Council Approves 4 Man Fire Engines

Another Decision Made Before Core Review Done

Council went into overtime, extending the meeting until after 12:00 with the final issue being a reconsideration request made by Councillor Bestwick.

The motion to be reconsidered  was that Council postpone consideration of the motion to direct staff to implement a policy requiring that all Fire Rescue Department engines be staffed with a minimum of four personnel until such time as Council has been provided with complete information on future plans with respect to Fire services including integrated risk management.

After what appeared as what can best be described as confused debate about not changing staffing until after a core review council defeated this motion. That defeat led to a motion from Councillor Bestwick which has now set a policy of four man staffing of Fire Rescue Department engines in place. Mayor McKay was the only member of council opposed to this change.

McKay commented that there was a new report about integrated risk management which he said most of council had not seen that would indicate this decision could make the difference between staffing 9 firehalls with 100 firefighters which would now require 180 firefighters.

UPDATE;
Mayor McKay has since corrected himself (via a post on Facebook) in which he now says that the 9 firehalls would be manned with 160 firefighters and not the stated 100.

This seems another reason why this city council should save taxpayers the estimated $200,000 for the core review, as they continue to make these major spending decisions before the review has even been done, even though they said there would be no changes until after the review.

It also raises the question as to why, if such an important document existed, that most on Council had not seen it before being asked to make this decision??