public safety - News - The Coastal Star2024-03-29T05:48:01Zhttps://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/feed/tag/public+safetyHighland Beach: Town is well prepared to start fire department, leaders sayhttps://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/highland-beach-town-is-well-prepared-to-start-fire-department-lea2021-06-02T17:40:53.000Z2021-06-02T17:40:53.000ZThe Coastal Starhttps://thecoastalstar.com/members/TheCoastalStar<div><p><strong>By Rich Pollack</strong></p>
<p>As Highland Beach leaders methodically move toward starting a town-operated fire department, they know that some skeptics believe they might be in over their heads. <br />Their message back: Don’t underestimate us. <br />“I think people will be surprised by where Highland Beach is now compared to where we were before,” says Town Manager Marshall Labadie.<br />In the past 21/2 years, he says, Highland Beach has shed any remnants of its reputation as a sleepy small town with simple solutions to simple problems. <br /><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}9026209275,RESIZE_180x180{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-left" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9026209275,RESIZE_180x180{{/staticFileLink}}" width="104" alt="9026209275?profile=RESIZE_180x180" /></a>Labadie, who almost three years ago came to Highland Beach from Michigan with an extensive knowledge of municipal management, has overseen the growth of the town’s governmental operation, which includes 48 full-time and several part-time employees. <br />Since his arrival, the town has brought its building department in-house, has added a full-time planner and has upgraded its finance department. <br />As it breaks away from receiving fire and rescue service from Delray Beach, which will come within three years, Highland Beach has a Town Commission and management team that is already overseeing an 18-person police department, a 10-person water treatment plant, a full-service library and a small contract post office. <br />That’s in addition to a town clerk’s office, a public works department and the building and finance departments.<br />The town also has a strong financial position, with a fairly low tax rate and about $6.1 million — or about 52% of the annual budget — in unrestricted reserves. <br />“We’re in the process of becoming a full-service community with growing expectations from our residents,” Labadie said. <br />Labadie and Mayor Doug Hillman say those factors — and the town’s ownership of a fire station, a truck and a rescue vehicle — put Highland Beach in better position than most towns to start its own fire-rescue department. <br />“We continue to find ourselves showing we are unique in this county,” Labadie said. <br />The town estimates that transitioning to its own fire department will include implementation costs of $8 million to $10 million but says that it will save about $2 million a year in operational costs. <br />Hillman and Labadie don’t underestimate the challenges of starting a fire-rescue department — something that hasn’t happened in Palm Beach County for at least three decades.<br />Still, they say that providing many services that most other small towns contract out gives Highland Beach an edge as well as additional independence. <br />“The addition of a fire-rescue department, although more complex, will be yet another addition to our self-governance,” Hillman said.<br />The ability to control the operations of a fire department was one of the factors involved in the town’s decision to break away from Delray Beach. Cost savings and improved efficiency, Hillman says, were always the driving factors. <br />Under the current contract, Highland Beach covers the cost of 22.5 personnel assigned to the fire station in town but has no say in how much Delray Beach pays its firefighters. <br />Each year, Delray Beach gives Highland Beach a bill for the fire service it provides, with Highland Beach having little or no input in how much that bill will be or how the firefighters in the station will operate on a day-to-day basis. <br />“We’re in a life-safety relationship and we don’t have the ability to manage the system more efficiently to meet our residents’ service needs and demands,” Labadie said. <br />Resident John Ross, a former Town Commission candidate and the author of a blog that comments on the town’s operations, says that Highland Beach’s lack of a seat at the table with Delray affects the overall town operations.<br />“The amount of money Highland Beach pays to Delray is entirely up to Delray, and that impacts what Highland Beach can spend on other things,” Ross said. “The choice of where to spend the money is the definition of sovereignty.”<br />In previous comments, Delray Beach Mayor Shelly Petrolia said that Highland Beach is a customer of her city and is treated like a customer of a business. <br />“You don’t get to come to the board of directors and tell them how to run the company,” she said. <br />Ross and others counter that customers of private companies can do business elsewhere. For Highland Beach commissioners the choices were limited, especially after they discovered contracting with another government agency wasn’t feasible.<br />Recognizing there may be some truth in comments from skeptics who say Highland Beach leaders “don’t know what they don’t know,” the town has set out to hire experts to help with the transition. <br />During a meeting last month, Labadie detailed a time line of steps to be taken as the town moves forward. <br />He said the town has already moved ahead with hiring a medical director, a forensic accountant and possibly a marketing and public relations firm to help craft a branding and messaging plan.<br />Commissioners agreed that public education is one of the highest priorities, along with hiring a local fire consultant and a fire chief.<br />The education component is critical, Hillman said, since the town will be going to voters in November to get funding authorization because the project exceeds the town’s $350,000 spending cap. <br />Labadie said that as the town continues to move forward it will keep its focus on the needs of the residents. <br />“Public safety is at the forefront of every decision we make,” he said. </p></div>Delray Beach: City opts to improve fire service rather than contract with countyhttps://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/delray-beach-city-opts-to-improve-fire-service-rather-than-contra2015-11-04T19:38:46.000Z2015-11-04T19:38:46.000ZChris Felkerhttps://thecoastalstar.com/members/ChrisFelker<div><p><strong>By Jane Smith</strong><br /><br /> Delray Beach will focus on raising the level of service of its own fire-rescue department instead of consolidating with the county, city commissioners agreed Nov. 3.<br /> Just four residents spoke against the consolidation. <br /> “We are a smallish town,” said Susan Ruby, who lives in the Del Ida neighborhood. “Fire-rescue is an essential, vital service. I wouldn’t even know who to call in the county.”<br /> City Manager Don Cooper explained he had received a memo with only four sentences from the county on Oct. 21, not enough information to present to the commission. He wanted to concentrate on preparing for the city’s goal-setting session set for Oct. 29.<br />He added that the county gave him a December deadline because it needed to know whether to add the county’s fire-rescue tax rate to the Delray Beach proposed tax bills.<br /> Cooper added that the December deadline didn’t give him enough time to receive and review a county contract.<br /> Four commissioners attended the Nov. 3 meeting. Commissioner Jordana Jarjura was absent. <br /> Two, including Mayor Cary Glickstein, thought the city manager had overstepped his bounds when he sent an email ending the discussions with the county. <br /> Commissioner Al Jacquet, the other commissioner who chided the city manager, asked City Attorney Noel Pfeffer what form of government Delray Beach has. <br /> Pfeffer said a strong city manager and weak mayor. <br /> “The burden should have been on our shoulders. It’s a tough decision to make, it should have been ours,” Jacquet said.<br /> The city has a commitment to public safety, “yet we allowed this issue to kick the can down the street,” Glickstein said. <br /> “We haven’t bought firetrucks, some of our fire stations are in abominal shape.”<br /> He directed the city manager to determine the level of service the Fire-Rescue Department needs to put it back into the top quartile in the county. <br /> Vice Mayor Shelly Petrolia and Commissioner Mitch Katz supported the city manager’s actions.<br /> Emails had zipped around the city the week before, most were against consolidation. <br /> Another round of prerecorded telephone calls went out on the afternoon of Nov. 2 to phones with a Delray Beach exchange. <br />The robocall message was not as threatening as the one in late September, but it pointed out that Jarjura and Glickstein had received support or campaign money from the county fire-fighters union. It urged recipients to call the commissioners and tell them not to consolidate.<br /> “I have received no phone calls and about 15 emails,” the mayor wrote in an email about 6 p.m. Nov. 2. “I received numerous contributions in the last two campaigns and one of the contributors was the fire-rescue union in both campaigns, whose members include the city’s fire-rescue department. I’m not sure how that’s relevant, particularly when I voted against the consolidation last year when it was initially proposed. <br /> “In the end, I think the calls and emails were insulting to our residents in suggesting the people they elected would make such a decision that impacts 25 percent of the city’s budget based on $500 campaign contribution.” <br /> Delray Beach’s 2015-2016 nearly $105 million budget allocates about $27 million for fire-rescue.<br /> Cooper, the city manager, had sent an email to city commissioners the last week in October saying the proposed agreement for consolidation would take further lengthy negotiations. As a result, he “stopped discussion on this issue and will focus our resources on … addressing the various issues within the fire department.”<br /> One day later at the city’s goal-setting session, he agreed to present the consolidation issue to the commission at the Nov. 3 meeting.<br /> Unlike the 2014 proposal, which used a full-cost methodology, this time the county wants the city to become part of its municipal service taxing unit where property owners pay a flat rate of $3.46 per $1,000 of taxable value.<br /> The county’s fire-rescue chief was preparing the county’s proposal, which would cover city fire-rescue employees who will have the option to join the Florida retiree system for their pensions, response times, staffing levels, equipment to buy or lease, actual fire stations and other items.<br /> The deal would last five years and the county would pay Delray Beach for its five fire stations, make needed upgrades, hire the city’s firefighters and pay for the equipment over that period.<br /> The city would retain the pension liability for its fire-rescue personnel who are currently working without a contract.<br /> Delray Beach provides fire-rescue services to the towns of Gulf Stream and Highland Beach. <br /> The Highland Beach contract expires next year and Gulf Stream’s in 2020. Both towns are exploring a barrier island fire-rescue service.<br /> Boynton Beach also is thinking about consolidating with the county. <br /> City commissioners directed City Manager Lori LaVerriere to survey residents with a questionnaire in the city utility bills. <br />She will seek further direction on the wording of the question and whether it should be just one vote per account. No date is set for that discussion.<br /> In addition, Boynton Beach provides fire rescue services to the towns of Briny Breezes and Ocean Ridge. Both towns are part of the exploration for a barrier island fire-rescue service.</p></div>