Finding of safety violations in Camas fire response upheld
City officials plan to meet with their lawyers in the coming days to figure out a plan.
"We absolutely expected it to be upheld," East Clark Professional Fire Fighters President
The department issued three violations against the city, totaling a combined
Capell said the city isn't disputing the violation for the firefighters failing to use protective equipment. Capell said city officials think the state code on how many people need to be on scene to respond to a fire isn't 100 percent clear, so they are disputing that violation.
He said the old turnouts were found at a fire station and were only being kept around to use during training.
The dispute between the city and union stems from a
The two broke through the garage door and rescued the man and his dog. City officials said they think the situation is an anomaly, partially because the department was responding to a fire alarm going off instead of a 911 call. Capell said fire alarms are more often than not false alarms if they don't come with a 911 call, and the department sends multiple units to 911 calls.
A few weeks after the fire, the union posted about the incident on Facebook along with their complaints that the city needs to up the staffing levels for the department. When Labor & Industries cited the city for safety violations in May,
Budget update
At Monday's council workshop,
"This will probably be the biggest decision point you'll make,"
"It would help us quite a bit," Swinhart said. "We definitely need the positions. It would start slowly adding staffing over the next few years, which is our goal. It would allow us to increase daily staffing."
The four additional firefighters would cost around
Since the department covers
"We cannot currently afford the ongoing general fund costs of additional personnel in this program,"
Scott also wrote that
If
"When houses start filling in, we'll end up with a significant deficiency in level of service," he said.
Both Brice and Swinhart said that a station will be probably be needed north of
"The development has already started," Brice said. "It is a real issue we are facing at this moment to maintain some type of service that's adequate to that area. Appropriately staffing Station 42 is a stopgap. (The city) needs to look at putting a station on the north side of the lake."
___
(c)2018 The Columbian (Vancouver, Wash.)
Visit The Columbian (Vancouver, Wash.) at www.columbian.com
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
A year later, majority of North Bay fire victims still await reimbursements from home insurers to rebuild
Politics after Hurricane Florence: Resuming campaigns a ‘high-wire act’
Advisor News
Annuity News
Health/Employee Benefits News
Life Insurance News