Common Council - Regular Meeting

John Gerstle PB, Peter Vitale PB, Sarah Silver PB, John Gerstle PB, Peter Vitale PB, Sarah Silver PB, John Gerstle PB, Sarah Silver

I'm still in the waiting room.

Yeah, just a full work session order. Today's June 4th. We are going to have AP Triton on a Zoom link. Did you?

Yeah. All right. Before we begin the work session, I just want to review the procedures of the founder of work session. Work session is open to the public. Members of the public are welcome and encouraged to observe this meeting. However, the work session is not a public hearing. It does not include any public comments or questions of the period. The purpose of the work session is to allow the mayor and council to receive reports of information from department guests, city staff, consultants, contract business, and other presenters regarding matters of city business. During the work session, council members may ask questions and presenters may engage in discussions with presenters regarding the manner in which they are presenting the steps. Consistent with the City Council's rules of procedure and as of earlier this year, public comment is reserved for the designated public comment portion of the regular council meeting. The regular council meeting will begin at 5.30 following the conclusion of this work session. Members of the public should refrain from addressing the council, city staff, consultants, contractors, and presenters during the work session. Likewise, council members, staff, consultants, contractors, and presenters shall refrain from engaging in dialogue with members of the publisher in this portion of the meeting. Any person wishing to comment on the matter during the work session will have an opportunity to do so during the public comment period of the regular council meeting. In order to allow the Council to efficiently conduct city business and receive the information necessary to its legislative functions, all participants and those who have amended are expected to appear at the museum. Thank you for your cooperation, and we will now begin the work there.

Sarah?

Yeah, over there. Michelle and Frank, are you ready?

Yes, ma'am, we sure are.

Are you ready? Yes. Well, good afternoon. My name is Michelle Crowley.

the project manager for your city of Plattsburgh Fire Department Community Risk Assessment Standards of Cover. I am on with my colleague, Frank Blackley. Frank and I both have come from a little bit different areas than all of you have. I'm from Mississippi and Frank is from North Carolina. So kind of right up front, if we say y'all, we... We know that's kind of a different southern slang, but we apologize for any slang that we may use during this session. We want to welcome all of you today. So let me get this started on the slideshow. Can you see the slide?

No.

You'll have to share the screen with me.

Okay.

You'll have to allow me to share the screen. I see it. So again, good afternoon. My name is Michelle Crowley. I'm the project manager for the Plattsburgh team. Mayor Hughes and the Common Council, we want to thank you for the opportunity to present the Community Risk Assessment Standards of Cover Study. We'd also like to thank, of course, Fire Chief Scott Lawless, Assistant Chief Chris D'Angelo, President of the Local 2421, Nick Seaton, Captain Chris Mitchell, and the citizens of the City of Plattsburgh for the opportunity to complete this study. Our AP Triton team consisted of Frank Blackley, who was my mentor and co-project manager along with me, Angelia Hogapin, Jason Fuller, David Honey, and Valerie Irwin. This analysis evaluated department operations, community risk, deployment practices, and future service needs using data from 2020 through 2024. Please keep in mind in this study that this represents a point-in-time assessment. The specialized foundation study evaluated PFDs um, PFDs, uh, hang on a second. Sorry. Did I, I think I just messed up. Hold on a second. Sorry. There we go. Can you still see the screen?

Yes. Yes.

Okay. So it evaluated, um, The operational capabilities and identified some of the service gaps that we saw and outline some forward looking data driven strategies to strengthen public service. Public services citywide the Community risk assessment standards to cover also provided an objective assessment of the department's ability to meet current and future service demands and identified opportunities for some improvements. The report includes five sections evaluation of current conditions Community risk assessment standards of cover and deployment analysis conclusions and recommendations and appendices. The study area includes approximately 6.6 square miles and encompasses the entire city of Plattsburgh, including the residential neighborhoods, the commercial and manufacturing districts, educational institutions, healthcare facilities, and waterfront development areas. Understanding the community's risks and service demands provides the foundation for the remainder of the study. So as you can see on the map or on the slide, the total responses recorded by Plattsburgh Fire Department for the entire data set were from February 1st, 2020 through September the 27th of 2024. This call type distribution aligns with an industry averages and the most common type of course is rescue medical under the 300 calls, followed by the false alarms at 700 calls as a second most frequent while the fire calls the 100 calls rank third. Fire calls accounted for 1.3% of incidents during the study period. The most important takeaway from this slide is that EMS now represents only nearly nine out of every 10 incidents responded to by the department. This slide is comparing the EMS calls to the fire calls by way of our incident data and heat maps that we can see where your incidents are and where the fire department is responding to. Although the fire incidents account for only a small percentage of these total calls, they remain the department's highest risk in the most resource intense events. One of the most significant findings of this study is that current staffing levels are not sufficient to support both fire suppression and emergency medical service demands simultaneously. The department routinely relies on cross-staffing ambulances and fire apparatus to maintain the service delivery, which really leaves fire companies operating below the recommended standards for staffing levels are unavailable for response. As EMS incidents continue to represent the majority of calls for service, personnel are being stretched across multiple responsibilities resulting in increased overtime, fatigue, and operational stress. While firefighters continue to provide a high level of service to the community, The current staffing model offers very little reserve capacity during concurrent incident calls and is not sustainable as service demands continue to grow. So increasing staffing levels is critical to improving response reliability, firefighter safety, and the department's ability to meet future community needs. Increasing staffing to a minimum of 13 personnel per shift would significantly reduce the cross-staffing, improve ambulance and fire apparatus availability, and provide a more sustainable service deployment model for the city of Plattsburgh. To better understand the staffing challenge, AP Triton evaluated how many firefighters are required to safely and effectively perform the 22 recognized critical fire ground tasks. To your left of the slide, you'll see the fire risk critical task analysis staff that's needed for every type of fire call. A low risk, moderate, high, or maximum risk. Even in a moderate risk structure fire, It requires 16 people to safely perform those critical tasks currently staffing levels make assembling that workforce challenging without adding additional staff using callback or automatic aid. As you can see to the right of this screen, we are showing the buildings that are greater than three stories in height. This often requires a high risk to maximum risk capability in the city. You have quite a few of those and are at higher risk. One of the things that we continuously said when we began when we started working on the study is that you are not a bedroom community, you have many more risks that are required higher staffing levels than a normal bedroom type community. Another key finding. EMS staffing requirements frequently reduce available fire suppression resources, creating operational challenges during periods of low staffing and high call volume. These challenges are not the result of personnel effort. They are the result of system capacity. That means that with only seven personnel on duty daily, one ambulance and the aerial device are often unavailable. and one captain is actually filling two roles of operations and EMS supervisor and your remaining personnel must staff two engines companies below recommended staffing levels. Ambulance is often run without a paramedic and are required to use support from the fire apparatus personnel to meet those ALS advanced life support capacities. Current staffing levels do not consistently support reliable fire and EMS response capabilities. And NFPA, or the National Fire Protection Association standards, recommend four firefighters per engine and aerial apparatus. Although Plattsburgh Fire Department is making strides to increase their daily staffing, there is no consistency for minimum staffing requirements. PFD operates under a seven-person minimum staffing level established through a 2020 memorandum of agreement associated with the implementation of a second ambulance. While the memorandum of agreement anticipated staffing levels of eight or nine personnel when the second ambulance was placed into service, the department has continued to operate routinely within the seven-person framework. So what was originally intended as a temporary staffing model has effectively become the department's normal operating model. If you look on the screen on the slide, you can see that the current staffing assignment under nine personnel, which is assigned to each platoon so you have four platoons they have nine personnel but due to staffing being off or annual leave or training or some other reason normally there's only seven to eight not very often is there nine personnel per day if you go to a 13 person medium staffing you would be able to to staff every single apparatus that you have on the department It would be much more efficient to even go to full staffing of 16 personnel, which is what we actually calculated as the minimum staffing that would be required when you start to add in annual leave and other types of training. And you have to have more personnel that can handle four person per apparatus, as well as two people on each one of the ambulances. The high EMS service demand can leave the fire apparatus out of service at times, specifically the aerial ladder. So we calculate something called a unit hour utilization percentage. Anything at 10% unit hour utilization is the desired level. This means UHU means how much time a unit spends committed to incidents. Well, personnel perform many additional duties that are not captured here. The key takeaway is that EMS unit ambulance unit 286 consistently exceeds recommended utilization levels indicating sustained workload pressure on ambulance resources. Well, most incidents occur one at a time. The remaining 16% create the greatest operational challenge for the Plattsburgh Fire Department because multiple resources are needed simultaneously. You also have to understand that the Plattsburgh Fire Department does not have another career fire department. in the area that is able to respond. So when they request mutual aid from other areas, they may only receive a smaller amount of firefighters, especially during the daytime hours, or they'll only receive one or two apparatus from a different department, that being South Plattsburgh or the town of Plattsburgh Fire Department. Those are all volunteer departments. So they have a unique situation when it comes to response. Well, the fire department maintains multiple units at station one and the engine is at station. Another engine is at station two. There may be times when all of the crews are occupied leaving the jurisdiction dependent on outside aid. This especially occurs If they have a fire call, there's a full response. They do not have then anyone to run the ambulances and they have to roll the ambulance calls over to another EMS unit. We looked at during the study and in 2024, CVPH EMS and Morrisonville EMS responded to 767 EMS calls and 50 EMS calls respectively in the city of Plattsburgh. So finding number two is that both fire stations have exceeded their intended service life and no longer adequately support your modern fire and EMS operations. Station one was constructed in 1949 and station two in 1957. And while both facilities continue to serve your community, they were designed for a different era of emergency services. The station lacks many features now considered standard, including adequate decontamination areas, compliant living quarters, sufficient storage space, and accommodations that support a diverse workforce. Additionally, the facilities are not fully ADA compliant and have limited capacity for future staffing or apparatus growth. These deficiencies impact firefighter health and safety, operational efficiency, and the department's ability to adapt to changing service demands. Long-term planning for facility modernization will be necessary to ensure the department can continue providing reliable and effective emergency services to the community. A comprehensive facility study and GIS-based station location analysis should be conducted, and I believe is in the process, per the fire chief, to determine whether modernization, relocation, or a consolidation of existing facilities into one facility fire station would provide the most effective long term solution for the city of plattsburgh this was not within our scope of work, so we are. recommending that you complete another study to do this station location analysis. So staffing is only one part of the equation, the facility supporting these firefighters and emergency operations must also be capable for supporting today's workforce and service demands. Both stations have exceeded their intended service life and no longer meet many modern fire station designs as we discussed. These deficiencies affect firefighter safety and future growth. If you look at the slide, it says that there's concerns raised during this study that included insufficient bathrooms for co-ed staffing and limited apparatus space. The clearance on both sides of the engine space for the apparatus is limited and could possibly crush a firefighter if they are not looking when they... exit the station. Both stations do not meet ADA compliance. Turnout gear has to be stored in the apparatus bays, whereas it's exposed to carcinogenic diesel exhaust, and both stations lack drive-through. Bays are undersized, outdated, and not designed for the demands of the workforce. Station 2 also has visible mold issues inside the station from the roof leaking. The department has made significant investments and apparatus replacement over the last few years, and in fact received while we were on this study received delivery of a type one engine and also a new ambulance. So they've made great strides in that in our in generally a pretty good position regarding frontline apparatus. EMS is now the department's primary service demand and increasingly drives staffing deployment and financial decisions. There is no dedicated EMS division or EMS manager. An EMS transfer volume is growing with an aging population in your community. This kind of depicts a comparison between what's forecasted in the population, as well as the call volume that's anticipated until 2035. If you'll notice the age increases, well, the calls for EMS and fire also increase. While the city's overall population is actually relatively stable, the population is aging. And the aging population increases the demand for EMS just by itself. Additionally, an added issue to the aging population includes an above average poverty rate of 24.2%, well above New York's 14.2% rate. Together, these trends continue to increase demand for the fire and emergency services. And as a result, the forecast is for this to continue over the next decade. EMS is not only the department's largest service demand, it is also a significant revenue source for the city. EMS transport volumes increased by approximately 24% between fiscal year 2020 and fiscal year 2024, reflecting growing demand for ambulance services. During the same period, the department improved its overall collection rate from 34% to 39%. And while 39% collection rate may initially appear low, it is generally consistent with national EMS industry averages, particularly for municipal ambulance services with high percentage of Medicare and Medicaid patients. Medicare and Medicaid accounts for the majority of Plattsburgh's transports and reimbursement is largely fixed by government payment schedules. The department has therefore improved collections while maintaining performance that's consistent with industry benchmarks, despite increasing call volumes and a challenging payer mix. Our fourth major finding focused on planning, performance measurement, and data management. One challenge we identified was that the department lacked several of the planning tools commonly used by modern fire and EMS agencies, including a master plan, strategic plan, and a formal performance benchmarks. excuse me, a formal adoption of performance benchmarks. We also found limitations in the department's ability to measure response performance because critical dispatch and incident data were not fully integrated. While this finding identified several areas for improvement, it also produced one of the study's earliest successes. During the assessment process, the fire chief worked directly with the county dispatch to address a major data gap that had existed for years. So like we said, one of the challenges that we incurred during the study was that the department had the department's inability to accurately measure several key response performance indicators. So the National Fire Protection Association 1710 standard provides a nationally recognized benchmarks that you'll see over to the left of the screen. These benchmarks are for the fire department response performance and they include alarm processing, turnout time, travel time and total response force assembly. Well, prior to the study, the RMS operated independently from the county's CAD system, which made it very difficult for accurate measure alarm processing times and created additional workload through manual data entry. As we stated earlier, during the study period, the department implemented a record management system called First Do that integrated with the county's CAD system much more easily than the older RMS system that was being used. And that was a significant improvement. Of course, moving forward, we highly recommend formally adopting these performance benchmarks and validating the new data stream, the data to ensure that the department can accurately track their performance, identify trends and support future operational decisions. I believe they are already tracking quite a bit more data because of the new RMS system. So we've made great strides in that. The fifth finding focuses on activities that occur before an emergency happens. While much of this study has been focused on the staffing facilities and emergency response, reducing risk in the community is equally important. We found that Plattsburgh currently has limited prevention, inspection, and emergency management resources. These programs help identify hazards before they become emergencies, improve disaster preparedness, and strengthen community resilience in the event of a disaster. The recommendations associated with this finding are designed to move to build a more proactive approach public safety by expanding prevention efforts, improving emergency planning, and enhancing water supply management. There are quite a few key issues in this that we look at, and that's that there is no designated fire marshal within the fire department. There is a limited inspection program that only includes city inspectors and not fire department inspectors. No designated emergency manager exists within the city. Although the county has an emergency manager and an emergency operations plan, there is no local emergency operations plan or continuity of operations plan within the city itself that will integrate with the county's plan. Public education efforts are limited because of the heavy work schedule. And although the Public Works Department is doing an excellent job of trying to track all of the CAD data for all the piping and hydrants that are in the city, it is not moving fast enough and there is no GIS mapping that is sufficient for them to know where the hydrants are located while they're en route to a a call. They use I am responding and have some older maps that are available, but those maps are very much out of date and need to be updated. They also need to be part of exercising the hydrants within the city that does a twofold operation. The firefighters can become very familiar with where hydrants are located in the city, and it also helps them to understand to work with the Public Works Department to make sure the hydrants are working. So one of the most effective ways to improve your public safety is to prevent emergencies before they occur. These priorities focus on the community risk through prevention, inspections, public education, emergency planning, and then, of course, improving your water supply management system. While prevention and preparedness reduce risk, the department must still be prepared to respond effectively when the emergency occurs. That leads us into the alternative operation models that we evaluated during the study. Part of the scope of work was to look for alternative operations models. We looked at option A, the status quo, option B, the stabilization and core expansion, and then option C was the external EMS provider. We evaluated all three of these operational models. Option A maintains current operations but doesn't address any of the long-term staffing and service deliveries challenges that the fire department now faces. Option C transfers EMS transport responsibilities to an outside provider, but results in a loss of revenue and operational control. Option B provides the most balanced approach by increasing staffing, reducing cross-staffing, improving firefighter safety, and maintaining local control of your emergency medical services. As part of the final discussion, we came through with recommendations and we broke those recommendations down into categories. These recommendations focus on planning, data management and performance measurement. AP Triton recommends strengthening the planning and performance management systems that will guide future decisions and measure successes. With planning and performance systems in place, the next recommendations focus on operational improvements that directly affect emergency response, firefighter safety and reliability. These recommendations were really for staffing and operational improvements, and they are the most critical. Firefighters also need facilities, equipment, and infrastructure that support effective service delivery. If you'll notice Recommendation 7 talks about adding a minimum of four personnel per shift and adopting a minimum staffing requirement of 13 personnel per platoon. We understand that that has to take place in phases, and that is a very, very heavy lift. But it's important to understand that you, again, are not a bedroom community. You have manufacturing and commercial structures and larger three-story structures, 50,000 square foot and larger buildings that have to be provided with a higher risk than just a 2,000 square foot single family dwelling. So the next recommendations focus on modernizing the department's physical resources while strengthening community risk reduction efforts. Some of these you've already seen, but we talk about developing a comprehensive fleet and equipment lifecycle management plan, developing a training center, currently the training center, is over in South Plattsburgh near the dispatch. And in order for them to train, they actually have to drive over there and be taken out of service, which is a difficult thing for them to do. If they do it, they have to do it with one company and not everyone. So they need a tower and burn building closer to them. And then, of course, developing the emergency management framework we talked about and hiring a dedicated person to be the fire marshal and additionally to develop a fire inspection program for all commercial and rental housing. This is the final recommendations we did for the workforce health, safety, and organizational development. As you can see, the recommendations are talking about turnout gear storage and contamination control, getting two sets of turnout gear for each firefighter, and establishing a safety and health committee, and then of course, improving their comprehensive health, fitness, and behavioral wellness program. And we talked about developing a leadership and career development program, especially for succession planning and for officers, and to develop a formal public information and community engagement plan. So this was a recommendation that we have placed in our study. And thank you for listening to our presentation today. And if I could, Frank and I would be more than happy to field any questions at this time.

I have several. You have several? Yes, I do. Was this report compared to another city, another, like we're often compared to Saratoga Springs, we're often compared to Glens Falls. Was this compared to any place else that we, you know?

No, ma'am. We don't normally compare it unless it's required within the study, which it was not part of the scope of work. Our comparison, I guess, is just our background in the different size cities and areas, fire protection districts that we work with. And we do follow NFPA standards and ISO standards throughout these studies.

So population... What didn't, I mean, I'm just, I'm confused with, I guess, with all of these recommendations to have more men and more of this and more of that. But I'm just curious, where's the scale? I don't understand where it's going to be kind of compared to or what. I just want to know where it's coming from.

Yes, ma'am. We use a staffing factor calculation and that staffing factor is a standard. We consider all of the annual leave and all types of leave that they have, whether it's military leave or whatever. So what you have to consider is that NFPA standards consider three to four personnel on that engine or that apparatus. Those seats are filled by those firefighters, but you have to also consider a staffing determination to add in additional firefighters for leave purposes. So that's where we're getting it. If you look at the engine, two engines, if you consider two engines right off the bat, that's a minimum of three of six firefighters. Your aerial apparatus should not be operated with any less than three, preferably four. That's 10 right there. Then your ambulances should not roll out with any less than two per ambulance. That's an additional four. What's happening right now is if the alarm goes off, each one of those firefighters, if you look into the report under the staffing and personnel, each one of those firefighters has to cross staff. So the ambulances do not have anyone specifically really dedicated to the ambulance, except that if they're on the back of the engine or they're on the aerial, they're going to get pushed to the ambulance should the alarm go off. But the problem with that is if a fire alarm goes off, all of them respond because there are so few of them, they all have to respond. So that either makes it so that the EMS has to be rolled over, which to you is a loss of revenue to the community is a longer response time, although not bad because CBPH is right down the road. But If you can even just look at it from a minimum staffing in that manner, when you start to cross staff and move people around at that rate, things are going to go wrong. Firefighter safety is compromised. It can very much fatigue your firefighters.

I don't know if this is a good question for you or even for Captain Lawless, but how long has the ambulance service been around?

I'm not sure when, I can't remember when they started that. Chief, remember?

So obviously in the early 1900s when there were no ambulances, we didn't have one.

Do you, can you say then, has it, so CBPH obviously has had an ambulance service for whatever, many years. Do you think That well, let me say this when people call in and they want, they need an ambulance. Can they pick who they want? Can they pick or so it just automatically goes right to you guys.

Yeah, the only time it's over is dispatch rolls it over if they know that they're busy. If they're tied up on another call and they won't be able to do it, they automatically roll it over. So that's why we were talking about it's almost like 800 calls that you are losing revenue on annually in order to respond to other calls.

Yeah, I did. I did not know that one.

And I really we didn't really go into the calculation per call revenue. You know, of course, your Medicare and Medicaid is mostly what you deal with. But if you consider we could do a breakdown of what financially that would cost you every time there's a rollover. So you have to kind of look at it from. not only a response avenue, but also a revenue avenue. There's a possibility that just those rollovers could pay for an additional firefighter. And we understand this is a heavy lift. Please don't think that we don't, but we have to look at it from a perspective of meeting the standards that all of our firefighters are held to. And those are the National Fire Protection Association standards. And ISO is also looking at that. When you get your ISO rating for your insurance, they also look at how many firefighters you have, what training programs you're doing, what your water supply looks like. There's various, in fact, we break it down inside of that report on your ISO studies and exactly what they're looking for. And you could also look at, we didn't really talk about it at the time, but there is something called a community paramedic. And if you wanted to be proactive, there's also the consideration that you could look at community paramedics and they are more designed to kind of prevent, like you would have kind of the people that you go to on a regular basis, that they would check on them on a regular basis to try to prevent them from going in an ambulance, unless it's a, an emergency call, kind of like non-emergent call. there's a lot of folks that are going to that community paramedic program to alleviate their systems.

I noticed that you said that we're operating below advanced life support capability. Is that all the time and is that strictly

personnel related or and or equipment related or um it is somewhat and it was brought to light during that that time that um they're kind of putting the the uh younger firefighters on the ambulances and i think that's going to have to be a policy change that the fire chief and the union are going to have to look at that there's going to have to be a requirement that advanced life support is on every ambulance. I know the chief we've discussed it at length from both the union side and from the fire chief because they were both involved in this study, but there has to be some type of a policy change that requires ALS response. What we're doing right now is if they have a BLS ambulance, which means both of the firefighters that are on there are EMTs, they have to respond a fire truck or fire apparatus to that EMS call to handle the paramedic level.

I just didn't know if it was equipment or people that were missing. People missing.

Yeah. Not to say anything bad about anything that's going on at all, but it's just a seniority thing. And some of the policies are going to have to be changed within the department.

Also, this is maybe just an ignorant question, but is every firefighter required to be a driver also or no? Is that?

No, ma'am, they are. are you talking for an engine and an aerial apparatus?

I just thought that everybody could drive the fire truck.

No, ma'am. They have to go through some training. They, I'm not sure what year they normally are eligible to make driver operator in, in Plattsburgh department. On average, it's usually at the two to three year mark. Um, They have to go through some training in order to do that because they not only have to drive the fire truck, they have to be able to pump it, deal with water supply issues, deal with pumping to hoses to the fire as well. So they have to be extremely well versed in not only engine driving operations, but pumping as well.

Did you explain the difference in this? Okay. Well, maybe I'll just ask questions. Because I think sometimes maybe, I think some of my questions are sheep related, not necessarily the study related. Like, I don't know the difference between a fire marshal and a fire sheep and what that looks like.

So a fire marshal normally takes care of inspections. One of the items that we saw was that the city actually has an inspection system. Specifically, that inspection system is handled by only, excuse me if I'm not, I think it was three people, Frank, was that it? Three inspectors at the city?

They were building inspectors.

And they were building inspectors. They weren't necessarily looking at the fire aspect of it. So we do a little bit different. And we're looking for fire safety, fire and life safety issues when we do inspections. And then we also came across some real concerns with what the campus is doing with some of their dorms. Some of them are vacant. We don't know what level of status they're in when they're closed up. We also don't know if they're inspected every single year by the building inspector, which would normally be something that a fire and life safety inspector would do. Additionally, many of your single family dwellings have been cut up and reworked to be apartments for the students. And when you they the city began where the those landlords had to start asking for I think they had to register within the city. Is that right, Frank? But we don't know what that program is about. It was so new. We don't know, are they looking for smoke alarms? Are they required to have a smoke alarm in every apartment? And that's not just one smoke alarm. That's a smoke alarm in every single bedroom. You know, in the hallways, where's the fire extinguishers at? We don't know what that program is. And we could definitely see that you have a very high risk within those buildings dwellings that are cut up like that into apartments.

Did you take time with the building inspector's office to find out what they do?

Yes, Frank did that.

Well, because, I mean, that's their job right now. That's what they do. I mean, it used to be a firehouse years ago. The building inspector didn't sit and come out. That's a long time ago. It's evolved to where it is today.

We understand that.

Yeah, I think some of the biggest concerns I had was there's not a defined inspection schedule to inspect all buildings, all commercial buildings. And it was more... If I can remember correctly, they do inspections, but it's not necessarily on a specific schedule. In some states in the country, they have specific schedules based on the risk, whether it's a low risk, moderate risk, or high risk, and that's depending on when the inspection occurs, such as an assembly occupancy. Your residential occupancies, if you have a jail or nursing home, they're done typically or hospital should be done annually versus your mom and pop businesses maybe every three years.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, thank you. I appreciate it.

Well, we'd just like to thank you for taking the time out of your schedule to let us present to you today. And we appreciate everything. Mayor, we appreciate your time as well.

I was under the impression we were going to talk about where the numbers came from. I didn't know when we were going through the recommendations, to be quite honest with you. So this is completely different than what I thought. Well, I hope it's... It was a whole difference. Pardon? That's okay. I mean, it's fine. I've got a lot more questions for you. But anyways, we'll discuss it another time. I think we should do this in a public forum where all of us are together in a different setting.

Sure. Thank you so much for your time today. And if there's any questions, please don't hesitate.

I have a lot of them. I'll be in touch with you.

Oh, great. Thank you. All right. Have a great day.

Thanks. You too.

I had a lot of numbers questions too, but.

Yeah, I mean, I was told we were going to get a presentation on where they came to the numbers from. Yeah. I didn't know where we'd go. And that's fine. It's all good. I mean, it was good information, but there was three things. We'll discuss that. We don't have a lot of time for other sessions. So any questions about tonight's agenda? Yeah, I had a couple of appeals questions for Richard, I think.

Richard.

Go ahead. Okay. So there's a, there's a few, there's a few here, like the Miller street water line, and then the attached invoice is 76,319, but the, but we're signing for 6,000. I just wonder if what that was about.

All right. So last, uh, fall we did the at the military across and put water line across there and take a uh have a project adjustment that was oh this is the case it was already done okay it's just a pure backup so you've already approved the transfer it's been done all right deal all right this is the one under the dna under the risk okay uh building now it's a lot of money but right as well okay oh that's right that's right

So they could work. We did that on all of them.

Yeah, it probably would have done about a fortnight. Okay. All right. And Jim also authorized the funding of that project.

Gotcha.

I'll just stay here and give each other the other thing.

I think there was one.

Go ahead, James.

Oh yeah, this one that I don't know if it's directed to. It's for the sports cluster system at Penfield.

Yeah.

The sports cluster.

I think that's Andrew. That's the new lights.

Right. Yeah.

Those are the IEPs. Yep, so that's all going to be reimbursable through IEPs. Oh, okay. $139,000? Yeah, there's going to be like $12,000 worth of conduit miscellaneous parts that we're purchasing, but everything else, the lights, all the whole boxes, the whole... $360,000 project.

Yep.

Yeah, it's going to give us all new LED lights in Penfield Park. But you already signed that PO last week.

Yes. Gotcha.

OK. We have to do it over again, because they gave us a bad address of a PO, and they said they wouldn't just take a real check.

Right. All right. So now they have to really sign it again. And they are holding all of the equipment from shipping until they get a signed copy of the purchase order.

That clears there.

But it integrates with our listing system out there. All right.

Thank you. This might be for Andrew. For the. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. Actually, it might not be the sludge. So important. I'm sorry. Get your steps in time. Yeah. OK. So the change to the contract is that. Did they change what they could do? Or did they misrepresent what they could do?

We have a contract. We have an appendix in it. And they have to adhere to the standards that we set in there. And they're not e-lab certified, environmental laboratory program certified. So we're not running into those standards. So we want to pull that section of the contract, not the whole contract, just the section. And we're going to award to Phoenix. The difference is around, it should be around $2,000. Yeah.

Yeah, okay. I was just wondering just why, was that just caught that they can't do that specific type of? Yes. Okay. All right. Thank you very much.

I need to make a statement real quick.

Well, I mean, it's the work session, Joe, and I don't know how that works. Can I have a minute? Yeah. Sorry, Joe.

We can call him up, though, too. We can call him up, though, to speak.

Yeah. I don't know the question we want to ask. I want to ask the question of my own. Anything about, any other questions you know that they don't get answered in? Can we hear you? Everybody good?

Mm-hmm. Yep.

Yeah. All right, I'm gonna...