05-12-03 Health & Public Safety - Laserfiche WebLink

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Committee ttport eaitj alta ttbU ittafttv Committee The May 12, 2003 meeting of the Health and Public Safety Committee was called to order by its Chairperson, Council Member Roland Kelly at 3:53 p.m. in the Council Informal Meeting Room. Persons in attendance included Council Members Aranowski, Coleman, Kelly, Kuspa, Varner, Kirsits and King; Fire Chief Luther Taylor, City Controller Rick 011ett, Ann-Carol Nash, Michael Beitzinger, Thomas Walz, Elizabeth Leonard, Lt. Dick Powers,Juanita Dempsey, members of the Community Oriented Policing Leadership Council of South Bend, Terry Bland of the float eras Cribunt and Council Attorney Kathleen Cekanski-Farrand. Council Member Kelly noted that the primary item on the agenda was to review Bill No. 31-03 which would amend Chapters 4 and 12 of the South Bend Municipal Code to include lude new regulations add ressing "alarm systems". C.O.P. Coordinator, Lt. Dick Powers of the South Bend Police Department made the presentation on behalf of the Community Oriented Policing Leadership Council of South Bend which has put in hundreds of hours reviewing data and contacting other communities. He noted that the proposed ordinance has been four and one-half years in the making, is aimed to addressing the growing problems posed by false alarms and develops a new program to address such false alarms. The proposed ordinance would regulate the activities of those who own, install, maintain, rent, lease or monitor alarm systems, devices or services. Improving the reliability of such systems and devices as well as assisting fire and police personnel to respond to actual criminal activity, public safety duties and firefighting duties are the overall goals. Lt. Powers then provided several handouts and summarized salient information from each. Among the handouts were one-page documents containing two (2) pie charts each which revealed the following information(copies attached): • Year Residential/Comm'1 Alarms # of False Alarms % of False Alarms 2002 10,360 10,107 97.56% 2001 10,899 10,587 98.34% 2000 11,412 10,959 96.03% 1999 10,246 9,964 97.25% 1998 11,899 11,701 98.34% 1997 9,773 9,616 98.39% Lt. Powers then provided a 14-page handout (copy attached).ched ). He noted that th e false lse a larm r a at "unacceptable levels" with over 2,311 hours of "d own time" being reported i n calendar 2000 for public safety personnel working in the police and de part men ated that alarms place such public safety personnel in increased danger of traffic accidents w end of responding to such alarms. One of the handouts dated 12-13-02 detailed the cost for an alan fifteen (15) minutes would be $27.9617 when the costs of the officer, dispatcher cost, alarm ordinatorcost are taken into consideration. Lt. Powers noted that to date there have been 3,033 alarms with 2,981 of those being false year. Meetings have been held with the four (4) major companies and they have met with sc: representatives and Honeywell. Information from Indianapb1 ansville and Fort Wayne have been reviewed. The proposed ordinance would cover both police and fire calls for service.