Public Safety

By Jerry L. Duncan

This is not the time to start talking about reducing our commitment to public safety. We must continue to work to improve our Police Department and rebuild our Fire Department.

Our Police and Fire Departments have gotten to the point where they have significant building and facilities needs. While in District 6 we have the benefit of a new Police substation and a soon to be built Fire Station, the rest of the facilities in the City are in a sad state.

While I was successful in sponsoring a multi-million dollar increase in this years Fire Department budget that will provide for emergency repairs for all of our stations it is still nowhere close to what is needed to bring our Fire facilities up to adequate. Suffering from years of neglect some stations are so bad they'll probably have to be demolished.

We also need to start working towards staffing each engine and truck with four fire fighters, instead of three. This OSHA requirement increases the safety of our Fire Fighters significantly and allows for a faster response time to fighting a fire that could make a very big difference in how much damage a fire could do to a home.

With all that is needed to be done, there will still be challenges in keeping our service level intact during these tough budget times.

But this is a challenge we must face and failure is not an option