05-27-86 Public Safety Committee

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OCmnmtrr rport SID tilt (Common Count% of 014 of Email iib: PUBLIC SAFETY COMMITTEE The May 27 , 1986 meeting of the Public Safety Committee was called . to order by Councilman Joseph Serge in the absence of its Chairman and Vice-Chairman, and the meeting was held in the Council informal meeting room. Persons in attendance included : Councilmen Voorde, Zakrzewski, Barcome, Braboy, Paszek, Puzzello, Serge, Taylor; Eugenia Schwartz , Chief Hurley, Dan Mirocha, various alarm business persons , James Wensits , Craig Hartzer, and Kathleen Cekanski-Farrand. Councilman Serge noted that the meeting was called to again review Bill No . 54-86 which would amend the South Bend City Code by adding a new Chapter 12 entitled "Alarm Systems" . . Councilman Taylor then joined the meeting and noted that his Committee had met this on previous occasions and asked the City Attorney to review the bill. Mrs . Schwartz then passed out a revised version of Bill No. 54-86 and briefly highlighted the changes . She noted that the inspection clause in Sec. 12-2 (c) was changed and that the record keeping set forth in Sec. • 12-3 (b) was also changed. She added that fines would only be after three false alarms within one calendar year -and that persons over the age of • 75 would not be fined. She requested that the regular effective date be put in place in light of the City' allowing three false alarms per year. Councilman Taylor voiced concern over the differences between the County and City with regard to the effective date of the ordinances . It was noted that the County has a 90 day grace period before theirs would go into effect. Councilman Voorde offered to check the effective date of the County ordinance, and reported that September 4, 1986 should be the effective date. The Council agreed to that amendment. • Councilman Taylor also noted that the Council had to carefully weigh the business concerns but also had to weigh the concerns of loss of man power for the large number of false alarms each year. Councilman Paszek and Councilman Barcome agreed with this as well as agreed that the County and City effective dates of the ordinances should be the same. Chief Hurley noted that between January 1 , 1985 and December 11 , 1985 there were 6,750 alarms taken by the Police Department. Of this number, 6, 588 alarms were false. Chief Gyori noted that in 1984 there were 430 alarms , in 1985 there were 351 alarms , and in 1986 to date there were 145. He noted that of these amounts 90% were false in the Fire Department . Mr. Keith Hamilton of 1ST Source Bank questioned what the procedure would be when there was a line problem. He noted that the Department could detect the difference between a weather related problem and a line problem in light of current technology. It was noted that each case would be reviewed by the Department responding with the assistance of the Legal Department . Councilman Braboy questioned Chief Gyori with regard to false telephone calls with regard to alarms , and it was noted that this ordinance would not FREE ►BEES ►YELI•NINO CO.