Thanks to the efforts of Chief John Fink, Golder Ranch Fire District and Mike Treece, Chairman of Mountain Vista Fire District, and their respective Board of Directors, many Oro Valley residents could see enhanced fire service in the near future.
Thanks to our friend Phil Richardson, who worked hard on behalf of all of his neighbors. As a result of all these efforts, the agreement between these two fire districts will go a long way in offering the Oro Valley residents south of Hardy road with enhanced fire service by both fire districts.
Although the two districts have worked out the details, the agreement must still be approved by the Oro Valley Town Council. They will discuss this issue at the April 1 Council Meeting.
If the citizens, especially those that will be directly affected by this potential upgrade in service, have any interest, they will show up for this meeting and endorse the agreement.
Hopefully ALL seven members of the council will vote to approve this Mutual Aid Agreement, that is in the best interests of our citizens.
12 comments:
Zee Man...
Please define the "enhancements".
Don, As I understand it, the current protocol, known as "Mutual
Aid," is when one fire department, whether private corporation (Rural/Metro) municipal or fire district, calls for assistance, it is a very rare, almost unknown instance for them to be unable to get it from one or more of the other fire departments. However, this is sometimes unwieldy. Communications sytems are not always entirely compatible. Any of this can be time consuming when seconds count. Then, there is that regrettable, political, "turf war," element has been known to intervene, to a degree detrimental to the public safety and welfare.
I can cite rare but specific cases of this having occurred in Pima County between fire departments of various stripes.
A far better protocol is one espoused by Council Member Bill Garner, who incidentally once was a firemen: An enhanced protocol would he "Automatic Aid" or "Automatic Assistance," and be so configured that the initial dispatch would be immediately known by all agencies in the system, but the station closest to the fire would get priority dispatch, irrespective of whatever aegis, organization or jurisdiction it operates. Also, the protocol would be followed if greater aid was needed to suppress a conflagration.
Hi Phil.
Thanks for the response.
I believe this kind of relationship, for all practical purposes, exists today between Rural and GR.
Unfortunately the current communication system within all first responders within Pima County is fractured. The switch to all digital TV was supposed to benefit that problem by creating more bandwidth but that has been delayed by who knows how long by the current idiots running Wash, DC.
I guess I just don't understand why this was posted in the first place as 'news'.
If we had only ONE fire department for the greater metro Tucson area we wouldn't have to worry about it.
OVOT,
I'm not sure how long you've lived in Arizona, but as a state, we have rarely ever allowed one public entity (i.e. one fire district) to control an area.
Arizona has been built on the idea that LOCAL control (down to the neighborhood level) produces the greatest product/output/service to the community.
That is why the Tucson area alone has so many school districts, municipalities, and yes, fire districts.
Hate it or love it, Arizona believes in highly localized control of public entities. Fire districts are no exception.
AZ Cactus...
You touch on an interesting point. While I too believe that the best decisions are made at the local government level, that thought can be carried too far. I believe we have gone too far. There would much more money for education with fewer school districts and the same holds true for fire coverage.
Phoenix, and God knows I don't like to have anything to do with that place, has but one fire department for it's metro area.
At some point this area must truly embrace the regionalism concept. This is especially true if we want to win more battles in the legislature.
Thinker,
You'll be surprised to learn that I agree with you about the delay in switching to digital TV. I've been seeing the announcements for this change on my TV for over a year. Therefore, anyone who has a TV also saw and heard the 1,735 individual announcements and there is no reason they shouldn't have known about this change. It makes me nuts the way things get dragged out for so long while we cater to the stupid people. How many announcements do you need? How much advance warning do you need?
I didn't know about the increased bandwidth helping first responders, but if you're right about that, shouldn't that have taken precedence over waiting for a bunch of hillbillies to get with the program? I guess it's more important that the hillbillies don't miss one day of Jerry Springer than it is that first responders are able to communicate with each other.
I'm a little cranky today!
VC...
We agree on a lot of things.....but we just have more fun on those issues on which we disagree. :-)
Cranky is OK!!
Don
Good discussion here, and I'm happy to see some agreement on this board!
Regionalism? This most certainly opens up a can o' worms. How far can we stretch it? County, State, Federal, Continental? WORLD??? Yes, it may appear that regionalism
could help in reducing costs of some services, but I still believe that competition remains the main force in keeping prices/costs in check. I believe that certain limited regional 'controls' could be in order ONLY in that such might be able to avert a free-for-all in specified instances where the General Welfare is at stake; but, precedent shows that this over-implementation can be habit forming and therefore might be a very slippery slope.
P.S. - I left out however that there should be cooperation and transparency in those operations which affect regions from one to another.
Hi Zev...
Good to hear from you. Have you ever noticed how civil the blog is when a certain person is absent? Just a casusal observation.
My reference to"regionalism" admittedly has limitations. I would like to see a Tucson Metro Fire Department. I see that "region as Saddlebrooke on the north, somewhere in the vicinity of the airport to the south, Vail to the east and somewhere close to Ajo Hwy and Kinney to the WSW and Marana to the WNW.
I think our water situation should be dealt with regionally with a wider net here to include Green Valley.
I would like to see fewer school districts in the area. Every dollar spent on school adminstration is a dollar out of the classroom.
Obviously we have already moved into the reagionalism forum with the RTA program.
It's time to break the molds and think differently.
Hi OV OT, good to see you are back!
Yes, I understand fully what you are saying; I do, however believe that it might be a bit idealistic. Tucson is a municipality that seems not to be able to ever make up it's mind and appears to continually drag out it's decision making processes; this is not good thing for solid regional planning even though it may be an ideal in certain instances. When I lived in North Carolina, although 'run' by the state, the county was THE school district. I cannot tell you how muddled this conglomeration got, not only fiscally (the County was SUPPOSED to be responsible ONLY for capital improvements but ended up giving out monies to 'help' the over burdened money grabbing administration) but the school assignments as well. The County School Administration refused to let the idea of neighborhood schools dominate the scenery and concocted a bevy of schemes in order to attain societal balance. So, they had myriads of buses going every which way - some kids had to ride 40 minutes each way to school and back when there was one right in the neighborhood; neighbors of the same age and grade status went to schools miles apart and so forth. And, it was these powerful social engineering type administrators that had a whole county in which to play their political games - yes, a REGIONAL approach gone wild.
To me, any service OTHER than transportation, public utilities, and other 'across the board' entities which are best served by regionalism, need only enhance and compliment their services by a mandate for cooperation.
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