Councilwoman Price's statement came following a candid response by LBFD Assistant Chief of Operations James Rexwinkel in response to an agenda item that sought a report "on the latest fire technologies for fighting high-rise fires" by telling the Committee (Price, Supernaw, Austin.) Assistant Chief Rexwinkel told the Committee that the biggest issue in fighting high rise fires in LB is a shortage of available resources:

Assistant Chief Rexwinkel: ...Our biggest issue we face is our weighted response and the time of response to get to a high rise fire. So if you look at the downtown area, pulling units into a high rise structure fire, our typical first-alarm assignment is five fire engines, two ladder trucks, two paramedic rescues, two Battalion Chiefs and...our heavy rescue vehicle. And that's on a first alarm assignment to any reports of smoke or fire at a high rise building downtown or any of the high rise structures. A high rise is building is defined as anything, I believe 75 feet or more from street level entrance to gain access intto the structure. So there are several systems in place that assist us in fighting these fires but the reality is we still have to throw a number of firefighters at the incident just to get up to the incident and put water on the fire...It is very resource intensive. It calls on us to call usually we end up calling mutual aid from other outside agencies to combat these fires and the resources are very intense.

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The response touched a hot-button. LB firefighting levels are the result of Mayor-recommended, Council-approved budget votes. In the firefighting context, despite the June 2016 sales tax increase (currently bringing City Hall an estimated $50+ million annually), the Mayor/Council have declined to restore the second downtown fire engine (Engine 101) at Station 1 (Magnolia between Ocean Blvd/Broadway), previously provided to address downtown density and high rises while the City is now enabling the highest high rises in LB's history. (Regarding Mayor/Council approved per capita police levels for taxpayers, see LBREPORT.com coverage here),

Following the Assistant Chief's testimony, Committee vice-chair 4th dist. Councilman Daryl Supernaw (the son of a LB Firefighter) tried to direct discussion away from restoring Engine 101. "While I believe Engine 101 would be next in line [for Council budget restoration], well I guess we have a new Fire Chief so we'll decide what's next inline for restoration, but this has nothing to do with that matter. Even with the restoration of Engine 101, we'd like to see what other technologies are available" and sought information on strategies that might include having the type of equipment carried on an Engine company duplicated on site at high rises and the like."

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Committee chair Price subsequently broadened the discussion:

Councilwoman Price: ...As we get new development, more housing units, more residents, what are we doing to take care of the stress on public safety resources in general? Whether it's the character of developing being a high rise, or the density of the building meaning additional population, whatever the case may be, what are we doing in terms of a requirement for the developer to ensure that our public safety needs, not just fire, police and fire, and any other public safety needs that may be associated with it are taken care of?

...I know we've gone through the process of upgrading our Land Use Element. We have not gone through the process of updating our Public Safety Element in decades. And so we are going to start that process here as part of the Public Safety Committee. The process of updating our Public Safety Element, meaning looking towards the future in terms of public safety changes, and to the extent that public safety upgrades need to merge with Development Services, building and planning, and really urban growth and development, I do expect there'll be some merger of thought andthat's coming. So those are going to be long conversations that I imagine will start and take on for at least a year or so before we have an updated Public Safety Element but we are going to be starting that process through this Committee here shortly.

Developing.

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