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Fire Underwriters Survey accepted by narrow vote |
Kincardine council To Comment on this article Click Here |
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was a narrow 4-3 vote, but Kincardine council has accepted the Fire
Underwriters Survey which contains recommendations for upgrading the
municipality's fire department. At the council meeting Wednesday night (March 3), deputy mayor Laura Haight questioned accepting the report, wondering if it meant that council agreed to implement all the recommendations in it. The survey was presented Feb. 17 by Robert Aguiar and Alan Pang of SCM Risk Management Services Inc. of Markham. It pointed out that the former Town of Kincardine's rating had dropped to a Grade 6, while the former Village of Tiverton's rating had improved. The major three recommendations included: replacing two pumper trucks, increasing fire water pumping capacity, and improving dispatch communications. Another high priority is for Kincardine to provide additional raw water intake for the former Kincardine Township. Haight asked that council change the wording of the motion to state that the municipality "receives" the survey, rather than accepts it. Chief administrative officer John deRosenroll said the intent is that council receive the survey, in principle, and then have the actions brought forward through council and the budget for implementation in the future. Haight said she is concerned because at Friday's public works committee meeting, the water system staff did not agree with some of the information in the survey. "We're just accepting the report," said mayor Larry Kraemer. "It's just semantics." "I found the report a bit vague regarding some of the recommendations," said councillor Ron Hewitt. "At public works, our water staff was shocked when they heard about the water issues in the survey. I'm uncomfortable accepting it as it stands." "The recommendations in the report outline what is required to bring us up to a Grade 0 which we cannot do because it calls for full-time firefighters and unlimited water supply," said councillor Mike Leggett. "I think this is being blown out of proportion."  |
"I have no issue with a new truck and a better communications
system," said Haight. "But the issue about improving the plans
examination process, I'm not sure how to do that. Our chief building
official was not interviewed by the underwriters. If our process is
sufficient now, that item should be taken off the list." "It says we should build the fire hall closer to the commercial
core and we should have 17 more firefighters in Kincardine and eight
more for Tiverton, but that's not going to happen," said Leggett.
"We're beating a dead horse here."
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