Agenda - Council - 08/13/2013 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Ramsey, Nowthen, St. Francis, Oak Grove, and Bethel, Minnesota Feasibility Study for Shared or Cooperative Fire and Emergency Services other vehicles, as defined by NFPA 1901 standards for consistency and in compliance with established maintenance and serviceability standards.;' Regardless of the process that is used to address the ownership of capital assets, the maintenance of a well-defined capital replacement plan will be essential. Incumbent with the replacement plan, each participating agency will need to agree to an annual financial contribution with which to fund the replacement schedule. While this intent of this project was to investigate the feasibility of the regional departments coming together in a collaborative effort, ESCI cannot make policy decisions for the participating agencies. Each city, armed with the information contained within this report that indicates that consolidation into a single fire agency is feasible, will have to gauge the sentiments of their respective communities and make an informed decision as to how to move forward, understanding that simply making the decision to move forward is not 'flipping the switch' of consolidation. Further investigation will be necessary and consensus decisions will need to be reached regarding governance, funding, staffing, operations, deployment, and legal concerns. A tremendous amount of data and information is contained within this document, much of which was supplied by the agencies involved and then analyzed and evaluated by the ESCI project team. In the end, the study departments, like many other paid -on -call fire departments across North America, are operating at a level that is currently meeting the expectations of the communities served but realize that there is always room for improvement. Regardless of the path that po[icymakers chose moving forward, the information contained with this report is intended to be used by the fire departments to follow a process of continuous quality improvement in an ongoing cycle of self -evaluation. ESCI began collecting data and working with community stakeholders for this project in February 2013. Analysis of data and collection of stakeholder input has taken over three months to compile to develop options for future service delivery within the study area. It is ESCI's sincere hope that the information contained within this document is seen as useful in enhancing the way in which fire and emergency services are delivered throughout the area. NFPA 1901 Standard for Automotive Fire Apparatus. 4 OF mersency Srrnces Cunsulcm page 133