EDITORIAL: Fire Chief Must Be Equal Partner
FIRE CHIEF LARRY Collins was welcomed to his new job at a ceremony held last Friday. He was sworn in and feted at a reception. It was an event attended by City Council members, as well as members of the Ann Arbor Fire Department and the Ann Arbor Police Department. Chief Collins parted ways with his previous employer over attempts to upgrade fire services to the community, including the purchase of equipment. He said at the Ann Arbor event he intends to “recommend changes that I think are appropriate for moving us forward, making us a top notch fire department in the state, perhaps in the midwest part of the country.”
Considering Ann Arbor’s Fire Department hasn’t been able to meet either staffing or response times recommended by experts over the past several years, the Chief’s desire to make ours a top notch fire department would be a welcome change, indeed. In past, the city’s fire chiefs have stood before City Council and touted closing stations, affirmed unwise reductions in their own department’s staffing and generally toed the party line.
This may be because in Ann Arbor, the Fire Chief is not a safety services area administrator. For all purposes, the Police Chief oversees both the police and fire departments. This means when it comes to funding, the police department has an advocate at the table and the fire department does not. This may be why we have not heard AAPD Chief John Seto reporting to Council the impacts of staffing cuts to the fire department and the fact that the department’s response times don’t meet national standards. He has repeatedly spoken to City Council about police staffing.
The head of the AAFD for the past year, Seto stepped in after the previous fire chief was allowed to retire amid a scandal for repeated violations of the city’s purchasing policy and a two month internal investigation into his relationship with Fire Marshal Reka Farrackand. The two took multiple out-of-state trips together for training conferences.
Chief Collins deserves every opportunity to bring the AAFD back into compliance with national response time standards. Unfortunately, he faces a mayor who, as a Council member, repeatedly voted against increased funding for the Fire Department. He faces two new Council members in Julie Grand and Kirk Westphal who assert that decisions about increased funding for safety services must be supported by data. What clearer data exist than an independent consultant’s report which concluded AAFD response rates don’t meet national standards or a sharp increase in fire-related deaths over the past half a dozen years?
We believe it’s time the city’s Fire Chief was made a safety services area administrator in conjunction with the Chief of Police. While Chief Seto is an able administrator, it’s clear his allegiance is with his police department and its officers. The Fire Chief needs to be an equal partner with the Police Chief in order to make long overdue improvements to the city’s fire safety services.
It is important to remember that the professional staff of the Ann Arbor Fire Department are primarily our first medical responders. Huron Valley Ambulance staffs to achieve nine minute average response time. By then, a heart attack victim who could be saved is finished. This is why it is important that our fire department be able to meet the national standard of four minute response time at least 90% of the time.
The good news is that based on discussions with leadership members of the fire department, I believe that with changes in staffing procedures and staffing philosophy only a small low single digit increase in the number of staff is all that is needed to achieve the national standard.