Council - Regular Meeting

We'll call the uh council work session Monday, May 4th, 2026 to order at 6:03 p.m. and ask the city recorder to call the role. Council President Briggs here. Councelor Berentos here. Councelor Blosser here. Councelor Fitzgerald here. Councelor Hosapple here. Councelor Jance is excused. Councelor Schilling here. Councelor Shane here. And councelor Spivey is excused. Right. We have a quorum. We'll uh move right on to the one agenda item. That's the fire department annual report.

Thank Slack. So tonight we have that report and it's going to be given by our fire and EMS chief, Chief Wallace. So we'll have her come up to the front and present on that topic. Mayor, city councilors, tonight I'm going to present to you our annual report for 2025. Um, this was kind of an interesting report for us to put together this year just because uh we've had a lot of changes changes and we're already 5 months into 2026. So, uh, bear with me. I may make some reference to what we're doing currently just to make sure that um we're keeping the information uh relevant for everybody. Okay. I wanted to include in our first slide um the mission vision values core um for our city. Um two of my staff members participated in the creation of the new uh core values for our city. Um I felt it was important um to incorporate that in our annual report. Um and just to make sure that everybody is aware that um this is something that we strive to practice daily um when we are uh deal when we are in our public and when we are um in at home basically with our co-workers. A little bit about the services that we provide. Obviously, we pro provide um fire suppression um including structure, mobile property, uh brush and wildland um EMS uh calls and transfers um including inter facility transfers from our hospital here in Dallas to uh Salem or another higher level care hospital. Um our rescue services, vehicle extrication, low and high angle rescue.

The high angle rescue is new. Um if you recall last year uh we sent quite a few of our staff members to high angle uh rescue training. Uh that will help us uh in the event that we have an event at one of our uh newer buildings in town that are um four stories or higher. Um, also including complex industrial operations rescue, which would be more of a partnership with um, Salem Fire Department since they provide their technical rescue team. Uh, prevention, we have a community risk reduction program. We work alongside with code enforcement. We perform um safety inspections and provide information to our public such as um school tours and tours of our fire station as well as events around the community. Um we provide public assistance for alarms, lift assist. And it doesn't say this on this form, but we also provide a smoke detector uh program where if we have residents that call and need help with their smoke detectors uh if they need them or if they need batteries changed um we provide that service free of charge as well. And then we also offer our fire program um to our members who live with inside our city limits and outside our city limits within our within our ambulance service area. Whoops. Our fire suppression fleet consists of our 24 Spartan engine, our 2015 Pierce engine, our Dodge pickup, our brush truck, and the 2003 Pierce ladder. Um, if you'll note that, um, NFPA1901 recommends retirement of apparatus after 25 years. Um, our ladder is approaching that. It's 23 years old. And if you recall last year, we also entered an

agreement with uh Fall City uh for the basically the donation of our 1995 Pierce that seems to be working um exceptionally well for them. We provided them some training a couple weekends ago in our back parking lot um to for new engineers learning how to pump the engine. I can't get over the fact that the ladder is now the oldest piece of equipment we have. Well, it's not the oldest. We have a 1924 Stuts that's over. Yes. Uh, you do you No. Was it was you guys were going to start to push the Mac? That's 1947. Oh, the new one. The newer one. The Yeah, the newer one.

The new one.

Yeah. I do have to give a lot of credit to our fleet services. Um they have done an exceptional job with the maintaining of all of our equipment. Um they come in after hours. They drop whatever they're doing to make sure that all of our equipment is running um just as best as it can. So a lot of credit goes to them. What I don't have on the slide um for our fire suppression fleet is we added a command vehicle last year um which contains all of our technical rope um items and equipment. We also have a 2018 Ford F350 which our volunteers utilize as a duty officer vehicle and then two staff vehicles that are 2012 uh Ford F-150s. We also have a a retired ambulance that we use as our support vehicle. And then recently we added uh from the police department a 2008 Tahoe that our chaplain utilize as their chaplain vehicle. As far as our um EMS or ambulances, uh we added last year um a 2024 Ford uh 350. It's the smaller ambulance that you see that we utilize for inter facility transfers. Uh it is capable of handling 911 calls. Uh however, because of the smaller box uh and the confined space in the back, uh it's better for us to just take a patient from one facility to another versus trying to provide some inter interventions to that patient. However, um in the event of it being we need to upstaff it, it is available for 911 calls as well. equip this thing.

It is. Yep. Uh all of our ambulances are are equipped with everything. Correct. Uh you'll note that it it's 2024 and it's already got 25,000 miles on it. So we do go to Salem a lot. Um we have a 23 uh Ford F50 450, excuse me. That's our primary uh 911 unit. It's typically in the medic 101 rotation. uh the 2019 Dodge um which is our one of our reserve ambulances. And if you look at the mileage on these, they've it's increased obviously because we do handle a significant amount of calls. And then our 2016 Dodge, um it's at the high utilization. It's at 309,000 mi and that was of last week. Um currently, just to bring you up to speed on this, we're in discussions with three different vendors on a remount. there's been um some cost and time issues that we've been trying to work through on that. Um I'm hoping to have a final decision made by the end of next week. We have an incoming apparatus that I just added to this slide just I thought it was important for you to know. Um we did purchase a 2026 uh Ford 550 uh Bronn ambulance. It was delivered on April 15th. It was just recently licensed with the DMV and is currently at service graphics getting all of its designs. So, um once we have it outfitted with all of its EMS equipment, uh we'll have um OA we'll submit the paperwork to OA so we'll be able to put that into service. The goal is to have it in service uh mid June. And

is there any traditional ceremonies like we do with the fire engine for new ambulances? Uh we have done that. We did that with the 23 um ambulance that we we bought two years ago. Uh we did not do a little ceremony for the transfer ambulance because unfortunately one of our other um ambulances had gone out of service had was offline for equipment issues and we had to very quickly put that into service. So, we weren't really able to uh celebrate it, but yes, we will have a celebration for for that. We like to celebrate things. Feelings hurt.

No, it's not. Um, it basically was ready to go to work. So, yep.

And then we retired the 23 or excuse me, the 2003 International Big Red Ambulance. So, it is currently out of commission. So, this is our organizational chart. It looks a little different um this year than it did last year. Um you'll notice that the deputy chief's position um has the border around it. Um that's because that was eliminated uh for budgetary reasons. Um, we also contract currently to PK County Fire District's Fire Marshall for, um, development review, uh, plans review, um, and then occasionally will assist us with other projects that we have in town. Uh, we do have an assigned fire marshal through the Oregon State Fire Marshall's office. Uh this individual is assigned to Pulk and Yamhill counties. So we do have access to that individual when we need fires investigated beyond uh the means for us. Uh currently uh we have uh I'll just give you kind of a rundown of what we have on our staffing. So we have four chaplain. Uh we have

Is Ken the uh the captain? He is. He's the chaplain captain.

I thought so. And then we have under that um we have our obviously the vacant position of the deputy chief. Uh we've had the all three captains. We've assigned them to our full-time and part-time staff. We currently have 11. Uh however, we have two that we are onboarding and then 16 for part-time staff, but we're also onboarding seven. And then just to catch just to get caught up in 2026, we'll be um hiring three additional personnel um and starting that recruitment within the next week. Um on our division chief of EMS, that individual um is also in charge of the support captain and support members. We have five of them. Uh our division chief of training uh is in charge of our volunteer fire officers and our volunteer firefighters. We have three volunteer fire officers and 11 uh response volunteer firefighters. If you'd like to know how busy we were in 2025, here's a list of our calls. We highlighted the most um the calls that have the most numbers. So, although we did handle 5,616 calls for service, uh 3,171 of those were 911 medical Our transfers went up significantly. Uh last year we handled 156. That was a 9.7% increase over 2024.

If you happen to have this at your fingertips, and maybe you don't, but if you do, do you know what percentage of those transfers are uh come under fire? Uh just a feel for it. Well, so the transfers specifically uh those are going to be inter facility hospital transfers. I can certainly look into that number uh as far as how many of those were were firemed members.

Well, I'm just, you know, given the given the exploding volume that we've been seeing for a while now, um and the emphasis on signing people up for fired, I'm just wondering um how much of a how much uh how much relief we're getting from from that. Well, so probably a better question would be how many and I'm and excuse me if I'm speaking for you. So probably a better question would be how many patients do we see as a whole um that we would transport from their residents or from wherever we respond to a call? Um how many of them are firemed members? Is that more what your question would be?

Well, I not Yeah. No, I'm more interested in in the u how much of the volume the actual work we do um we get compensation for in just proportionately not you know down to the last thing. Okay. That that's going to be something I'll need to get back to you on. No rush. We've we have actually been researching that quite extensively. I did not bring any of that information with me. Um but I can certainly share that with um the city manager and we can report back. I encourage everybody when I get a chance when it comes up in conversation to join. So I'm just wondering how much good it's actually doing us. Hopefully more than you know. Well, yeah. Just curious.

Sure. And I would I would be willing to share that through the city manager. Okay. Uh so if you look down the list, uh lift assist um 382 public assist which would be anywhere anything from smoke alarms. It could also be lift assist. It could be um anything. Cats in the drain. Um it's a it's a catch-all. Yeah.

I'm only laughing because I'm thinking of the scene in the movie um Roxan where where they're trying to get the cat out of the tree and the cat just isn't budging. And Steve Martin, who's the fire chief, walks up with a can and a can opener and as soon as the sound of the can opener registers, a cat comes down. That that happens. Uh and then fire and accidents, um 234. Uh one thing I do want to highlight is last year we did respond to 83 CPR events. Um of those five were code saves and we delivered a baby.

Question chief. Um have you war game a situation if the levy for southwest Poke County does not pass? Um, is is there are there any plans um that how Dallas will deal with that or contingencies? That's a really good question. Is that going to impact us?

We will continue to respond to our calls for service uh as we always do. Um, and as far as the operational uh output from Southwest Pulk, I I can't answer to that. Um, I can only tell you what what we will be responsible for. Um, and it will be business as usual for us. Thank you.

So, sometimes I've had questions and I think I think you might have asked me one of these at some point in time. When are we the busiest? So, we did a little bit of a deep dive and we talked um through, you know, what the peak hours would be, the busiest days, maybe the busiest month. So over the whole year, um, we looked at what our busiest time of day was, and it was between 5:00 p.m. and 6:00 p.m. Um, averaging 342 calls in that window annually, like during rush hour.

Uhhuh. And then our busiest day, and I I have no idea why, are Tuesdays and Wednesdays with 830 calls each day. Our busiest month was January for a total of 508 calls. and our busiest shift was a shift with 2008 calls. Now, are these numbers just for last year or are they more historical than that? Uh, these are just for last year.

Uh, and we're talking calendar year. And then our busiest day was July 10th, uh, with 32 calls for service. Remember, my folks work a 48 hour shift. And then our slowest days were April 10th and December 9th with four calls each. I'm sorry I keep going backwards on that. See if there's any pattern. Yeah. That that repeats. Yeah.

And it's definitely something that we uh will keep track of. It was just an an kind of a not really a fun stat, but I thought it was just interesting cuz I know that I've you've asked several times uh you know what's the biggest calls that we get? You know, what's the busiest day? Um and actually you'd asked last time, what call type do we go on the most? Unknown medical ones and lift assists. So an unknown medical one is just kind of a catchall. our dispatch centers um training their new dispatchers to drill that down um a little bit more so we can actually uh make sure that we have uh specific information u on what is going on with the patient. So, uh, we talk about, uh, unit hour utilization. Uh, what that means is how busy are our people. Um, so their work shift, 71% of their work shift, their working shift, they are on calls, they're training, they're doing charting, they're restoring the equipment. Um, the problem with having such a high um, unit utilization for that is because they're tired, right? This doesn't include any sleep time, downtime, anything like that. Um, and then you have to look at the fact that it also um impacts our ability to even respond quickly. If we're on calls and we're getting calls and we're making sometimes the calls have to pend until we finish the one call to go on to the other call.

People think talk a lot about how stressful public safety jobs are, police and fire. Um, and what they mean by that usually is the situations that you're in, but they don't think about the stress that's caused by just the sheer workload,

right? And you also have to consider that um the patients or the events that my folks are involved in are things that most people do not see on a daily basis. So, we expect them to go out and handle these calls where you have somebody that's dying, you have somebody that has it's very sick, not cared for, um you know, their loved ones too, and then you have to consider that they take all that in, they do all that work, and then they continue on with the next call. Um so, mental health is definitely uh on the forefront of our brain. Um we do um really push for our staff to eat together um to clean together because those are the times that they're going to be talking and they're going to be around individuals um where they can talk out some of those more high stress trauma type calls that they've had to endure. Um and we've also been looking into um some wellness programs for our staff as well. That was my question chief is do you have a formal resiliency program for the department?

We are working through that. Uh my goal would be to have everybody trained to uh like a peer support level um just because I don't want to limit um who people have access to. Uh and then we also utilize our chaplain um in that capacity as well. Um, but they really they're they're probably one of the most resilient uh group of people I've ever met. Um, and they talk to each other, which is really good. Um, coming from a law enforcement background, I know that that wasn't a thing. Um, and so for my crew to be out washing the engine, um, and just kind of just, you know, talking through their feelings, I think is a huge thing. I think it's it's a big step in a in a good direction. Um, and we have a lot of our staff that um are very aware when somebody is not the same if they're having an off day um and having those difficult conversations just checking in on them. So, I I really do appreciate that um that they have that connection. So, you might want to know how we can bring this number down. Well, adding uh the third ambulance to where we have three ambulances rotating through the calls will bring our utilization down to 60%. Which means that they're still busy. It's steady workload. Um the optimal um would be at 33%. Um busy but manageable.

That probably isn't going to happen anytime in the near future. probably not the 33% but the three ambulances uh interchanging calls will be happening within the next couple of months. So we're we're very excited about that when we have the opportunity um to do that with staffing currently. Um we're trying to trying that model out uh and it seems to be relieving they're busy but it's relieving that stress uh and that anxiety because they're sharing that call load too. How does it help with retention and recruitment?

Well, uh, so interestingly enough, my department hasn't had much turnover. Um, some of our volunte excuse me, some of our, um, part-time staff have gone on to full-time jobs. Um, some of our, um, full-time staff, um, are have looked for outside employment. Um, but we've we've retained u, I think most of the staff that I currently have for the last four years. So, pretty good. Um, but like I said, we're adding staffing. I do have two of my current staff members that are um in the process uh backgrounds for other organizations, but these are organizations where um there's the potential for them to grow um within their fire service career. Um and we support that. And I think that that's pretty exciting to uh be able to have um somebody from our organization apply for Portland Police or Portland Fire Bureau or uh TVF&R. Um I think that that's pretty neat to be able to to have them just go onto a larger department and showcase their skills there.

Is the recruitment pool there for us? Sounds like we'll be needing five then.

So our recruitment pool is looking pretty good. So, currently, uh, we have we're bringing on seven new part-time employees. Um, three of them, I believe, are going to be going on to paramedic school. Uh, and my hope would be once they finish paramedic school, we would hire them full-time. Uh, so we, although we are busy, um, I think that, um, people know that and they want to come work here, um, because we are a busy system. Um, and we're a busy EMS system and and uh people who are going through those programs want to see all those calls um because it just adds to their level of experience.

Chief, how are you doing with uh succession planning? Are you noticing people that are exceeding and developing them so they can step in when there's a vacancy?

Yes, actually that's a great question. Um we currently have um two of our employees that um they're firefighter paramedics uh that are a part of our um our AIC program uh to where they'll be able to do that acting in capacity uh in the the absence of a captain. Um I'm sure that in the next probably 5 years we'll probably have one of our captains retire. Um so that would be a really nice um opportunity for one of those individuals. um anytime that we have training that comes available um we push that out especially if it's um officer development training um or even um just something that might help facilitate um they're within their career path um we do push that training. we have a pretty healthy training budget. Um, and I think that that is a good retention tool for us, too. Um, because we do have folks that are very interested in um, just developing their skills um, whether it's firefighting, whether it's EMS, uh, or officer development. So, we we're very supportive of that. Chief, if I can just add a little bit here, I think the um to get to some of the questions that have been asked, the this is a key indicator for um kind of the demand on our system, the number of calls we're getting. Uh and really this 71% is not sustainable like long term. Uh I think that we're we're in a position where we because we have good culture and I think we have the employees that want to be in a busy system. Um we're fortunate to be in the position we are of not having seen employees already start to vacate, right, because of burnout or stress or just feeling overworked. And so um we we recognize that this never has to come down. Um we're not going to get to what I would call the utopian, you know, NFPA standard of 33% uh uh that's just not attainable. I think most systems never get there. Um but I think if we're able to drive this number down into the, you

know, low 60s, high50s, that's probably the the sweet spot for Dallas. um we know we're a busy system. We recruit people that know this is a busy system. They want to work in that system. They want to thrive. They want to be busy. And so I think that's that's helpful. But when you when you get, you know, above, you know, the 60s into the 70s, um you're you're at a point where you're not going to be able to sustain that with your employees long term. So that was that led uh in part to the decision to add that third, you know, responding ambulance, add the three employees so that we can provide that relief valve for the system. I'd be living on borrowed time any longer. Correct.

Just to point out a couple of our key accomplishments for last year. Uh we recognize that we were busy um in 2024. We needed to do something about that. And so we did increase our staffing um from 6 to 7 um as far as our minimum staffing levels. And then you'll see within uh next year um it will increase to eight. Two of our staff members have earned their paramedic certifications. One uh their advanced EMT. We entered a partnership with Shemecka fire science program and have fire interns which is the first time that that's ever happened for us. So that does provide during the summertime and on their breaks it provides additional staffing on the fire engine. Um

what kind of um kind of response are you seeing on among the part of those interns? Are they excited to be doing it? Are they I'm hiring four of them as part-time employees. I guess that answers that. Yeah. Good. Great. Yeah, they uh very excited. Um like I said quite you know this Shemecka is doing a wonderful job growing these students obviously if you're getting

and and I'm just going to share with you um it's been a while since we've had um an interview process where we've brought um where we've actually had um like an assessment center. Every single one of these individuals we interviewed 13. Every single one of them came in a shirt, tie, jacket, uh resume in hand, very excited to be there. Um very well spoken, educated. It was it was incredibly exciting to see. Um so I was it's very hopeful. Um I'm excited to bring these individuals on.

Yeah. Arch me is doing something worthwhile getting those getting them prepared to that level.

Definitely. Definitely. And and they're they're listening to their mentors, too. Um I I know that somebody um from another fire organization came and talked to these students and said, "Listen, if you want the job, act like you want the job. You know, come in and show up and tell them that you you want this job and and show show up." So, and they absolutely listened. It's been exciting. Uh, we implemented, this may not seem like a big deal, but, uh, we implemented lexical policies. Uh, before we had our, uh, department policies, they were getting outdated. Um, they weren't being, um, updated with current state statutes or with federal regulations. Um, so we had reached out to Lexiple um, and began u a contract with them. Uh the nice thing is is that uh I found out that through CIS we receive um a $5,000 grant to put towards our flexible policies. So it kind of takes the bite out of that a little bit. Um but it turns out people like consistency and they like to be able to see um policies in place. So uh that was something that we implemented last year. Uh we had our OA EMS inspection. They do this every 5 years. Um the investigator that came um through our station and looked in our ambulance uh was uh very impressed. So I would say we passed with flying colors. Uh we participated in four conflrations across the state of Oregon including one in California. And then we switched to uh what's called a Lucas device. It's uh a mechanical CPR device. uh we we are phasing out um what we currently have which is called the auto pulse. It's a band that goes around the patient. Um it really limits um the

size of the patient that we can use this on. Um we get a lot more flexibility with this Lucas device as well. Chief, have those con flags been reimbursed? I I think it looks like we're still lacking some funds. No, they've all been reimbursed. Yeah, reimbured. Uh California uh did take the longest, but we were aware of that. Um it typically takes um from the time you return from deployment uh I believe about 12 to 18 months, but we have been reimbursed for that. Mhm. You spoke of the the Lucas device in the singular. Does that mean that not every ambulance has them?

We're working towards that. Um they all have cardiac compression devices on them. um whether it's an auto pulse or the Lucas device. Um as the auto pulse um gets to its expiration date, we'll be replacing it with a Lucas device. So we provide quite a bit of training for our staff in-house and uh out in other communities or organizations. Um, so last year our staff, volunteer, paid staff, um, had 3,663 total training hours. Uh, when you look at the Wednesday drills, that's mostly dedicated to our volunteers. That's 452 hours. Um, we have quite a bit of time with um, CPR, wildland training. Every year we have to reertify for wildland training. And when we do go on configurations, we have to make sure that our staff has current certification to be able to be on those fires. Uh and then our recruit academy. Um and if you look at that, it's 72 hours per individual that we ask in a 3-month period. Um that's Wednesdays, Saturdays, and sometimes Sundays. So, some challenges that we're facing. Uh, our station was built in 1972. Um, it was built for a volunteer fire force, not paid staff. Um, so we've we're using it a lot. Uh, and we've found some areas that um we've been able to um adjust such as our EMS building, which is where the ambulance used to respond from. Um, that has been since changed in the sleeping quarters. Um, and then we've

had to move around our apparatus throughout the station just to um have more room for our equipment. Um, you'll notice that we have a new addition to the side of our building. Uh, it's ConX box. Um, we were able to get that from public works, which we were very grateful for. Um, we're going to partner with one of our metal fabrication um, businesses in town to be able to um, fix some of the blemishes on it. And once we're finished with um, outfitting it, we're hoping it'll be a good storage facility for um, our PPE, our uniforms, and just some of our extra equipment that we just have no space to store. Um we'll be mindful that we live in a neighborhood. Uh so we'll make sure that it's not an isore, I promise. Uh so you look at our um EMS strain regionally. So yes, we are busy, but overall regionally EMS um calls are up 25%. So uh although we are busy, there's other organizations that are just as busy as us. Um one of the the things that we've seen a lot of is the hospital wait times. Um once we do get to Salem Hospital or Corvalis Hospital, those hospitals are busy, their staff is busy. Uh and so they have to find places and be a little creative on where we give them our patients. So uh sometimes the wait time is a little longer um which unfortunately if the wait time's longer at the hospital, it takes them longer to get back into town. Uh so we try to be mindful of that. Uh also volunteerism on a whole is on a decline. Uh however, I can tell you currently uh we have eight volunteer recruits going through our academy. So um I think that that um for us may be a little different. Uh last year we only had four that

participated in our recruit academy. Uh this year we have double that. Um but it's also high training demands. um they're trained exactly to the same level as our paid firefighters. So there's no distinction between volunteer or career. They get the same training. Uh and then just the economic pressures of them having to leave work or leave home or leave their family. Um and it's it's a lot to ask somebody to do for free.

Historically, is there a significant percentage of the volunteer force that decide they want to make a permanent career out of it? It may not be a good question because until recently we were mostly a volunteer department. Correct. So that path wasn't really there. Well, so the other part to it as well, um, a lot of our volunt a lot of our paid staff were volunteers for us. Um, and that's that's the kind of thing.

Yeah. And that's the one thing that we really focus on too. It's if you're going to commit your time to us, you earn your firefighter certificates, you you earn your EMS certificates. um we'll hire you if that's what you choose to do. Um or we'll help you become the best candidate that you can be. If you want to go work someplace else, that's okay, too. Um but we do see a lot of that. But we also see quite a few people that come in that just want to volunteer. Um they feel driven. Um and they will they you have to have a particular heart. And I talk about a servant's heart all the time. Uh and it is one thing that you absolutely have to have when you're in fire and EMS. and I think in public safety in general. Um, but we do have a a number of individuals who just want to volunteer. They enjoy it. Um, they like the challenge and we support that too.

Does take a special kind of person to do those jobs. It it absolutely does. And and then the the other part is that we're eventually going to need to talk about this um exploring mergers with neighboring fire districts just to have our resource um our resources allocated appropriately. Uh because we're also experiencing those growing pains. Our neighbors are experiencing that too. That's been talked about before and you've been around for a lot of that. Um it didn't work out for all kinds of reasons. Sure. Sure. It's always got to be on the radar.

Yeah. And and just keep in mind that we're a relatively new combination fire department. Um we've only have had paid firefighters for 10 years. Uh so when you take that into perspective, we've been a fire organization since 1889. Uh and then most recently in 2023, uh our firefighters were able to stay the night. So in 2023, we truly evolved to a full service fire and EMS department. Um and in the grand scheme of things um and yesterday pretty phenomenal. So and and a lot of it um is thanks to our city council, our city managers um just because they recognize that we do we do need um that support um but is also for our community too. Oops, that's it. So any questions

with you know I I with councelor Schilling we've been here a while we've gone through the talks about a fire district which earlier in our career here got shut down you know when we sit here and we watch the the personnel get compressed the facilities are you know not accommodating our needs we're just I don't see a sustainable path here but the concern I have is if we start to work with another district and talk about, you know, offloading this to a district. If they're having the same problems, what are we gaining other than possibly getting them a bigger budget on a county level or a a larger level then and take it off of our our books? Is that an accurate view?

Yeah, I think there's a couple things, you know, that take place. one, um, you know, if you have a larger district that serves, you know, multiple, uh, maybe agencies that you have right now, um, you know, your administrative burden is reduced because you have one administrative team as opposed to three or four. Um, so you're able to put those dollars instead of at the top of the organization down at the bottom, you know, boots on the ground. And so you're able to kind of transfer that um, you know, those costs in that way. you're also able to utilize the resources um in maybe a more efficient way because Dallas, you know, may be really busy on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Well, we're not on the other days of the week as busy, but you know, maybe a neighboring district is more busy on those days. And so, you're able to just shift your resources throughout the larger district where they're needed at the time when they're needed. And so, um having a larger area, you're able to serve that area more efficiently than you are if you have a lot of pockets of smaller districts or agencies. And so that's what I think Chief Wallace is getting at with this. You kind of optimizing the resources that you have in a larger district. By Oregon tax law, if we were to consolidate into, you know, Dallas into another fire agency in a district conversation, you have the ability at that time to create a new permanent rate um because you're creating a new district. And so um all of our neighboring fire districts, correct me if I'm wrong, Chief Wallace, I believe, have leveies in addition to their permanent rates. And so you have an ability to at the time really look financially to say what does this district need and then create that new permanent rate um which takes away the levy but you establish that permanent rate um you're able to utilize a larger tax base right uh to pay for that sole dis that single district um as opposed to like Dallas and Pulk one Southwest PULK uh whichever other agencies you're looking at in that conversation. So, um, there's a lot of conversation and a lot of things that need to be thought through and and processed and and worked out. Um, but I think Chief Wal is on the

right path. There's and and you counselor Briggs as well in the current system that we have, the tax systems that we have, the agencies that we have, um, and the costs that we see, the facilities, the equipment, the resources. There needs to be conversations that have to be had. and and now is I think a good time to start those um and and get them moving because that conversation is going to take years, not weeks or months. Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't you also benefit from economies of scale and things like administration and purchasing and that sort of thing?

Yep. It's uh you know we were two or three years into negotiations with that drift district before we all pulled the plug and I think the council at them was very much opposed to it for I think sentimental reasons. Some of the counselors were that was tactful. Nicely said I would hope that you know we all see that this isn't this isn't looking good in the next two or three years. we should really start discussions and and decide on what we want to do now and open up those talks is it takes a while to get that

accomplished and we also know a lot more than we did when we went into it last time also um one is we don't have to be geographically touching each other so there are different districts that we could join without having to surround ourselves with a district um in fact we already have intergovernmental agreements with pul one as far as that suit is. I see it on my plans. The building re fire reviews are done by pul one. So, we're starting to share already. So, being able to follow Chief Wallace and go and look into the district and enlarging it is an area that we're going to have to go to.

As Brian said, the the present system at some point well and as you said also becomes unsustainable. And Dallas is a community and a city that has always uh been good about taking the long view for things like the fact that we need a new reservoir and a lot of other lot of other issues over time. Um and this you know like you said this is a long-term conversation. The sooner you start it um the better off we are because uh you know we are looking to the future and that's our job.

Well and you have to tell the story, right? Like you have to talk about where you came from and where you are currently. uh and what your vision looks like at the end. So, you can't just start with what the vision is. You got to bring people along and tell them what the struggles are and what the opportunities are as well. Good point. Education is a big part of it and that doesn't happen overnight either. Good point.

I think, you know, you're really when you look at any major shift like this, you have to have, I think, three main components that that work. It's the right time, it's the right uh people, partners, and it's the right resources. And so, you know, when we went through this uh exercise previously in 2016 to 2019, um all those factors weren't there. So, I think we know it's a a vi we know it's a solution. Certainly a solution a solution worth looking at. Um but again, those those three things I think are are key for us to be able to in order to jump and make that decision and have put it before the public because ultimately the public has to say yes to it. Um those three factors are are key. for now. I have to compliment you on the job that you've done. I remember as we went out to recruitment for the new chief and the challenges that we were presented today being at 71% of UAh or whatever that is and you talking about mental health and family. It was I've seen the family growing because I mean it was the family of the volunteers. Now it's the family of the volunteers and the paid staff down by my house playing pickle ball and they were ready to go. But seeing the joy that they were having as a family helps take the stress level down and you've done a very good job accommodating that and building that family. So thank you.

I appreciate that. But honestly, it's like my whole team right and and the support of our city council and our city managers. So it's not not just me. It's it's takes all of us to make it work. I just want to give you a kudos. That presentation was a great presentation. The display, the PowerPoint presentation, um the numbers, it it really popped. Thank you. Thank you.

I just want to pile on momentarily to what Michael was saying a moment ago because traditionally, historically, um your department has always been like a family. And when we when we started transitioning from all volunteer to what we are now, you know, you can't help wonder is that going to be lost? Obviously, it hasn't been and that's a big big plus. Everybody works very well together. Question for Chief Wallace. Thank you. Thank you. Great presentation. Thank you. Any other business?