Council spends on safety upgrades

Public safety doesn’t come cheap.

In recent weeks, the City Council has allocated funds for new programs and added personnel in the Fire, Marine Safety and Police Departments.

The city will pay almost $1 million to Intergraph Corp. for a new computer-aided dispatch and records management system to be used by all the public safety departments. It will replace the system purchased from West Covina in 1990, which was designed primarily for police services.

A task force of representatives from the various public safety departments, and Administrative Services and Assistant City Manager John Pietig, chose the Intergraph product after about a year of researching systems. “This system will dramatically enhance the abilities of the Police Department, Fire Department and Marine Safety personnel and ensure appropriate responses at the right event at the right time,” Pietig said.

Intergraph’s system is already used by Huntington Beach and Irvine. Alameda County and the City of Napa recently bought the system. It is packaged with another software product called “Firehouse,” specifically designed to assist fire departments with incident reports, scheduling, data gathering, pre-planning for major disasters and the analysis of fire services. The software also will benefit the Marine Safety Department to gather data and make reports.

Among the benefits to the safety services:

“The new system will substantially increase our dispatch capabilities, be more reliable and easier to service, be upgraded over time to keep current with new features and automate much of our reporting needs while increasing our ability to analyze and improve public safety services,” Pietig said.

In addition to the initial $976,851 investment, the annual licensing and maintenance fees will cost the city $75,000, starting in fiscal year 2007-08, shortly after the system is expected to be up and running.

The purchase required an additional $176,851 appropriation from the city’s general fund reserve, requiring a four-fifths vote of the council. Staff said they expect the reserve funds to be restored by the mid-year update in December.

MARINE SAFETY

A full-time Marine Safety Officer was added to the staff on Sept. 1, the only additional position approved in the 2006-07 general fund budget. The department now has six full-time, career lifeguards, plus one civilian Marine Protection Officer.

“After extensive discussions with the Chief of Marine Safety, I have concluded that converting part-time hours to a career post should be pursued as early as possible,” City Manager Ken Frank said.

The new hire will cost the city about $35,000 for the rest of the fiscal year and become a yearly cost of $70,000 in subsequent years.

Frank also recommended a new classification for one or two hourly, on-call lifeguards that would include benefits such as HMO insurance payments by the city.

Benefits were estimated at about $15,000 a year per “recurrent hourly lifeguard.”

The city council also authorized a pilot program using a camera to monitor a beach. The wireless camera with a solar panel and battery attached to a lifeguard tower can transmit a full-motion video picture to the lifeguard headquarters. The camera is being tested as an alternative to sending a lifeguard to patrol distant beaches and coves in the off-season when towers are not staffed.

If installed at all beaches, personnel in the headquarters would have the ability to scan any beach and then dispatch a lifeguard to respond to potentially dangerous situations.

The proposal brought lifeguards — often at odds with city administrators — to the City Council Chamber in a show of amity.

“We believe this will help Marine Safety,” Lt. Scott Diederich said. “It is a positive step forward.”

Laguna Beach Lifeguard Association President Kai Bond said the association supports the pilot project.

COPS FOR POLICE

The city council appropriated a $100,000 federal Citizens for Public Safety (COPS) grant to fund permanent positions in the police department.

COPS was signed into law in 1996 and since then has provided funds to local law enforcement agencies. The funds are subject to legislative appropriations and adoption of the state budget each year. The recipient must hold a public hearing to explain how the funds are used.

FUEL MODIFICATION STUDY

Laguna’s location adjacent to wild lands makes fire a constant threat.

The Fire Department is required to provide biological monitoring of the fuel modification program that involves clearing brush by the goat herd, which some environmentalists oppose because of the potential for damage to sensitive habitat.

Fire officials were given council permission Tuesday to hire Glen Lukos Associates to survey special plant populations and the monitoring of the modified areas, at a cost of $8,500.

“He is very familiar with the goats,” Fire Marshall Kris Head said. “He has performed these services in previous years and we have always had a good working relationship.”

The council also appropriated $3,000 to retain landscape architect James Dockstader to provide architectural services, such as plan review and field observation, for the Summit Drive fuel management project.

Head said the plan is to reduce the fire hazard through the use of the goats in an area never before grazed by the herd and the department would rely on the professional services of the biologist and landscape architect to accomplish the fuel modification with the least possible environmental impacts.

South Laguna landscape architect Ann Christoph recommended bringing the city’s newly created Environmental Committee into the loop.

City Manager Frank recommended the study go to the committee when completed.

The targeted area is all city-owned, but the department plans to work with adjoining property owners.

Public safety departments account for about half of the city’s annual discretionary spending. General fund spending primarily comes from revenue generated by property, sales, bed and business license taxes and charges for services.

Revenue is estimated to be almost $34 million for this fiscal year.