County Council - workshop

Call to order the York County Workshop for September 14th, 2025. Our item for a business is discussion regarding the York County Fire Service long-term vision and strategic plan. I understand and I know that management sent over some information for Council 345. You guys want to present some information first before getting started? Is that right?

Yes, we've got a PowerPoint for you. Okay. Yes. Sure. All right. Good to have everybody here. You ready? Yep. Thanks for everybody for coming tonight. It's great to have so many residents here to hear this discussion. Last month, we talked about economic development. This month we're talking about fire services, and next month we're talking about utilities. These are three of the biggest opportunities facing York County, and we're really excited to talk to y'all tonight. David Garner, our assistant county manager over public safety, worked really hard to prepare these slides. Our goal is to really hear from y'all and learn from you about what you see as the path forward. So with that, I'm going to hand it off to David.

Thank you. So we'll jump right in. And so I sent counsel a survey and I appreciate all of your input into that. And really the point of that survey was to identify some agreement, disagreement, areas that we could have some opportunity to align on. And then also would kind of lead us into this discussion. So I'll talk about some of that. But first of all, I want to start is kind of framing this discussion with kind of a scope, not so much an agenda, but just a scope. So really the purpose of the workshop is to talk about our vision. We want to establish a shared vision, you know, putting off the table of things that we've done in the past, but hearkening back to that to find out where we're still in agreement and then where we need to shift. Clarify the York County's role. So I think that's probably the big question for County Council to answer is what is the county's role as it relates to fire service and this vision? particularly on behalf of the citizens. And then we'll discuss and validate or invalidate or redefine that strategic plan and that vision. And obviously there will be some things that we have to have some further analysis on. So really importantly, it's what today is, but what today is not. We won't make decisions on station locations. We won't talk about staffing allocation specifically. We will keep these at very high, broad policy level vision. So if we find ourselves getting down in the weeds, and please don't take offense if we try to pull you back out of the weeds and say, okay, that's getting a little too deep. Let's go back to our overarching discussion. That's the reason why, and that's why this scope is important. We're not talking about consolidation or any review of individual departments. This is a holistic view of the entire county and the county fire service. Um, so we've kind of used, used the foundation of what we've done in the past, our safe community goal, the 10 year framework, and then the 25 to 28 fire services strategic plan. And again, council has the authority to refine, uh, to update or amend any portions of this at any time. And that's what we're here to do tonight is to talk about that. And then we can take that back and bring something else before council that really captures your thoughts, your thought and mindset with that. Um, so just real quickly, the survey participation and I use this slide not to, not to call your attention to the response rate or anything like that, but really to let you know that everything that's in this survey and all these discussions, you know, I'll present some common themes, but keep in mind that that is only intended to frame the discussion and it is not necessarily a directional. None of the results of the survey should be intended as, as this is the immediate directive because that's an individual survey. But we hope to find themes among that, and we'll talk about that. So really jumping right into it. So based on the survey, here's where we found that council appears to share some opinions and their views. Strong municipal partnerships, sustainable service, trained and equipped personnel, planning for future growth, that's a big one, and improved coordination, and then reliable information and accountability. So all of your individual responses included the free-form responses and the things that you had to rank. These were identified as the commonalities. We shared those in common. So more importantly, here's where we differ. And this is where we'll move into our discussion on the next slide. The next two slides, I'm sorry. Differing opinions on collaboration versus unification. And I'm going to come back to the meaning of unified because that carries significance when we talk about unification. We could all take that word and probably define it about 10 different ways. So we're going to work through that here in just a minute. Separate versus countywide funding. We've had a lot of discussion, particularly throughout this previous budget process, about that funding mechanism and what it looks like. The county level funding, the separate tax district funding, more localized funding. The county employment of firefighters, you know, is that something that the county should consider now or in the future, the direct employment? And then what is the role of county and county fire services with that? An opportunity to talk through. Pace and sequence of change, that was a common theme as well, but with different answers. You know, are we looking at simply three years, five years, ten years, and how quickly or slowly do a lot of these changes happen? But here's where we need some more analysis. So this is one that I want you to keep in mind that we will need to come back to. And I'm sure that you have questions revolving around these things, but they require a lot more analysis. And that's data that we have, but we'll need to frame that data correctly with the policy direction that you'll hopefully be able to give us tonight. So, just for example, the level of service assessment countywide, that goes down to the individual jurisdictional level, call volume, response analysis, the workforce sustainability, we'll talk about that briefly, the cost basis of everything, governance options, funding options. Again, we're not going to make funding decisions tonight. That is reserved for our budget process, but we hope that that's built on policy and strategic vision of council. And then the implementation sequencing again, that's a lot of stuff that requires further analysis but this is where I'll pause and ask for some council input for the first time and There'll be some data that comes later as we move on to some of these goals but the first question that I want to pose and ask for a little bit of feedback on is what fire protection outcomes should York County ensure and additionally what role should the county play in achieving them and And that's an important question because that's the question that every goal and subsequent decision, and particularly the role of the county, hinges on. And this isn't to say that there were differing opinions on that. There were commonalities, but there are also some high-level policy decisions, policy statements, that showed we need to align on that as we move forward. So I'll offer that up, and Madam Chair, how you would like to approach the conversation. We have some notes here, so my assistant, Vanna Edwards, is going to take notes. I was just joking. I told him I was going to say that. So that we can capture all of this and feedback from individual council members, and we can tabulate that and kind of form something with it. So, Madam Chair, how would you like to...

Good question. First of all, I think most of the folks that I see in here are from the fire service background. It's good to have folks in this room. I think that what... However you want to go about asking this question and going around from each council, I will tell you the sense of what I saw from council when it came to budget time is that we... We were in a position where we were being asked to make a budget decision about a particular area of a fire department that would have resulted in 39 individuals becoming employees of the county. And so I think at that point in the budget discussion, it became clear that after talking with a number of folks that there was not a clear plan that had been communicated or that we had all come on board with about how we're going to do that so that we're evaluating all of the pieces. That's my sense of it. So these are the questions that y'all have posed, and I know that I can answer for myself individually, but I think what we're looking at is how do we protect and serve the community what is that level of care which I think we do need to identify and determine because each area is different and then how do we meet that need through the resources that we have I know when we first started this discussion and I don't mean to monopolize this but when we first started this discussion two and a half years ago I think what was told to us is that we are equipment heavy and I think if that is true then what we need to do is to figure out is that because the equipment policy has not been updated in order to meet the needs or, you know, I think some of those things have changed. But I guess turning back to this question that you guys have asked is, What fire protections should York County ensure and what role should the county play? First of all, the way that our system has been brought up, this is me, Christie, answering that question. I assume we'll just go around and ask each other that. I don't know how else to do it, is there's two objectives. We have to have an ISO rating. I mean, folks depend on that to ensure that they have affordable mortgage insurance. and then safety in terms of protection from actual truly fire service issues. Those are the two community goals. I think the county has always been, and what is different about our system is that a lot of our systems have voters that have approved a heightened standard. And so how do we address that? I think Tom actually made one of the best analogies to me is it's like taking four school districts. We have four school districts in our county, Rock Hill, York, Clover, and Fort Mill. If you were to try to lump them in all together into one little thing, I think that's going to be very difficult, especially if you start with the finance piece. And that's what the concern that I had is that we were starting with the finance piece instead of starting with how do we drill down and do levels of service and how do we meet these two needs in the way that's fashionable. I mean, that is appropriate for each area. So those are my comments, and I'm sure other council members have comments as well.

Sure. I guess I'll kick in here. So, first of all, David, thank you for your hard work, you know, pulling these ideations together. You know, from a framework perspective, you know, and we've talked about it in the past, but, you know, my vision is limited government, okay? I'm a local local control person meeting that each district carries the maximum amount of control over how they're going to manage their district. To me, I think that's critically important. The other piece of this, as we kind of talked through, is that I know you all have had meetings, you know, and you continue to meet, but I don't know really what THE GENERAL FEEDBACK IS, YOU KNOW, FROM EACH OF THE DISTRICTS. NOW, WE'VE HEARD SOME, BUT I THINK THAT, TO ME, AGAIN, WE'RE NOT FIRE EXPERTS. WE'RE NOT EXPERTS IN THIS. SO WE REALLY, TO ME, HAVE TO UNDERSTAND WHAT EACH DISTRICT IS NEEDING AND WHAT THEIR INDIVIDUAL NEEDS ARE. I THINK THAT'S REALLY IMPORTANT BEFORE WE MAKE A DECISION ON THIS THING. I THINK WHEN YOU LOOK AT IT, You know, as Christie was saying, you know, being on the school board, that was always a point where four school districts always had individual unique needs. One shoe wouldn't fit all the needs, okay, and each individual district had their own needs. So I think that's really important to give levity to each of those districts. Obviously, we want to see the best outcomes for response times, et cetera, for all of our districts. I mean, that's a given, and that's a given to everybody that lives in those districts. How we accomplish that, I think that's when we start peeling back the onion. And what are some of the drivers behind not hitting those marks? Is it the need to recruit more volunteers? Is it equipment? I mean, where are we shortfalling on that? So from a living government perspective, how do we look back at this, give the controls back to them, but also help mitigate the process to support the local fire districts themselves and understand what are the factors that are stopping them from hitting the maximum response times. I'm going to pause.

And if I can, I'll kind of throw out like a hypothetical to you. And maybe this is kind of some feedback that I want to solicit. So use the school district, and I think that's a good analogy. And I'll also use another analogy. When we talk about public safety, let's think about the sheriff's office, I think, is a good example. The sheriff's office has regions around the county, right? And there's absolutely no one single response model. a sheriff's office that fits, but they operate under the umbrella under an elected official, similar to the County council on County wide standards. And there's, you know, again, I'm not a, I'm not a law enforcement officer, so I couldn't tell you exactly what those are, but you know, they're accredited. They have certain standards that they meet across the County. And so backing this out to a policy framework idea is what is council's role of setting that across the County? You know, because I think one of the things, if you, if you, if you decentralize everything, and I agree with your point about limited government and the decentralization, but what level of decentralization is appropriate and what is inappropriate because then council loses the ability to actually speak for the entire county as a whole. Does that make sense in how I put that?

Yeah, I agree. And I think that obviously there's standards that we all want to hit from a market standpoint. But I think understanding individual district needs to me is the groundwork for mitigating the right process, if that makes sense, right? I don't... Again, when you do a blanket policy across the board, I think that then you're looking at something that becomes a bigger ship than you want to steer, okay? And, you know, again, I think... they, each individual district, know better what they need than us telling them what they need. So that's where I want to go to.

OK. Are we going to work our way down the line, I guess? What I would expect for an outcome would be the most efficient, both in response times and money-wise, and manpower. The use of all of those, the most efficient use of those to protect the citizens of your county. Yes, I realize different areas have different requirements, but that's what's taken care of in this. What role the county should play is, as you said, the umbrella view. This haphazard shotgun approach, while it would work when we had lower populations and more spread out, I just don't find it to be an efficient use of resources at this time. And, you know, I especially don't like the way that the governance works right now. We're kind of saying we do want some, we don't want some, we kind of want to be involved, we don't really want to be involved, we're not involved, but we are involved and none of it makes any sense and we need to make a decision on whether we're going to do this or not do it. You know, you can't halfway manage it when you want to and then the rest of the time go, no, y'all are on your own and it's all up to you. And so we've got, I don't remember the numbers, we've got what, 17 fire districts? 16.

Oh, I was close.

And 7 tax districts. So that's a whole lot of messed up, just spread out governance there. And I just don't find that to be useful.

All right. I'm going to duplicate comments a little bit as well. So the first one I wrote down were response times. What is the standard response time that we should be aiming to achieve? Number two, standardization from one location to another so that The process by which we do what we do is the same at each location. Equipment's on the vehicles in the same spots. So that when we order equipment we're ordering equipment the same way every time so we're not Ordering a special vehicle for one location and a different for another that does the same thing So I think standardization I think is going to be important. I know that unravels the independence of locations, but We're talking about taxpayers dollars and trying to be as efficient as possible. It's something to potentially consider That leads to optimizing equipment. So how do we optimize the equipment that we have? There was mention in the beginning that maybe we were spending more money than we should be in certain areas of our fire service. But let's figure out how we optimize our equipment. We have strategic locations so that we can meet the response times and streamline our hired and volunteer staff. So I think those three tie together. From a county's perspective, I think one role that you have to play is helping figure out, and we'll digress for a second, say we're not in the fire business. We may know what we know, but we don't know what they know, and we don't know what y'all know about fire or EMS. But I think your role is going to have to be identifying that unified voice on what does make sense to move forward. As you advise us and as you think about the taxpayers that are paying for this, whether it's the system we have now or the system that we're migrating towards, I think you've got to figure out how you're going to communicate that properly so that all parties involved, including those that are in the room tonight, understand the direction we're going. The county council understands the direction we could go, and so do the citizens.

I'll go.

I'll go.

Grand finale right here. Okay, I want to give a shout out to my Flint Hills boys for a job well done in a townhome fire that could have been a disaster last week. A mother with a brand new baby was in that townhome. Everybody's safe. Both town homes on both sides were damaged. But I've never seen so many fire trucks in my entire life. They came from everywhere. And it was actually in my backyard. So it was an interesting time. It's going to help with our referendum, showing the people in the community firsthand, a real firsthand experience of what a fire department needs to be capable of doing and the equipment that they need and the manpower that they need. And the issue that we have in York County that I'm not telling anything that anybody doesn't know, growth, can be a friend, but growth also has hurt a lot of infrastructure situations, particularly fire service. And that is honestly, I don't have an answer. I don't know if anybody has an answer to what we're going to need to do with what I see as a discombobulation of things with the fire tax boards and volunteers, which we need our volunteers in areas of the county that... They have a heart and soul for what they do, and I applaud them so much. And then in my part of the world, we have paid employees that they need to be there because they need to be there all the time, 24 hours a day. And we have all kinds of issues and being right next to the interstate 77, which we get as much, as I understand from Todd, as much problems off that interstate as we do townhome fires, you know, and people medical calls. So we have a tremendous burden in our area. And but just as important that townhome fire could have been in one of your communities and In on the western side and it would be very important to get a mom with a baby out. So it's just um Like I say, I don't know but I agree with what y'all said response time is critical The use of the people our volunteers and our paid staff and then and be efficient with that but There's a lot more questions.

There are answers. I'm going to offer something in just a second. So, Councilman Atkins, I'll let you go, and then I want to offer something.

You want me to go?

You can abstain.

No, no. I mean, I agree with a lot that they said, but... When this all first started coming up way even before y'all were even here, I never even knew that we had a problem. I mean, and so far right now, can anybody in here answer to me when a fire, I asked you earlier today, didn't get took care of and whatnot? I said from the get-go that the EMS and all was more of a bigger problem that we needed to tackle than the fire. But my idea is a little bit different since I've been here my entire life. And I remember fire departments as being part of the community. A lot of these places are sitting, and we'll get to the role that I think, but as far as community and all is concerned, at least on the western side, I couldn't ask any better for the volunteers and what that we've had. We haven't had any issue. I do think that the role that it's supposed to be operating as right now had never been followed right because How many times, Chrissy, have the tax districts who are supposed to report to council ever reported to council? Do you ever remember very many times? Because we're supposed to be the ones that the tax districts address. That's one issue. Now, I also can tell you from going to about all the chief meetings and a lot of other meetings, these fellows can fight like tooth and nails amongst one another, but I ain't never heard of an incident where any of them responded to a fire scene that they wasn't unified and they didn't do what they had to do. I don't think that we're ready to pull in. We got way more other problems in York County than what our fire service. This thing of talking about time responses, I think they do pretty good. Now, over on the western side, we got a lot of ground to travel sometime to get there. But what is that lot of time to travel to get there versus all the traffic and the mess that we've made in the heavier, more populated area. I can tell you one fire station right now that I've tried for going on two years just to get them a caution light so they can get out of their station. I admit there could be improvements on everything, but I can also admit there's a way lot worser things that we need to be tackling than just what we are deeming as a problem that I haven't seen yet to be the problem. Now, that's me on the west side. Yes, the tax district side, they got way more. But that's even why I say that all high density ought to always be maintained to the municipalities. But I mean, and equipment-wise, I don't think any of them in here can not admit that they ain't got much equipment. I think, though, at the fire training center, we need to be concentrating on getting mechanics and welders. And we need to fix a lot of stuff instead of just thinking every time you turn around, we need to be buying million dollar trucks. Most of the fire departments on my side, they don't need no 10-story ladder trucks. I mean, there's too much verification and difference between everything.

So backing this up to the policy, and thank you for all your input, there was one response that I want you to contemplate and consider. and this is actually a survey response and and you know i offer this as possibly something that maybe we we can land on here tonight in relation to this question so one of the survey responses was york county establishes common service outcomes and accountability expectations while permitting different delivery models based on community risk need capacity and willingness to fund enhanced service That really captures a lot of what each individual just said in one statement. Just so you know, these survey responses were anonymous. I couldn't attribute them to anybody. I don't know who made this statement, but this seemed to be kind of a blending. It was right in the middle. Is this something that council would agree with, or do you feel that this still needs to be kind of discussed and refined?

I think we still need to discuss and refine. And I ain't saying this in one term to make anyone ill, mad, or whatever. But after my dealings through the years, not only on the federal side with the milk and all that, and ever since I've been on capital and all, I don't see where government does anything efficiently. And I've told y'all that before. Y'all know I've said that. I mean, anything that you go to do, it costs three times as much, everything else. And I'm not going to let up on the fire departments. I mean, a volunteer is a volunteer. If you want to get paid for it, then that's another issue. Maybe you should become a career fireman at a station. It used to be about community and service and volunteering. And it's almost like we're trying to cram everything into a basket, and one size don't fit all. Right.

So hearkening back to this statement, would this be one that aligns with most everybody's philosophy close enough that it could be kind of that in between?

Well, I mean, you know, It's a very general statement. This is extremely general. And again, for us to put it into a basket like this, again, I think that when you're flying at 10,000 feet, you don't really see what the ground looks like. I think we need to understand what the ground looks like. We need to individually understand what each district and what their individual needs are instead of lumping a general conception. I get concerned when you agree to a general statement like this because, again, this is a 10,000-foot view, and a lot of times you're flying over simple fixes that really could help each individual district.

Again, my concern is We've got 16 districts. So I went through and read a whole lot, many white papers and reports and things on the consolidated districts and everything else. I understand how they work, but I don't see how you can have one county then have a consolidation with 16 different districts with all sorts of different inputs there with the tax boards also being thrown in there on seven of them. There's just so many different pieces that you're trying to govern and none of them are governed alike. The rules at one are different from the rules at another. And I'm still not satisfied or convinced that the firefighters hired by tax boards aren't county employees. which then throws another wrinkle in there. And so, until we figure out the governance of this thing from this level, I don't know how we get any further past that. I mean, who's got control with any of these places? I mean, it's working right now because it's working. But in some places, it's not. And it's only... One death, one retirement, one anything away from not working at any of the places. The hierarchy is just not there. It's just kind of a here, do it, and make it work, and it just works today. That's not to say, which is what we're looking at, long-term vision in 10 years that it's going to work.

It's not going to work as long as communities continue to get ripped apart. I mean, I used to be a volunteer, but that's years ago. But it's like a lot of things. You just got to have a heart and a willingness wanting to do it.

And so keep in mind, we're not going to answer any of those questions today, but let's speak to what the county's role in helping to guide this is. Let's try to back it out to that. Sorry, but I hear what Councilman Audet and Councilman Litton said, but let's talk about what the county's role is in that. Because I totally agree with your point about community and things like that, but we want to define what our role is or should be.

provide them and give them the help with whatever training and assistance that they need, help them with getting the new recruits and placement in. I still go back to the reason the tax districts come to be was to make up that shortcoming and that gap of their population in their area increasing you take like me we over on the western side we don't have the revenue and all. So if you ever tried to do this one model for everybody, you're going to take away from everybody over yonder to help us out over here on our secluded side. Do you get what I'm saying? I'll admit we're the growth and we're all The most responses are, sure, the county's going to have to help out, but like I said, so far, though, I haven't, I mean, the EMS side thing, and I've said that from the beginning, is where the issue is. I have not heard yet where a fire didn't get put out and people didn't get the help they needed.

I think at this point, I don't know that I would object to the conceptual, here's a framework. I think the problem that this council is having is that we've got to get out of the conceptual and into the actual details, because whether It's not as if we can change this overnight. It's required that we have planning and that we understand what we're looking towards. We're meeting two goals, an ISO requirement, and we're meeting a response time for fire, which I will say, and I think folks do mix them a lot. They mix an ambulance call with fire service. They are very different. The way our systems are set up, they are completely different. So looking at fire, I do agree with Mr. Audet. I think... We should already have a baseline for each of the 16 departments. There's a standard that applies in the rural areas. There's an ISO requirement that applies that you just can't get around. There are those kind of things where you have to have that certain equipment and be able to show that you have the support for that in that area. Then you have areas, and the concern is you have half of the district that the voters have approved, they wanted something more. So the Rural Fire Board is where all of the folks are being taxed. The special tax districts, which are half of the unincorporated area, are paying another tax. And so it is very hard to jump into just saying, hey, we're going to help an area here without having all of the data. And I just don't see how fruitful it is for us to have a conversation without knowing for each station, you know, each of the 16 stations, what is the level of service that's required for that particular area. What equipment and support is needed to accomplish that goal? What are the number of calls? You can't just go out and spend money in an area where there may be a limited amount of calls and only 57. But I think the concern for the fire service in general is that we are still built on volunteers. I'm very thankful for that. I am very thankful for the fact that our community still steps up. Do we need to recognize that volunteers are reducing? Yes. But I also don't see the county helping recruit volunteers. So it's kind of a chicken or the egg. There are certain things that we have to just embrace, and we work towards that. I don't see any other way to get there other than to support our tax districts first and work towards a plan that makes sense so that we know, hey, When we plan to do something over here in this district, it's not just because they ask. It's not just because they want something different. It's because it fits in with the whole plan, and everybody gets treated fairly, and everybody knows it at the outset. So I would just encourage us to get that baseline data. You say we're not talking about that tonight, but it really is hard to have a conversation about that without having that data.

So let me frame it this way, because you kind of said something, and so... Let me frame it this way, talking about the county's role. You mentioned standards for each district or department, whatever those standards are, whether they're response times, equipment, stations, all that, and then accountability. So I'll pose a question back to you, and I promise it's not a rhetorical question, but who sets those standards and who enforces and holds the accountability? Are the standards set at the Department level are the standards let set at the county level are they set by an outside organization and That's what we're relying on you guys to put together a

Obviously, ISO is ISO. I mean, that's an outside source that says you have to do this in order to make sure that folks' mortgage insurance fits.

But it's a rating, and so it's not a check in the box, yes or no. It's a rating up and down as a scale. So, again, who sets that?

If I could take a stab at the answer to your question, I think that you do need benchmarks outside of your county, right, whether it be state or national benchmarks to compare to. But I think ultimately you have to engage the fire districts and you have to engage those who are in the room tonight. They're here for a reason. They're here because they do what they do and they have a passion for what they do. We have to engage them in helping us create how we potentially accomplish a compromise of moving forward. What does the compromise moving forward look like? As I was sitting here listening to the comments, I thought about the Sheriff's Department and I thought, would it make sense for a Sheriff's Department to operate Like our fire operates. Maybe, maybe not. I don't know. But we do have one sheriff's department that serves all of unincorporated York County. And to me, I mean, I think that we continue to move in a direction of trying to accomplish this. And financially speaking, as this may come up, it came up earlier, we might find that working that 10-year plan gets us to a more efficient delivery of our service here in York County, more cost-effective. So I think this is a bridge. I think it's a compromise. It is a general statement, but you're going to have to dig into each part of it and get the input of those in the room and those that are not here tonight and help inform it. And I think a majority voice carries a strong voice, and you begin to lead forward with that voice.

Yeah, you know, I... When you hear compromise, though, thank you for the comments there. But I do cringe when I say that, you know, we'll come to a common compromise when you don't even know what we're really compromising on and understanding what we're actually talking about here in regards to that. I think that's the challenge with vision statements is that if you don't have a ground level view, I mean, I think that from a practicality standpoint, to me, I think that you holistically look at what is the common if you're going to look at what is the biggest challenge for each of the districts, say, for example, is it recruiting volunteers? So then we, as the county, would maybe partner with our school districts and speak to them about maybe introducing more programs or whatever it may be, where we're not actually controlling it, but we're helping to bring about the needs and allow them to partner with each individual school. But we can help promote it. And again, that's just an example. You know, I think when it comes to referendums, if each district needs a referendum, then we help to market that referendum for them. I mean, you know, simple things like that I think can go a long ways. without us controlling. I think the control still stays with them, but we understand what their general needs are, and we can be assisting as some of these things come up to help them mitigate some of the obstacles.

So are you thinking, kind of what I'm hearing is that we should wait to establish a more uniform umbrella once all the districts have their own tax boards? Is that kind of what I'm hearing?

I think, no. No, I think, but let me just. He asked the question. Real quick. No, it's not, that's not what I'm thinking. You know, I'm thinking that I need to understand individually what each district needs. That's really it. That's where we start the discussion. And then from there, we, to me, we understand how we can partner with some of these general needs, but not control. So that's where I'm coming from.

So I'll say this. I met with Flint Hill when their issues were coming up right at the budget time. And I met with Bullocks Creek when I understood some of their concerns. And I think you see a complete, totally different needs. But I think more than anything, What we have to do, and we have to do it now, is we have to do an assessment of where we are because I heard the question asked, is our fire service performing and are they doing well? We have a lot of folks that like to argue about things, but are they making the fire calls and are we getting to the fire calls? My understanding is that we are. That gives us flexibility to get a long-range plan together with help from the folks that helped build this. We cannot turn over tomorrow and say, okay, it's all going to be county and pay for that. That would be an outrageous. If you look at Flint Hill having folks on standby 24-7, the folks in the community and the voters have not approved that yet in the areas that they are. We have to deal with what the voters have approved. And so I think the question really is, What is hard for council to do is to say, okay, we're going to go ahead and spend this money over here, or we're going to go ahead and take on this responsibility over here without having the plan laid out, whatever it is. And you're asking us, what should the standard be? What came up in those discussions is the standard is very different. And if you start using an NAPA standard, nobody ever attains that standard. So I think that's where we're relying on y'all, you, and if we have to get an expert, fine, but... We're two and a half years in, and we still don't have the baseline data that we need to be able to understand, is there a gap? Fire service. We're not talking about EMS. We're talking about fire service. Where are the gaps? Where are the issues? And I do think that if we would focus on gathering that information, it will help us. determine the next step instead of trying to pick the conclusion before we've done that data.

And so I'm not asking you to set standards necessarily, but what we're asking is who makes the decision on standards? Do you feel that that's a county role or is that a departmental role? on if there's a recommendation for a standard. Is that something that the county approves and says, yes, this is the standard, whether it's district level, whether it's holistic on behalf of the whole county, or is that all the way at the individual?

That would be fine. How did it ever get to the point where we as council were supposed to be the ones that the tax districts answered to? Same difference. Bring before us what each one is and We have proved that they meet that standard.

I think it might be helpful if we're starting with this for us to, and I don't mean to short circuit the plan, but how long would it take to gather that data so that we have a baseline of information?

So for your information, what we would take is everything that we're discussing here tonight and harness our GIS and possibly some consulting work to help us go in on the micro level to each district and department and what we would call an effective response framework which encompasses everything that you're saying of setting an effective response framework for each district and then that would set all of that information for you and give recommendations. That would be the most kind of in-depth analysis and assessment of that that would speak to everything that you're saying, stations, equipment, level of service, that all is holistic, built into what they call an effective response framework.

So, but I just want to make sure I'm hearing you correctly. You're saying you would meet with each individual district to identify that standard. Yep, yep.

But I go back to what you said earlier. Let's say we get these standards set. We haven't even decided who has the authority to run that standard. I mean, what if there's a district that doesn't meet the requirements and can't meet the requirements? Then what?

Get them help to meet it.

Huh? Get them help to meet it. But does that make them become a county district at that point?

I've not heard anybody's not meeting it. Is anybody not meeting it?

Well, meeting what?

The question that Andy asked.

We don't have that set yet. I think to Councilman Litton's question is if you set that, you know, that council adopts that, is who becomes the accountability or enforcement action behind that?

We have two missions. ISO and fire service response. And I think that those standards are, I mean, it's not something, you're asking us, we don't know. I do now know that there's a different standard in a rural area versus what's in an urban area. There's a different standard when you have businesses that you have to respond to than individuals who live out there. I think these folks know. Has that question ever been posed to the group of the fire service group? Because I think the Rural Fire Board would be a good place to talk about saying, hey, I don't know that using NFPA is realistic because nobody's ever met it. And that would be, you couldn't. So what are the realistic standards? And I think that that's, if I'm picking up on what Mr. Audet is saying, is that the first point is to meet with each department and talk to them about all of these things first, not just jump on GIS and start creating a standard and shove it down the throats of folks.

I don't think that's what we said. I'm sorry, that's what I heard. Multiple of you all have said engagement. Around along as a service. So I think we've got that showing up here I think it makes sense to continue to move through the presentation at this point just to make sure we touch on everything Because I don't want to get stuck on this. Our goal is to hear from y'all so that the next time we come back What we're what we're bringing to y'all speaks to what y'all want to see I think that's that's the challenge if we don't get clear direction at this point what we bring back is might not be what y'all want to see. And so we're really trying to do our due diligence with y'all to make sure that all the work we put into this with all the folks in this room is in line with what y'all's vision is. So I know it's hard to do that before you have data, but I really think if you start high level and you work your way down, that's going to end up with the best result for your county.

Keep going. No, thank you for that. I just want to say, I think to me, though, if there's a takeaway on here, I think if we're going to try to set standards on this thing, I think it's a critical that you meet with each individual district and speak through what they feel is their standard. Okay?

Okay.

Okay, so.

Can I ask a question? Yes, ma'am. What is your goal?

So our goal is to enforce, not I should say enforce, let me back up. Our goal is to execute the vision of county council absolutely with the input of each individual fire department and fire district. But we want to know what you view your role is and also what county fire services role is in that. You know, is it largely in a support role? Is it a more, you know, kind of a governance role to assist with, those broader level discussions as they impact the whole county, not at the individual department. That's what we want to help define is the county's purpose and role in fire service across the whole county, not for one individual district or one area. And to your point, I think Councilman Atkins kind of alluded to this, that may mean something different for every district, and that's okay. But we want to be able to give staff and align our department as they move into the future for what their kind of role and expectation is throughout each of that.

Have you met with the individual? Haven't you met with them already?

Yeah. I thought you had.

I mean, a long time ago, right? Not just recently.

Yeah. Oh, I mean, we have ongoing meetings. But, yeah, absolutely. We've been to every individual fire department.

Well, so I'm still confused as to what we're doing here. That's an exercise that we'll do again. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I don't mean to be hard-nosed. But these guys, I know a lot more than I did when I started fire service and what their – what they need and some folks are a little more desperate than other folks. And I think for us to sit up here and go round and round and round on all these different roles and things, I don't think it accomplishes anything. We need to accomplish something for our fire service because they're the ones out there that maybe in one hour are going to respond to a major wreck or to a fire or something. They don't need for us to sit in here and just use big words and so forth. I don't know. I'm just a little underwhelmed about this.

We're trying to get y'all's feedback. If y'all will go through the questions with us, I think that will help us understand where you want to go. And without that, I think it's hard for us to bring something back to y'all.

Right, so we don't want to throw spaghetti at you. Well, I mean, what do you think you're going to bring back to us?

What do you want to bring back to us?

Well, so far, what I've heard so far is that, you know, we obviously need to engage each individual district, bring back standards, level of service requirements with analysis and data, and bring that to you so that you can either give direction on is this what we want to adopt for each individual district, and what's the county's role going to be? We've kind of heard all the way from the level of decentralization to really that would remove the county from it altogether and put everything, every decision, every funding mechanism, every piece at the department level all the way up to, well, the county should have a countywide system, a countywide department. So what we're trying to do is take polarity. polar opinions on the fire service and trying to come down and narrow that into something that and i know you don't like the word compromise but something that does align on on where the county lands ultimately so that our staff and the county the county fire service can go forward with a direction i think all of us have our own individual ideas but it's because we represent

such diverse areas of the county and we all have different needs and and we can't be the same we can't i can't be the same yeah and we're not asking you to be the same we're just asking to for us to talk but you know that i mean you know what's needed if you let us keep going

So talking about the county role, just real briefly, and this kind of speaks to what I was alluding to, Ms. Cloninger, is there's kind of seven roles, and they're not distinct when we talk about what the county takes a position in our involvement with county fire. And that ranges from convene all the way down to govern and fund. And so I offer these for conversation and for feedback so that we can identify and, again, work with county staff and the county fire service to coordinate or work with each individual fire department is what should our staff's role be? What should the county's role be in interacting with each one of them? And some of these may be a blending. There may be departments that don't need any level of supplement or set expectations. Maybe there's a department, to Chairwoman Cox's statement, that is meeting or exceeding the FPA standards. Largely not necessary to set expectations for them, So going through these, and there's a little bit of qualifier on what it means in practice, but is there any level of agreement on, and it doesn't have to be one or the other, it can be numerous of these, what should the county's role look like so that we can plan to bring more back to you? Convene, support, coordinate, set expectations. We kind of just talked about that. Supplement, we mentioned that one. that would kind of be the most aggressive, directly deliver fire protection services in some parts of the county, and then govern and fund, which would be that centralized policy authority and financial responsibility. Is there any agreement? Maybe it's up to a level that we kind of cut it off, or it's a blending of all of the above. Is there anything that council would agree as the county's role in this?

I think looking at that, the only thing that comes to mind is the county participating in bringing the municipalities into a direct partnership, as they are now, but continue to strengthen that partnership.

Okay. Yeah, so that would definitely fall under the role of convene. Yep.

I mean, practically, aren't we already through coordinate? I mean, we already do through coordinate. The question is, where are we with set expectations? Isn't that the line where we seem to have frustration, but I'm not really sure.

So close. You're not wrong. You're close.

I don't mean to be combative, but I still feel like level of service is something that really isn't just, hey, what do I think? It's from the experts. It's from the folks that do this. That's a standard that... until we understand what do you think the level of service is or should be for each station? Do y'all have that? Do y'all have an idea of what that should be? Already? Now? Do our departments already know that?

So the county does not. We do not have a level of service that we would enforce or expect.

See, I think that's why we have to start right there because I think we've got to figure out what is that level of service because how do you know how much equipment and personnel is needed to meet that level of service if we don't have that?

Right. Without that baseline, I mean, I think, you know, to me, David, there's a – this is – Very high up level, and I get what you're driving towards, but I think we're way too high on this thing. I think we need to understand the basis of the needs for each individual, identifying what they feel is their benchmark as far as response times, and then identifying what their individual needs are, and then FROM THERE, YOU HAVE A BASELINE. AND THEN FROM THAT POINT, WE SIMPLIFY THIS PROCESS AND UNDERSTAND THAT, YOU KNOW, BE AS AN ASSISTANT TO THEM, BUT NOT TO TAKE OVER THEM. THAT WOULD BE MY VISION. I'M TRYING TO SIMPLIFY THINGS, BUT I THINK IT'S GOTTEN

So can I throw out a hypothetical, maybe, to kind of give you an example?

I mean, if you get to them, like I was saying earlier, is their concern where they're not able to recruit volunteers? So we work on a volunteer recruitment program for them.

So let's go back to equipment, because you mentioned equipment, and I think Councilman Huckabee had mentioned something about the number of apparatus that are in the fleet. I think you mentioned that earlier. Or stations. You could go to that level. Let's hypothetically say that there is a situation where a district or department says that there is an asset or there is something that they need. But then the county's assessment of that would be, well, you don't need that specific piece of equipment. We have clear information here that shows, you know, you're adequately covered, whether it's surrounding jurisdictions or it's, you know, whatever that effective response framework is. I'll go back to that. So what happens when there's disagreements between, well, we need this and you should purchase it for us or we're going to go purchase this or acquire it on our own?

But, David, once again, getting back to level of service, once we know an established level of service for every department, then figuring out that is gonna tell us what equipment is necessary to meet that level of service. And until you know that, and until there's an acknowledgement and agreement on that, And I think part of the level of service is going to have to be for the areas that do not have a special tax district. That level of service is driven by the funding that only comes from the rural fire board. And so in order to make it fair, maybe there needs to be a western special tax district to catch that up. I don't know. I'm just saying, until we know what the level of service is for each of the stations, we don't have a way to frame it. But to your question about... Seems like we could answer that question of is that equipment necessary if we first know if the level of service, what that level of service is required, then you can say, okay, well, this equipment is needed to meet that level of service.

But humor me, what if there's disagreement on what the level of service is?

I think you've got to start there, though.

You've got to start there.

We have to start with the level of service. What about the state? I mean, there are lots of standards. The NFPA, I think, is the highest. I'm learning as I've gone. NFPA is like the highest unattainable almost, if not truly. And then there are other standards. There's your ISO standard, which is different. That's a different goal. But there's the fire service calls, truly fire service calls. What is the standard for an area in a rural? And my understanding is that could change. If the county jumps in too quick, that can drive up that and drive up the cost and drive up. I mean, I think that's why. I think talking to each of the districts to determine what is the level of service that they're actually delivering right now and asking what is going to be the standard that we use, that we agree to. That's something that y'all have got, that the professionals have got to talk through. I don't know how many exist. I've heard of NOPA. I've heard of state. I don't know. Nobody's hollering them out. I'm not asking for that.

agree that we need standards we need to know what's what's meeting and what's not and then we can make a decision on how deep into it we need to go and and as far as the equipment I mean we set a baseline of what the county helps them provide like what we do now and

I'd be more willing to take some folks around, which I ain't got to tell none of these fellas nothing. Cherokee County Union, a lot of them in the room here themselves have had fundraisers and everything and established. And that's why their departments are so personal to them. They put a lot of blood, sweat, and tears into. And they own it. They bought it with the community's help. That's what kept them close-knit together.

Well, I also think doing the level of service like you're saying with equipment, there are some areas that don't need, I think my understanding is our equipment policy is just who's next on the list to get the next thing instead of what does this department need to meet their level of service is different than what this department needs. That's why the equipment policy can't even be updated until we know what's needed at each department to deliver the level of service.

I know this, and I don't mean it to be a dadgum joke, but if I went by just saying because something's got some age on it that it ain't worth a hoot, you can ask several in this room here. I wouldn't have attracted one running.

Well, I think what you've given us so far, you know, we were going to talk about some goals, but I think the feedback that we received is that's probably not going to be beneficial for us to go into the strategic goals. So I think what we've received so far we're going to go back with and bring forward with you kind of our recommendation. It's not going to be a plan, but how we would propose to tackle these things that you've brought up, particularly level of service. you know what i would term effective response framework and bringing you back something that you can either chew on and obviously you know that'll probably take us some time this will not be quick by any means so don't think that this will be next month or november um but working with each department and i think that's going to be a heavy lift but what i'm hearing you and the feedback that i've gotten from you i think is that's what's kind of probably give you more information and would probably lead to a better discussion in the future. So I'm comfortable with settling right there and not worrying about going any of the individual goals just with what we've gotten so far. I agree. If that's agreeable.

Yeah, I'm good. Yeah. Sounds good, David.

So you're going to meet with each department?

Yeah, we have some immediate things that we need to engage on. Chairwoman Cox mentioned one of them, like the equipment plan and things like that. But, yes, that would be part of that before we ever come back to council is some individual. And I may even, kind of similar to the survey that I did with you all, I may shift that and tailor it to a fire service level and conduct that with each fire department because I got a lot of really good feedback from you. And I think them going through that same exercise and feedback would give us some good information as we get ready to engage with them individually and prepare for that. So that's something that I had thought about and intended, but I wanted to start here. So I'm still planning on doing that.

Yeah, I think that's effective.

Yeah, I applaud that effort.

Yeah, go ahead and teach the individual. And I think, I mean, and David, I would also say, like, I know this is time-consuming, but I think a survey is good, but having individual conversations definitely, too. Because, I mean, a lot of times you can't express yourself in a comment on a note. I think it's good to have a...

And I liken it to our one-on-ones with you. We had one-on-one meetings with these councilmen and a survey, and I think absolutely that's the most bang for the buck. Right.

Whatever you put in a survey, it never supersedes an individual conversation. 100% agree.

The only thing I'll add in terms of our process going forward, Ms. Conninger just asked, should we hear from folks? And I think having the proper format, I think the way that we would structure this is having this item as a standard item on the monthly JPS meetings that we'll have going forward. Allow folks who are hearing this who are biting at the chumps to say they think they know what the standard is or who want to share something with council. At least maybe that is a way to also hear folks without taking over the workshop today. I think that would be another.

Absolutely. And I actually really like that idea because I think that gives people a centralized platform that's consistent that they always know is there. So we absolutely will continue that.

Excellent. Thank you, David.

Thank you, David. So I have some just general fire service concerns that have come up. At what point would agreements be made between the county and all the fire districts for like the trucks and the equipment and how much training and who does the training and what the training is? Is the training standardized across all the districts? Or does each department make up their own thing? It's kind of an odd thing, but how do we have non-employees driving county-owned vehicles? How does workers' comp or volunteers' work when they don't work for us? there's all these different agreements are there any agreements at all between these boards or is it just the ordinance this is more for council because I've already talked to at least Bethel and staff about it there's no hierarchy in it who actually has the control when there's a tax board these tax boards if they're not If they're arms of the county, why are we hiring our own HR accountants and attorneys and whatnot for the tax boards? Why aren't they being covered as part of the county? This is all things that I think is going to need to be solved, but need to be solved as part of this also. Because there's a lot of intermixing and no clearly defined anything. And like I said, it works until it doesn't.

And I think a lot of those questions have been brought up piecemeal through legal, which two and a half years ago, I mean, a lot of those questions will require legal input. I think there are considerations that should be listed and should be shared with management, but I think we've got to kind of put some, we've got to, put the rubber to the road in terms of gathering the initial data before we can either, I mean, I think one of those questions needs to be, what are the current agreements that you have with the county? What do you have? Each district may have something different. I mean, we're now creating information on each one of them, but I think we've got to, don't you think we need to start with the level of service first? It sounds like that's...

I think all of this has to be addressed. I mean, if we don't even have any agreements with anybody, who is responsible? Well, it all has to be.

We had an MOUs with Town of Clover. We had an MOUs with City of New York.

What about the fire districts?

The other fire districts? The ordinance says it. It outlines it in the ordinance.

Yeah, so for each one you would look to the ordinance and to the extent your question, your concern had to do with the use of county equipment by individual districts, MOU is the appropriate approach. For anyone who's using county equipment.

Can we have those? We have one more. So, I mean, there is a whole lot of liability sitting out there that I feel like that is more or just as important to set an expectation for the response times.

Well, I think it's also about supporting our fire service and giving the support that's needed in them. It's not just, hey, how do we, you know.

And you also are covering the grounds that a lot of, well, the majority of these stations were built on donated land and whatnot and and these communities own these stations and all and i mean there's a lot a lot to that but like i said that i didn't know we had a problem and but i would i would like to ask y'all one thing though When I got on council, it wasn't shortly that this topic come up. But something was said a little bit ago. Council never initiated. It's first brought in and initiated by management. Why did they, even getting on the bandwagon of all this, why do you know why they ever even started initiating, looking into the fire service or whatever?

So when y'all hired me, this was something that you asked me to prioritize? But no, this started before you even got here. Well, I can't answer that question.

My recollection is there was an audit, and the results of the audit led to continuation of this conversation.

Yeah, there was an audit.

We may have had that audit, but we also had this thing at a level place and settled that.

I think, David, what else do we need to do to help take the next step in terms of how are we going to get to a

Nothing right now. I mean, I'm going to digest all this, and I'll send back some feedback to you and circulate that among council before we take a next step on it. Sounds good, David. Thank you. All right. Good deal. We talked. That's what matters most. Yeah. But we do have some executive session. All right.

Yeah.

All right. Well, we appreciate all you folks that came out to listen to this dialogue. And at this time, do we have a motion?

Yeah, we have two. Receipt of legal advice litigation update. Receipt of legal advice contractual matters, Pima Hospital contract. Second.

Motion and a second. Any discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, we'll go into executive session. We are out of executive session. Council took no action while in executive session. Are there any motions?

Motion to adjourn. Second.

Motion to second. All in favor say aye. Aye. We are adjourned.