Title
ADDED - Acceptance of Grant for a Downtown Adaptive Response Unit
Recommended Action
Committee Recommendation:
Not referred to a committee.
City Manager Recommendation:
Authorize the City Manager to accept the Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response (SAFER) grant awarded by FEMA.
Report
Issue:
Whether to accept the FEMA grant awarding Olympia's Fire Department $1.34 million over two years to fund staffing for a Downtown Adaptive Response Unit.
Staff Contact:
Greg Wright, Deputy Chief, 753.8466
Presenter(s):
Larry Dibble, Fire Chief
Greg Wright, Deputy Chief
Mike Buchanan, Assistant Chief
Shelley Flaherty, Line of Business Director
Kate McDonald, Captain-Grant Writer
Background and Analysis:
Background and analysis has not changed from the Study Session to the Consent Calendar.
The Fire Department has been looking for ways to address a growing number of calls for service where there may or may not be a time-sensitive emergency. These calls, typically called low acuity calls, take fire resources away from other responses causing degraded response time for fire units city wide.
In an attempt to relieve the fire engines and ladder truck from these calls and preserve response times, the Fire Department applied for a grant from the federal government through FEMA. This grant called Staffing For Adequate Fire and Emergency Response, (SAFER), provides full reimbursement for the wages and benefits of firefighters for two (2) years. The Fire Department has been notified that FEMA is ready to grant the City funding for six (6) new firefighters for two (2) years
These firefighters will be used to staff an Adaptive Response Unit, or Aid Unit, which can respond in place of larger apparatus and deal with the same emergency medical calls a larger unit has responded to in the past. Working primarily in the downtown area, this unit can deal with the low acuity patients that are frequently being seen.
The unit would respond in the downtown core, north...
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