By Rose Conroy
(Editor’s Note: The following response was sent to the Davis City Council. As a public record, we are publishing this in its entirety so that the public can read the other side of the story).
I am writing to you to express my concerns regarding the proposals in the staff report submitted to you by City Manager, Steve Pinkerton.
I worked at the Davis Fire Department for over thirty years. The last sixteen of those years were as Fire Chief.
I will try to be brief as I am sure you have enough material to read, but there is so much in the staff recommendations. I would like to provide my comments, as a former employee and a current home owner in the City of Davis, regarding the discussion of the Davis Fire Department.
Response Time Goals:
To have positive outcomes, well trained firefighters must arrive in generally, no longer than 5 minutes to have a chance to save lives and reduce property damage.
Extending response time goals is lowering emergency service levels. For example, extending the turnout time to two minutes – is doubling the current expectation. It takes an average of one minute to leave the station, much less time for medical emergencies, maybe one minute and ten to fifteen seconds to leave the station in full turnout gear.
We were able to meet the turnout time most of the time. Extending that time is unproductive and not beneficial to positive outcomes during emergencies.
Adding response time to a fire event or medical emergency does not improve that situation and could absolutely be the difference between survival and not surviving or the difference in large property loss and limited property loss
Boundary Drop Remarks:
I believe the UCD and Davis Fire Departments have worked together formally since 1962, and informally for even more decades. These two departments have done everything feasible to maximize and support one another in providing service to the City of Davis and the UC Davis campus.
More so than any other entities and departments I have witnessed, whether it is police, planning, building, parks, recreational, social services, public works, the cooperation between the two departments has been historically mutually cooperative.
After mutual aid response, came automatic aid response between the departments decades ago. The two departments have tried and succeeded at many innovative ideas and some have been undone due to fragmentation from being two separate and independent agencies not because the two have not tried.
Sharing of fire radio frequencies developed into toning each other for assistance from one department to the other whether for mutual aid or automatic aid on a large incident or responding to a simultaneous call. If one of the agencies could not respond to a call as all their resources were busy, the other department was toned and responded if available.
The City of Davis and the UC Davis Fire Departments share everything operationally. The combined risk of these two jurisdictions compared with the resources currently allocated are not sufficient by themselves (within their own jurisdictions) nor when combined. To state they are going to get more resources out of existing resources is hyperbole.
Management Oversight:
With all due respect for Chief Black, the management and oversight of the fire department should not be a Police Chief or other police professional. It should be a fire professional with the knowledge and experience to manage a modern fire department. This is insupportable.
Appropriate Staffing Levels:
After several thorough analyses of the Davis Fire Department, commonly referred to as “Standards of Cover”, the most effective and efficient staffing levels are 4 person engine companies for the City of Davis given its shape, size, density, historical data and other factors. I recommended this staffing arrangement after completing a Standards of Cover analysis, not solely on the OSHA requirements but in concert with its implementation.
A nationally recognized authority in Standards of Cover, Stewart Gary with Citygate, hired by the City of Davis, came to the same conclusion independently, that 4 person engine companies are the most appropriate in the City of Davis. And subsequently, Interim Fire Chief Bill Weisgerber concurred with this recommendation.
I do not believe there has been a Standards of Cover analysis of the risks and resources of the UC Davis Campus internally or externally. No standards of cover analysis to determine the appropriate staffing level for the UC Davis Campus let alone if they are in a position to improve the City of Davis Fire Department situation.
To suggest the two departments would enhance the City of Davis, enabling it to reduce resources, without any consideration or analysis of the UC Davis Campus risks versus resources, is premature at best.
It is understandable if the community chooses not to increase the number of firefighters and fire stations given the many years of economic uncertainty, but choosing to reduce the minimal number of firefighters to levels below levels of the 1980s, when the population was much lower and there was a much lower call volume, will not minimize death and injuries and damage from emergency events, it will increase the risk.
The most widely accepted method of right sizing a fire and emergency service agency is through a Standards of Cover analysis, which as stated earlier has not been done for UC Davis campus to my knowledge.
I would think the decision makers would welcome knowing what their respective jurisdictional risks and costs are in negotiating financial arrangements between the two jurisdictions should that occur.
One cannot stipulate there will be savings if a proper and thorough analysis has not been completed. As a side note, I believe it would be approximately 110,000 population and close to 145 square miles if the two departments were combined.
Oddly, there is no mention of the three contracts for service the City of Davis Fire Department has with East Davis County Fire Protection District, Springlake Fire Protection District Area B, and No Man’s Land Fire Protection District. These contracts are beneficial to both the fire districts and the City of Davis.
Staffing levels are dependent not on what other jurisdictions do but what the standards of cover (analysis of risks to resources) illustrates.
During my employment, the annual comparison of the cost of the Davis Fire Department for emergency and prevention services was always cheaper than comparable jurisdictions so the suggestion that the City of Davis fire staffing costs more was not true for the sixteen years we compared it to comparable jurisdictions.
In the City of Davis, due to many factors; shape, size, density, roadway design, fire department operations with four person engine companies were cheaper than most all other jurisdictions.
There are a couple of statements in the staff report, that I believe can be misinterpreted, which I think need to be explored. In the discussion of staffing levels; there will not be an additional unit of resources available (referring to the Rescue) as the Rescue already responds.
There will be a reduction of one resource, Rescue 31, which currently is dispatched depending on type and location of call to the outlying stations or in the downtown.
The way I read this report, a stand-alone unit with two personnel is a waste of resources and a significant safety concern. This suggestion would be a reduction in resources. Will this unit be staffed with the personnel who have sufficient training, command and control requirements of a stand-alone resource? That cost is an ongoing annual cost tied to personnel costs.
The statement “… the City will have 6 units available for response instead of its current three” may be misleading. It should read “the City will continue to share existing units but with one less firefighter between the City of Davis and UC Fire”.
With only three personnel per engine company, all fire events will require at least two engine companies whereas, currently a single engine company can handle if the fire event is able to be contained upon arrival. So there will be fewer resources available, fewer resources for simultaneous calls.
In conclusion, after being involved in three attempts at determining whether the City of Davis and the UC Fire Departments should consolidate, at the end of the analysis, the cost savings will be one Fire Chief’s total compensation, if the departments consolidate.
The City of Davis and UC Davis will need to decide a governance model they can both support to consolidate. It will not work to have a bifurcated sharing of management oversight. The departments will not operate as one efficient, effective, cohesive organization; it will be a disjointed and removed organization.
The nature of fire services requires an effective and cohesive organization due to the risks of the fire personnel to provide the rewards or positive outcomes for the public.
This letter was painful to read, it looks like Rose wants to hire more people that can retire at 50 and join her in getting $10K every month from us taxpayers:
[url]http://www.fixpensionsfirst.com/calpers2012/?first_name=&last_name=&employer=City+of+Davis[/url]
[i]”Sharing of fire radio frequencies developed into [b]toning each other[/b] for assistance from one department to the other whether for mutual aid or automatic aid on a large incident or responding to a simultaneous call.”[/i]
Toning each other? What does that mean?
… tuning each other, as in ‘tuning in’?
RC: [i]”With all due respect for Chief Black, the management and oversight of the fire department should not be a Police Chief or other police professional. It should be a fire professional with the knowledge and experience to manage a modern fire department. This is insupportable.”[/i]
Conroy does not explain why it is “unsupportable.” She may be correct. I think we should use the next 6 months, when Police Chief Black is directing police and fire, to see how supportable it is. If it turns out okay, then this arrangement will save us about $255,000 a year (and more as costs grow).
Insofar as the concern is we need a person running the DFD with firefighting knowledge in charge in the event of a fire, I have an idea: We now have 3 new (highly paid) division chiefs in the fire department. One of them can, when there is a fire, be Chief Black’s top aide and fill in the police chief as to what needs to be done to the fire.
RC: [i]”To suggest the two departments would enhance the City of Davis, enabling it to reduce resources, without any consideration or analysis of the UC Davis Campus risks versus resources, is premature at best.”[/i]
This is a strange statement. Analyses of fire protection and medical response in Davis have suggested dropping the border since 1993. That’s 20 years. How is that premature. And where is any logic on Conroy’s part which tries to prove that this would not provide better service in the case of simultaneous calls?
RC: [i]”It is understandable if the community chooses not to increase the number of firefighters and fire stations given the many years of economic uncertainty, but choosing to reduce the minimal number of firefighters to levels [b]below levels of the 1980s[/b], when the population was much lower and there was a much lower call volume, will not minimize death and injuries and damage from emergency events, it will increase the risk.”[/i]
This is a falsehood. The minimal staffing level suggested by Chief Kenley is [i]higher[/i] than it was in the late 1990s when Rose Conroy and her fire union talked the pliable council into increasing the staffing at all stations. The reduction is only 1 firefighter from what we now have. And no one will be laid off. The reduction will be done upon attrition.
RC: [i]”With only three personnel per engine company, all fire events will require at least two engine companies whereas, currently a single engine company can handle if the fire event is able to be contained upon arrival. So there will be fewer resources available, fewer resources for simultaneous calls.”[/i]
Every serious fire call now gets multiple fire trucks to respond. The only difference will be that the first company will not be able to send in 2 firefighters to fight the blaze from inside the building until the second truck arrives. (They can make entry with one company if people are stuck inside and they need rescue.) The reality is that for the 2-3 minutes between the first and second company arriving, the 3 people on the first truck will be securing the perimeter and setting up their hoses and other equipment. It is not the case now that a fire truck with 4 people now shows up on scene and in 10 seconds that crew sends 2 people inside a burning building to fight the fire from inside.
[i]”… tuning each other, as in ‘tuning in’?”[/i]
Re-read what Conroy wrote and change toning to tuning. It still makes no sense. It’s not English. She may have meant to say “turning to.” However, it’s possible that “toning” is fire argot which I do not know.
I think to anyone who does not know the history of the Davis firefighters union corrupting our city council over the last 20 years might think that ex-Fire Chief Rose Conroy’s opinions, even if unsupported by logical argument or depth of facts, should hold serious weight. However, for anyone who has read the Aaronson Report (albeit still heavily redacted to protet Rose Conroy), it is impossible not to see her now for what she was when she was highly paid as our fire chief–a complete shill for Local 3494. Everything she did as chief, including allowing off-duty firefighters to get drunk and then sleep in the station house, was what the union wanted her to do. Ultimately, her reputation was made when she promoted Bobby Weist to the captain’s position over others who were better qualified. There is simply no way to think that his position in the union did not affect her judgment. The common sense reforms which are now proposed have been fought tooth and nail by the union for the benefit of the union. So it should come as no surprise that Conroy, once again, sides which her friends in the fire union. She has been fighting for them for a long time.
RR: “… once again, sides [s]which[/s] [b]with[/b] her friends in the fire union.”
Fixed.
Thanks Rich, I knew you would set us straight on her statements. Let’s hope our CC holds its ground.
I’m happy with Chief Black providing administration and oversight for the Fire Department. I don’t think you have to be a fire fighter to make administrative decisions regarding staffing, budgets, and whatever else is required. There are two layers of division chiefs and captains to provide management of day to day operations.
I thought the University was uninterested in a merger after finding out that there is a huge discrepancy in pay scale and benefits between the two departments.
Rose clearly wants the status quo, which is unsustainable, and is not offering anything in way of a solution for the financial problems she helped to create.
“One of them can, when there is a fire, be Chief Black’s top aide and fill in the police chief as to what needs to be done to the fire.”
My understanding is that the Division Chiefs run the fire operations, the Police Chief and Steve Pierce are only in charge of the administration of the department.
“The reality is that for the 2-3 minutes between the first and second company arriving, the 3 people on the first truck will be securing the perimeter and setting up their hoses and other equipment.”
Or as Kenley told me, they can squirt water through the window IF the entire scene IDHL
“I thought the University was uninterested in a merger after finding out that there is a huge discrepancy in pay scale and benefits between the two departments.”
Apparently there is some room for discussion.
Steve Pierce also manages the dispatchers (who reside in the Police department) anyway.
Obviously most of you didn’t watch the television show “Emergency” in the 1970s. “Toning” is simply another word for dispatching and refers to the tones broadcast at a fire station when they are dispatched to a call.
Funny thing is that not only did I watch Emergency in the 1970s, I own all of the episodes today, but I don’t remember the term.
Boundary Drop Remarks:
I do not think that any of Chief Conroy’s comments reflect the Boundary Drop issue.
From what I understand, a true boundary drop will allow the dispatchers to send the closest available fire engine to an emergency (medical or fire).
She speaks nothing on this matter.
Sanity: [i]”Toning” is simply another word for dispatching and refers to the tones broadcast at a fire station when they are dispatched to a call.”[/i]
I found this on a website called wiki.radioreference.com ([url]http://wiki.radioreference.com/index.php/Fire_Tone_Out[/url]), which sounds like the same thing Sanity Defense wrote: [quote]Fire-Tone Out Operation allows the scanner to operate in a standby mode and respond to [b]fire tone-outs, a system comprised of standardized two-tone sequential paging,[/b] short one-tone paging, and long group tone paging. You can save up to 10 settings. When you select a setting in standby mode, the scanner also monitors for any other setting that uses the same transmit frequency, modulation, and attenuation settings. [/quote]
It concerns me that we don’t hear squat from our first responders about their own operations, so getting some feedback from Chief Conroy helps fill that gap. She offers up some good questions that haven’t come up before in the discussions. And, I’d guess the generalized criticisms about the affects of the changes likely would find agreement from the firefighters. It’s interesting to find out at this late date that the OSHA requirement did not drive the staffing change, that it was little more than coincidental, just “in concert” with it.
That said, I’ve always thought that once one retires from a position, an effort to evaluate what’s happening at the old job or what should be done ends up as a look that encourages the status quo and that tries to justify what’s gone on before. There really isn’t much here that would change my mind about that. If the retired chief thinks particular actions such as studies should have been done, she had 16 years to accomplish them. She doesn’t really give any reasoning for her conclusions that three on a truck or a single police/fire supervisor won’t work or that increased cooperation with UCD won’t work.
I’m glad to see that she’s a Davis resident. What percentage of our present firefighters live her?
JustSaying..
She is not a Davis resident.
“a current home owner in the City of Davis”
Fact: She is a current resident of Woodland.
[i]”What percentage of our present firefighters live her?”[/i]
I don’t have a really current number. However, the last time the firefighters funded a full slate of city council candidates was in 2008. On the campaign finance disclosure forms, each person who gives money has to list his address and occupation. There were 45 firefighters. Almost all of them gave $300 — $100 to Vergis, $100 to Souza and $100 to Saylor. Of the 45 in 2008, 9 lived in Davis. That’s 20 percent. It may have gone up or down since then.
Along these lines, Capt. Bobby Weist said at the CC meeting that he does not live in Davis because he cannot afford it on his Captain’s salary. I am quite sure his salary + overtime income would put him in the top 20% of all Davis workers. If you add in his benefits, he’s probably in the top 10-15%. And when you consider that firefighters are on duty 10 days out of 30, he could, if he wanted to, take a second job and make even more money. A lot of firefighters live far from where they work because they work so little. Some Davis firefighters live in San Jose. They can be there 20 days a month.
[i]”There were 45 firefighters.”[/i]
Just to be clear–there were 45 City of Davis firefighters. I don’t recall if on top of that there were any from other departments. I also recall that there were no City of Davis employees, other than those in Local 3494, who gave any money to any candidates that year or in prior years.
Catsmeow wrote:
> She is not a Davis resident.
> Fact: She is a current resident of Woodland.
But she is still a Davis “homeowner” with a rental property here in town (and another rental in Woodland) to help provide more income as she tries to scrape by on her pension of $100K+…
P.S. Any idea if Rose M. Conroy is related to the (the politically connected) Annemarie M. Conroy (Her Dad was a former SF Chief of police, her Godfather was the former SF Mayor that put her on the SF city council and most male members of her extended family were SF cops and fireman for years)?
http://www.beyondchron.org/news/index.php?itemid=868
Rich wrote:
> Capt. Bobby Weist said at the CC meeting that he
> does not live in Davis because he cannot afford
> it on his Captain’s salary. I am quite sure his
> salary + overtime income would put him in the
> top 20% of all Davis workers.
What he probably means is that he can’t afford a “mansion” in Davis on his firefighter salary. My firefighter friend could buy a decent home for ~$1 million near his station but he has decided to buy a “mansion” (almost twice the size of my house with garage parking for 5 of his six cars and his boat) in a cheaper area.
> If you add in his benefits, he’s probably
> in the top 10-15%.
We need to make it clear to everyone (especially the poor that are going to the see the biggest cuts to pay for it) that a typical CA firefighter pension puts you in the top 1% (not just top 10-15%). Let’s say you own a million of rental property in Davis (2-3 homes free and clear) after paying all expenses and funding a capx reserve you will be lucky to clear $3K a month, so the top 1% multi-millionaire guy with THREE MILLION in Davis free and clear real estate is making less per month than most California cops and firefighters (and our retired former fire chief)….
[i]”… as (Rose Conroy) tries to scrape by on her pension of $100K+ …”[/i]
Posters on the Vanguard blog have mentioned that Conroy is married to a retired firefighter. If so, I expect her household pension income is well north of $200,000 a year.
All CalPERS pension amounts are public record. Chief Conroy retired in February, 2010, at approximately age 56*. At that point, her pension started at $120,768. In 2011, it was inflated to $123,183. In 2012, it inflated to $125,647. This year, it will be $128,160.
If Rose lives to 91, which may be unlikely**, her nominal pension will have doubled from its starting amount.
———————
*Her date of birth is not public record. However, a June, 2003 Enterprise story included this line, “The infrastructure for the radio system for the Fire Department is older than I am,” said Conroy, 49.
**If you look at the actuarial tables on the Social Security Administration’s website ([url]http://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html[/url]), it shows (doing a little math) that a typical 59 year old American female has an 87.7% chance to live to age 70, a 64.4% chance to live to age 80, a 25.7% chance to live to age 90, and a 21.8% chance to live to age 91. However, Chief Conroy’s odds are probably better than average (unless she has problematic family history***), given her high income, quality healthcare services and (apparent) physical fitness.
***I suspect family history is the biggest factor. If your parents and grandparents all live into their 90s or older, you are likely to as well. And if they all drop dead in their 70s, don’t plan your European vacation for age 85.