to try to avoid the column that is there and clipped the bumper slightly. He said that while

their truck was going through the reporting with the police department, the Medic 5 truck also hit the column.

Chief Alibertis said clearly, there is a design issue and that two ambulances (Culpeper and Valley Health) hit each other on Thursday night. He said there was an incident that occurred with Physician Transport Services over the weekend. He said in a short period of time, there were several incidents and that it doesn’t speak to EMS being the problem, but that there was something there that was problematic. He said UVA will not like it if EMS starts pulling up to the front door. He said, however, that if the space is full and they cannot get in, there isn’t much other choice.

Chief Alibertis added that going in, the CO alarms are also being set off, and that this was another safety issue because UVA’s solution was to turn the trucks off, which was not a viable option. He said that some of the new trucks are designed to turn themselves on and off based on energy [inaudible 7:43:08]. He said that the new design allows the truck to be turned off but to keep running until its met either its temperature or voltage requirement, and then it turns itself off and if this starts to trickle or drop, it will start itself up again with no key in the ignition. He said the idea of turning the truck off doesn’t necessarily work.

Chief Alibertis continued there was concern with the space, and in the summer when the air gets heavier, the engine runs harder, as well as when it’s raining. He said the space is not ventilated very well, and that UVA shortchanged a $50,000 ventilation system.

Chief Eggleston said he wanted to take an opportunity to talk about Station 16, a news bit that was done and everything that followed it. He said the story started long before the news bit came out, noting that Dustin Lang has been working hard to recruit volunteers for that station and made a couple posts on social media that were not as accurate as hoped.

Chief Eggleston said there was an opportunity, once NBC reached out, to do a story on it, acknowledging how these situations have come off the tracks in the past. He said John worked with Madeline (who was the PA working in Communications Division within the county) to put together some talking points and meet with the reporter to accurately describe the story so there is no misrepresentation of what’s going on. He said this has happened before in which stories have come out which weren’t quite correct. He said this time, with John’s help, everything was lined up with NBC and that he felt good about it.

Chief Eggleston said there was an interview in Mr. Lang, [inaudible 7:45:23], and perhaps Chief Oprandy. He said the story came out and was not correct in a number of ways, so Chief Childress worked on this with Madeline and the reporter to correct the story. He said that things picked up on social media and that many people weighed in on it, including the Association, which created another storm. He said he decided not to

wade into the social media war, because nothing good ever comes out of trying to correct things on social media.

Chief Eggleston said he had many conversations with both career staff and volunteer staff on being antagonistic and how this may feel good at the moment, but causes people to go to their own corner and take a position. He expressed there were better ways of trying to address concerns than to correct things on social media. He said he made a conscious decision to let the issue die and talk to people in both in volunteer and career, asking them to calm down. He said that he had a long conversation with Mr. Lang, who was very upset, and encouraged him to calm down and that they would discuss it later.

Chief Eggleston said he had talked with the board about their concerns, one of which is that the comment made by the Association does not necessarily reflect the department’s view, and is even a subset of career staff. He said it may not even reflect the career staff’s view. He said it is their right to use their First Amendment rights to comment, though he didn’t necessarily agree with what they said. He likened this to members within departments making comments.

Chief Eggleston said he discussed this with many people, expressing his intent to work together and when something is done like this, it drives a wedge between everyone. He advised the board to stay away from this and encouraged them to unify rather than divide. He acknowledged that many board members were upset about what had happened, and that he wanted to let them know what he did to try to correct it. He reiterated that he wants to stay away from social media corrections because the topic went off the rails and he did not want to engage with it.

Chief Alibertis acknowledged that sometimes when situations like this arise, social media may not be a good place to engage, but that getting an email out in a controlled fashion to the FEMS Board would be worthwhile because there was a gap of information. He thanked Chief Childress for sending an email on Friday. He said that one of the email received came from a member (not a chief), and perhaps this was a good opportunity to send out correspondence with an update or status, noting that this would personally be valuable to him and possibly other chiefs.

Chief Eggleston agreed and said that in hindsight, the opportunity could have been taken to acknowledge what was happening and that it would be handled the best way possible. He said this request was fair, and that he hadn’t realized at the time how much the story rippled through. He said there are often social media dust-ups over stories, but this one rose to a higher level than normal.

F. Bridge Rating Chief Puckett reported that a bridge on Proffit Road across the Rivanna had been downgraded several months earlier, noting that ACFR had investigated and confirmed that assessment. He said that they set up a meeting with VDOT, which advised that there is a new mandatory federal bridge rating system, with the first phase now done.

He said that the Proffit Road bridge the only one in Albemarle being posted and several others reduced in weight, but they were already low so there was minimal impact. He noted that VDOT said there was a second phase to happen in the next year that could downgrade other County bridges.

Chief Puckett stated that the original Proffit Road rating was 20 tons, but the new system had a split rating – with two straight axles on a straight truck being 20 tons and a tractor-drawn truck with three axles being 30 tons. He said that VDOT indicated there may be more signs posted because of this, and the County would need to continue to monitor the impact of that.

Chief Puckett explained that VDOT has a special use permit process for exceptions, but it had administrative and financial implications, including an engineer’s report filed for every bridge, at the County’s expense. He said these were good for a year but may be revoked, and the same engineering report could be used for permit extensions. He noted that there would need to be a report for every vehicle that they wanted to cross the bridge, and VDOT indicated they could likely group units into similar specs – so all vehicles with a similar weight and wheelbase could likely cover all in that category. He added that VDOT had estimated the cost as $10,000 for each engineering report per specification.

Chief Stephens asked if VDOT had indicated what would be required for additional margins of tonnage.

Chief Puckett responded that VDOT hadn’t provided a specific number but said that if the County presented unit types for that bridge, they would indicate whether the upgrade would be sufficient. He said it would be a case-by-case situation. Chief Puckett said that they would need to find an engineer to work with VDOT, which would share their list with the County.

Chief Puckett stated that the first question was whether it was a reasonable road to go down, and there is some risk benefit if the permit were revoked later, and VDOT had the right to cancel all permits if there were issues – so the County would be subject to that. He said that the Proffit Road bridge did not qualify for structurally deficient, so the County would not receive any money for it unless something catastrophic happened. He said that the surface area was not part of the bridge and was just adding weight to the support but not the structural integrity of the bridge.

Chief Puckett explained that there was money included in the County’s re-appropriation for ACFR for an engineering report, but they would not know that until later in the year.

Chief Stephens suggested providing VDOT with a list of bridges so they could provide feedback as to whether they were worth the investment in the engineering report.

Chief Puckett agreed that this was a possible approach, but noted that there would need to be a separate analysis by category. He added that the bridge priority list done

by the Operations Committee several years earlier had been repaired by VDOT since then.

Chief Eggleston asked what the process would be to determine which bridges should be submitted, and asked what the re-appropriation was.

Chief Puckett replied that it was $10,000 and said they could go back to the bridge priority list to see how it aligned. He said that he also asked VDOT for a bridge workplan, which typically spanned 18 months into the future.

VII. Adjournment

MOTION: Chief Stephens moved to adjourn the meeting. Chief Grandstaff seconded the motion, which passed unanimously (8-0).

The FEMS Board adjourned their meeting at 1953 hrs.

- Building the Model Volunteer-Career Fire & EMS System -

ALBEMARLE COUNTY FIRE RESCUE EMERGENCY AND MEDICAL SERVICES BOARD ACTION RECORD

AGENDA TITLE/ISSUE: AGENDA DATE:

Adgenda August 28, 2019

MOTION: MOTION MADE BY: SECONDED BY:

Consent Adgenda George Stephens Noah Hillstrom

SUBSEQUENT MOTIONS/AMENDMENTS:

CALL OF THE QUESTION: Yes No Abstain

Chief Dan Eggleston (Albemarle County)

Chief Noah Hillstrom (CARS)

Larry DeVault (Crozet)

Chief Todd Richardson (Earlysville)

Chief Danny Vanderploeg (East Rivanna)

Chief George Stephens (North Garden)

Chief Mike Grandstaff (Scottsville Fire)

Chief Brian Kester (Seminole Trail)

Chief Greg Frazier (Stony Point)

Chief Kostas Alibertis (Western Albemarle)

I hereby attest that the foregoing is true and complete to the best of my knowledge.

Kim Brown August 28, 2019

Clerk Date

- Building the Model Volunteer-Career Fire & EMS System -

ALBEMARLE COUNTY FIRE RESCUE EMERGENCY AND MEDICAL SERVICES BOARD ACTION RECORD

AGENDA TITLE/ISSUE: AGENDA DATE:

Adjourn August 28, 2019

MOTION: MOTION MADE BY: SECONDED BY:

Consent Adjournment Mike Grandstaff Larry DeVault

SUBSEQUENT MOTIONS/AMENDMENTS:

CALL OF THE QUESTION: Yes No Abstain

Chief Dan Eggleston (Albemarle County)

Chief Noah Hillstrom (CARS)

Deputy Chief Larry DeVault (Crozet)

Chief Todd Richardson (Earlysville)

Chief Danny Vanderploeg (East Rivanna)

Chief George Stephens (North Garden)

Chief Mike Grandstaff (Scottsville Fire)

Chief Brian Kester (Seminole Trail)

Chief Greg Frazier (Stony Point)

Chief Kostas Alibertis (Western Albemarle)

I hereby attest that the foregoing is true and complete to the best of my knowledge.

Kim Brown August 28, 2019

Clerk Date