JANESVILLE — A concern over Cedar Falls’ ability to provide mutual aid during fires could still result in the end of an agreement with a neighboring city.
Janesville Mayor Dave Beenblossom released a statement to The Courier Thursday evening raising concerns about the mutual aid, or 28E, agreement.
“The Firefighers 28E mutual aid agreement concept is based on neighboring Fire Departments providing manpower and equipment to other departments when requested,” Beenblossom said in the statement. “At this time, I feel the question as to the City of Cedar Falls being able to meet those needs is still up for debate.”
As threatened earlier this month, he suggested cancellation of the agreement “is still very much a distinct possibility” because efforts to draft a memorandum of understanding to supplement it aren’t adequately progressing.
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In an interview, Beenblossom said the latest proposal submitted is “too vague” and falls short of what city officials had said the department would be able to do. “I’m not sure they could write anything up right now that would make us change our minds,” he added.
“I did receive those concerns back,” Cedar Falls Mayor Rob Green said in an interview. “And our public safety department is working through the language to see if we can maintain the MOU.” Cedar Falls officials hope to submit another draft of the memo.
Beenblossom’s concerns relate to the Cedar Falls City Council’s decision to reorganize its public safety department and eliminate traditional firefighter positions. The city’s eight remaining employees in that job were immediately replaced with public safety officers, which are police or firefighters cross trained to work in either division of the department.
That raised questions for him about the amount of experience PSOs have and the city’s staffing levels during emergency situations.
Despite his initial misgivings, Beenblossom stuck with the 28E agreement after officials from Janesville and Cedar Falls met March 5. They came out of the meeting vowing to preserve the arrangement supplemented with the memorandum to clearly define roles and ensure safety.\
Since then, he said, “we have received 2 different ‘rough drafts’ of a possible MOU agreement. I feel that neither draft properly addressed the manpower that the City of Cedar Falls is willing to commit to for a mutual aid response to Janesville Fire Rescue if requested.”
He continued, “The best that was offered was wording that stated ‘ideally’ they would be able to send the manpower and vehicles that we had requested to be called out in the MOU. If there is not a staffing issue as we were told, then there should not be an issue with committing to a simple engine and 4-member team to aid in structure fires.”
Instead, the loss of experience from the firefighters whose jobs have been eliminated “has created an atmosphere of no confidence in the capabilities of the PSO Program,” Beenblossom said. “We feel that those circumstances will ultimately result in Fire Ground safety issues.”
He noted that Janesville fire officials will be meeting with their counterparts from volunteer departments in surrounding communities to gather input on their concerns with Cedar Falls’ PSO program. Janesville Fire Rescue will meet Monday to look at its options again. Beenblossom expects to bring a proposal to his city council Tuesday.
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