The Safety And Licensing Committee met 03/08/2023. They received a number of information items including:
- Updates to the city’s Emergency Operations Plan
- 2022 Appleton Fire Department Annual Report
- Directors’ Reports
I’ve prepared a transcript of the full discussion for your downloading pleasure:
EMERGENCY OPERATIONS PLAN UPDATES – Cassidy Walsh, the city’s Emergency Management Coordinator, told the committee that the Emergency Operations Plan had not been updated since 2017. Her goal was to update it and then continue to update it on an annual basis.
The biggest update was to Annex L regarding Damage Assessment. The state had taken on a new format for reporting damage assessments after a major disaster, so the city needed to align itself with the state.
She noted that updating the plan would be an ongoing process because there was still a lot of work left to align the city with the State Emergency Response Program. She said this required a lot of collaboration not only with every single department in the city but also external partners such as Red Cross, Gold Cross, and other “key stakeholders”.
2022 APPLETON FIRE DEPARTMENT ANNUAL REPORT
The Fire Department responded to over 7,000 incidents in 2022. 72-73% of those were for medical emergencies.
16% of the emergency medical dispatch calls were for falls which ranged anywhere from somebody simply needed help getting up to a traumatic incident such as a person falling off a ladder. 10% of the medical calls were for people experiencing breathing difficulties. He noted that the two main medical issues that they could provide immediate intervention for to reduce injury to the patient were chest pain and difficulty breathing.
They gave out some EMS Lifesaving Award, and Fire Chief Jeremy Hansen mentioned that they really take a lot of pride in those. They get calls to respond to Pulseless Non-Breathers on an almost daily basis. Most of the time their interventions are not successful. The lifesaving award is for situations where they perform CPR on a patient, get back a heartbeat, and the person ends up walking out of the hospital and returning to the community.
There were only 98 confirmed fires in 2022 which was down from previous years which normally hovered between 124 and 144. Although Alderperson Alex Schultz (District 9) mentioned that it felt like there at been a lot of structure fires at the beginning of 2023, so it seemed these things ebbed and flowed. Chief Jeremy Hansen said they see most of their structure fires during colder weather because those were the times people were using space heaters. Holidays were another peak time because people were doing a lot of cooking which sometimes doesn’t go well.
The Fire Department received just over $2.2 million in grants. The largest was a regional grant that allowed 18 fire departments (including Appleton) to replace their portable radios. The second largest grant was around $200,000 which would pay for paramedic training for current employees.
They completed 27,000 hours of training in 2022 which worked out to 285 hours of training per employee.
The Fire Prevention and Public Education Division completed just under 5,000 inspections and wrote up 2,338 violations. Of those violations, 75% were rectified within 30 days. Violations included things such as the exit lights being burned out, boxes in front of an exit door, a restaurant that had not had their hood cleaned and had a grease buildup, or fire extinguishers not being checked annually. He mentioned burned out exits lights as being a recuring item in the 25% of violations that were not rectified within 30 days. “Exit lights are one of the probably the easiest things to fix but yet the hardest thing to get somebody to fix.”
Alderperson Sheri Hartzheim (District 13) jokingly said she didn’t see how many cats had been saved from trees. Chief Hansen took the question in the spirit it was given, but also remarked that cats usually come down on their own. He did not that in his career he had participated in the removal of a 3-foot-long iguana and a 300 pound black bear which had stayed up in a tree after being tranquilized.
CITY CLERK REPORT – Clerk Kami Lynch reported that the spring elections were on April 4, 2023. They expected to get the ballots on Monday, March 13. They had around 3,500 absentee ballot requests so would be mailing those out early the week of 03/13/2023. The deadline to register online to vote was 03/15/2023. In-person absentee voting would start 03/21/2023.
FIRE CHIEF REPORT – Chief Hansen said that on 03/03/2023 they held a promotional ceremony for a lot of people. 4 battalion chiefs, 2 captains, 2 lieutenants, and 2 engineers were promoted. One of the battalion chiefs was the Battalion Chief of EMS which was a position that had been approved in the 2023 budget.
They were going to be hiring 6 new firefights. All of them had accepted their offers and would be started on 05/22/2023.
One lieutenant and one firefighter turned in their resignations. One, a fourth generation Appleton firefighter, was retiring. The other one took a job in Dallas, TX to which Chief Hansen somewhat jokingly commented, “Why? We don’t know. He’ll probably be back.”
POLICE CHIEF REPORT – Chief Polly Olson said they held the Women In Public Safety Academy earlier that day. Around 40 young ladies attended, and with mentors as well as law enforcement and public safety officials about 80 people were in attendance. Police and Fire had been represented as well as Emergency Management and Legal. The event was fully funded though grans and individual donations.
View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=1063457&GUID=78DB6DE9-20F5-4780-9B8B-F60691A6AF0D
Be the first to reply