West Side Fire/EMS Mergers Will Take Time

Monday, December 3, 2007
Topics: Politics, Other, Economy
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City councils in seven Cuyahoga County suburbs will have to wait a while longer to see the second phase of a plan to combine their fire and emergency medical departments into a regional entity. ideastream politics reporter Kymberli Hagelberg has details.

The plan under development at Baldwin Wallace College would merge firefighters and paramedics in seven west side communities into the tentatively titled Southwest Fire and EMS District. 

Professor Pierre David, the plan’s principal author, says nailing down every detail to be addressed in forming the new district has been a learning process.

Pierre David: As I have grown to understand the fire department, it is not unlike an insurance policy. They have to be ready for anything at any time.

City councils of seven communities: Brook Park, Berea, Middleburg Hts, Parma Hts, Parma, Olmsted Falls and Brooklyn, had hoped to review the plan and vote on it by the end of the year. But David says consolidating pay scales, plotting the redeployment of services and even figuring out who would own the buildings and equipment has been pretty complicated.

And the end result, he says, won’t be an immediate cut in costs, but rather a holding of the line on future expenses—through things like cheaper group health care and reduced overtime.

Parma Heights mayor Martin Zanotti is the Southwest project’s most visable regionalism booster.

The mayor is emphatic about the risk he says cities take if they insist on going it alone.

Martin Zanotti: If we don’t do something to reduce the size of government in Cuyahoga County, within 10 years cities are going to start to choke to death.

Six of the seven cities will have to vote to change laws that require them to run fire departments.

Martin Zanotti: As long as they can go to sleep knowing that if something happens that paramedic is going to be there as quickly as he is today—and oh, by the way if they don’t have to pay more for it in the future—I think that’s what they’re asking us to do.

That balance between fiscal responsibility and response times is an ever-present sticking point.

According to a national reporting system, virtually suburbs of the proposed district make it to an emergency scene within 4 to 8 minutes—the standard suggested by the National Fire Protection Association. However, early versions of the Southwest district plan set a time of less than 10 minutesfor second response to “most areas.”

Pierre David says the NFPA standard is a goal not a guarantee. Zanotti disagrees. He says the commitment is to maintain or improve the quality of service.

Martin Zanotti: If we go back to the cities and say, the good news is that we can merge and create this district; the bad news is it’s going to increase response times by two minutes, we’re dead in the water.

Organizers of the Southwest District have to draft a master contract for union firefighter/paramedics. Guy Grant, president for the Olmsted Falls Fire/EMS union said that process is moving forward. Collectively, the unions are optimistic but cautious.

Guy Grant: If you’re asking as a union, we are behind it. Obviously we want to see what final form it takes. But from everything I’ve heard it sounds very good and it’s something we should pursue.

Regionalism of safety forces is a growing trend all over Ohio—to varying degrees. Stark County is exploring a county-wide police and fire dispatch, and some of its fire departments agree to answer fire calls in other cities, if their station is closer.  And in Southren Ohio, the Central Joint Fire and EMS District was formed by suburbs east of Cincinnati in 2001.

Mayor Zanotti would like to see the Southwest District up and running in the next 18 months.

Kymberli Hagelberg, 90.3.