At the first meeting of the CRC we were
issued a thumb drive. When I examined
its contents later I found a single file which proved to be MP3 type, though it
had been given a spurious file extension that prevented it from being
recognized, a standard of care consistent with the misspelling of people’s
names and poor grammar found in the 3-ring notebook. In fact, a transcript (instead of a
recording) would have been vastly more efficient for the members of the
CRC. Presumably, other members have
struggled with their transcriptions but what follows is my best effort. I am sure, however, that some of the
attributions are wrong.
The file was a recording of an Executive
Session of the RFPD Board held mid-morning on Thursday, January 25, 2018 –
fully 24 months ago. The three trustees
of the Rogers Board and the District’s attorney were
joined by the Fire Chiefs of Libertyville and Lake Forest.
I note that the minutes of the January
8, 2018 regular meeting reports:
12. Update on Joint Service with Lake Bluff.
No report on a Joint Service Agreement with Lake Bluff. President Rogers stated
that Lake Forest made a proposal to Lake Bluff for fire and EMS Service.
President Rogers did not know what price Lake Forest proposed.
13. Update on Investigation of Contracting
for Service/Consolidation. The Board of Trustees received a written proposal
from the Village of Libertyville and the City of Lake Forest to provide fire
and EMS service to the Rockland Fire Protection District. The Trustees all
agreed that the proposed cost of the service was too high and that they were
not interested in this proposal.
https://rocklandfpd.com/sites/default/files/meetings/Regular%20Meeting%20Minutes%2001-08-2018.pdf
I further note that the Illinois Open
Meetings Act permits the board to have confidential discussions of confidential
topics, such as:
The appointment, employment, compensation, discipline,
performance, or dismissal of specific employees of the public body or legal
counsel for the public body, including hearing testimony on a complaint lodged
against an employee of the public body or against legal counsel for the public
body to determine its validity; Negotiating matters such as salary, the buying or selling of
public land, the buying or selling of security or investment contracts,
anything related to individual students that would harm if publicly disclosed,
selection of a person to fill a vacancy in a public office when the body has
that power, sensitive evidence from a pending case, matters related to the
Prisoner Review Board, informant sources, deliberations of the State Emergency
Medical Services Disciplinary Review Board, complaints of discrimination, discussing
electricity or natural gas contracts, and security procedures; Sensitive
material related to pending litigation…
https://ballotpedia.org/Illinois_Open_Meetings_Act
Listening to the MP3 recording I heard:
0:45 Attorney O’Connor had printed a
list of District employees for reference.
1:53 President Rogers: “The proposal in which we are going to refer
to today is going to refer to today – anything and everything which happens in
this proposal, about this proposal, changes made to this proposal, amendments
or suggestion to this proposal, would in
some way, shape or form, to affect our Chief, our Deputy Chief and personnel. That’s my reason for going into executive
session.”
Trustee
Snoblin asked the lawyer if that were acceptable and
the lawyer responded affirmatively. Trustee Snoblin
continued: “Shouldn’t
discussion limited to people, not what leads to that?”
3:43 Attorney O’Connor: “I don’t know how you get to the discussion
of the impact on people until you understand what we are doing… (4:10) Like Dan said.”
5:29 Trustee Snoblin persisted,
suggesting that, for example, the price of the contract does not affect any
specific employee.
5:45 President Rogers noted that the
price determines if the proposal is accepted, which determines if the specific
employee remain employees.
So the lawyer wrote the agenda which explained
the basis for this Executive Session and he printed a list of employees to
detail that basis. The President explained
his rationale for the record – the recording that we now review – in his
attempt to conform to the Open Meetings statute and the advice of the
District’s lawyer. A district trustee
probed possible objections to which the lawyer and the president responded.
Sometimes dotting and crossing are tedious, but
what I hear are several district officials taking pains to conform to the
letter and the spirit of the law.
Naturally district employees have an interest in this matter but most of
them are not even district residents. It
really should not matter to the Board that Knollwood firemen want to continue
as Knollwood firemen. The district does
not exist to serve its employees; it exists to serve district resident
taxpayers.
7:37 Chief Carani: “The difference in
the two proposals, cost-wise, is personnel only. Our first proposal, when it was just
Libertyville, there was just … if Knollwood had insisted that we bring on some
people, that number would have had to change.”
10:00 Chief Siebert echoes Chief Carani’s comment and adds: “we have had our city finance
departments involved … come out of here today with what parts are strong, what
parts needs to be … where the end-game of the station & equipment”
Apparently there were two proposals. The first was a simple allocation using
call-volume as a vehicle. The second
postulated a specific staffing structure.
In addition to underscoring the relevance of
personnel planning, there is clearly an effort by the two fire chiefs to be
comprehensive and detailed.
12:31 President Rogers: “if you are each picking up, roughly, 125
calls … you are looking at about 250 thousand each … and use Libertyville’s multiplier,
and that’s how, Rich, you got to the 380 thousand … and I understand picking-up
the new people … we are carrying all the overhead for 634, your overhead won’t change
… I’m just trying to find a number that’s closer to the 380.”
We are not buying a loaf of bread. If you go to Heinen’s, you can trade a few
dollars for a loaf of bread. Heinen’s
will not discount the price because most of the cost they incur in earning your
few dollars comes from their inventory expiration.
Not so with a fire & rescue call. The marginal cost of such a call is merely a
few gallons of diesel and a few expendable supplies – perhaps a hundred dollars
per call. But the “Libertyville
multiplier” seems to be $2 thousand per call.
That is because most of the costs for fire & rescue are fixed – the
cost of the firehouse, the vehicles and even the payroll are the same whether
they service and calls or not. All fixed
costs. We are not buying a loaf of
bread.
14:42 Chief Carani: “380 goes to 460
for additional people…and that’s just for our department. With the two (LF also) of us coming in, we
decided to ... (17:50) we
are providing a unique coverage system that is going to provide the Rockland
resident with what I perceive as an excellent level of coverage.”
18:18 Chief Siebert: “I can’t reduce the level of service to the
residents of LF … we might have all our equipment in Knollwood when we get a
call from LF … (19:11) its not just about paying for the call, it’s
about coverage 24/7/365 and to give this area that protection, where now they
have people working certain shift – not all people here are getting paid – they
come here and volunteer, they show up and get paid on a per-call basis, they’re
not paying the salary of somebody a full-time, certified firefighter/paramedic
to be there 24/7/365… (20:17) we didn’t just pull that number out of the air …
the challenge is now, if it seems unfair, then what is a fair method of
evaluation … how do we, do we need to cut services to come down to a lower
price or do we need to modify the proposal?”
20:42 Trustee Snoblin: “I
think you hit on one of the key difficulties in this, and that is the staffing
model. You have, both (Lib & LF)
have full-time career firefighters, and that has a lot of value, but for us,
we’ve got a history of using that volunteer model, which has worked, particularly in the last four
years or so where we switch from a purely paid-on-call to a paid-on-premises. We’re staffing this station and we have a
core group of people that we can rely on and therefore the cost of that model
is much less. And I know that model
won’t work for you but it works for us so that kind of
a tough nut to crack. In order to get
that serviced with your staffing model is going to cost more than it does with
this staffing model.”
The Carani/Siebert/Snoblin observation is trivial: It costs more to have professionals in the
firehouse standing by than volunteers asleep at home who may not even
respond. True, that.
21:30 President
Rogers: “As well, in this 530, you
know, with the staffing model with you adding people on, you also benefit from those people. So, I feel as though we’re picking up the
cost of the additional staff even though you’re benefitting from them as well.”
President Rogers saves the day: These are fixed costs. They are not attributable to any one
neighborhood; they inure to the benefit of Libertyville and Lake Forest as
well.
22:14 Chief Siebert: “I can tell you right off the bat, I don’t
know how many of your people we can take from you, even if we take 8 or 10, we
are still going to need 8 or 10 more.
All these people, as you probably well know
here, there’s a great
majority of them that desire to be a full-time firefighter somewhere else. So guess what
happens when they leave, we got to get new uniforms and guess who doesn’t fit
in the uniform who just left? We got to
get new turn-out gear and it has to meet NFPA
specs. We have to
have them trained if they’re not a paramedic, if they’re not a
firefighter. The paramedics Academy cost
$4,000 and we don’t have the person for a year-and-a-half. The firefighter academy is $4,000 and we lose
them for two months. We go through all this, they work for us for two weeks and they get hired by
another department full-time and they’re gone. And then they’re not allowed to work for us
because of union rules. So I think a lot of people
here, because of union rules, will not be allowed to participate.”
The union serves only the union
membership. They have no problem with
piling-on more fixed costs. They know
taxpayers have deep pockets.
23:20 Chief Carani: “LB is starting,
like every volunteer dept, to have people there during the day”
23:40 Trustee Snoblin: “I think it’s safe to say that if we didn’t have people
responding to their (LB) calls, they would not be … a volunteer fire department
… and that’s what we realized about 4 or 5 years ago, that we had to go
to paid-on-premise and staff this station with a crew 24 hours a day.”
Chief Carani and
Trustee Snoblin recognize that it is not 1947
anymore. When Rockland was founded, just
after World War II, the responders could be untrained men who brought only
muscle and courage. Now we have drywall
construction and smoke alarms. And an
aging population. The responders must be
highly trained technicians who can address primarily medical emergencies, not
structure fires.
One month before this Executive Session, The
Mayor of Lake Forest said “he believes the proposal will work well for both
municipalities and Knollwood residents because of the changing nature of fire
departments. He said there are significantly more EMS than fire calls today.
“Because of building codes and technology we do not have as many house fires. The whole
nature of personnel and equipment has changed.”
https://jwcdaily.com/2017/12/08/lake-forest-libertyville-make-proposal-to-knollwood-fire-dept/
24:20 Chief Carani: “It’s
not because of fire calls either, it because of all the other stuff. You know, knock on wood, fires are down and we keep our
numbers relatively the same every year in accounting, but it’s the rescue
calls, it’s the lift assist, its everything else that goes with assisting an
aging population … but what I wanted to point out earlier but I lost my
train of thought was, along with this proposal comes additional services from
both ... that you guys
don’t have and that’s the fire prevention bureau and public education … and
that inspectional services … there’s some things that can easily be
pointed-out that people don’t pay attention to … simple things like that that
can save lives. So that is time that is
going to be spent in the Rockland area that both of our agencies are going to
take care of as part of this.”
27:48 Chief Carani: (referring to Highwood after Highland Park
took responsibility) “They got rid of an ambulance and a truck.”
27:57 President
Rogers: ”They’re many people who are
very pleased with the way it turned out.”
Chief Carani: “There’s a thousand
calls out of Highwood.”
28:05 President Rogers: “And I haven’t heard of any outrage
out of Highwood because of what went down.
They are very pleased with what’s happened.”
Is a town better served by two big grocery
stores or by twenty convenience stores?
This is about consolidation. Why do we call it “outsourcing?” I suspect that opponents thought the word
“outsourcing” had negative connotations, as if some Mexicans were taking
Knollwood jobs. Illinois has too many
line items on the tax bill. Fewer line
items might not lower tax bill much but it will improve accountability and
increase efficiency. This is about
consolidation, not outsourcing.
Notice that ambulance service, by far the more
important activity of the District, has been entirely “outsourced” for
years. And the relatively minor activity
of structure fires is (at the time of this Executive Session) currently a
majority outsourced – served by “volunteers” who are not residents but are
simply looking for full-time work somewhere else.
We have four professional stations ringing Knollwood
– what folly to build a giant five-bay station!
But we need not commit to that mistake.
A Heinen’s and a Target are better than a 7-11 on every corner.
28:24
President Rogers:
“My number in my head when you guys came back in I thought you
were going to be about 430. That’s what
I had in my tiny little mind without running all these numbers. Additionally … I saw
nothing in here about a lock-in price as in ‘for the first five year’ or ‘for
the first one year’ I saw nothing regarding increases, and for me personally to
give this much of any thought with these two trustees, I think you have to do
something like a 20-year contract, renewable in year ten. These are my personal views…”
The first 19 months of the eventual contract
were locked at the $450 thousand p.a. rate.
The next 12 months were also locked, allowing for a fixed increase. After that, the contract increases for
inflation only. Heinen’s has no room to
bargain on a loaf of bread, but President Rogers and Secretary Grum know that Libertyville and Lake Forest do.
31:13 Secretary Grum: “I
again thought it would be lower than that, I was thinking probably in the 450
or so. And I’m not aware that we staff 24 hours a day here …
(32:18) We certainly wouldn’t expect more coverage than what we’re getting now
… If we divide Knollwood in half for response, certainly if somebody on the
south side is having a heart attack or comes in as a bad accident the response
time from Lake Forest is going to be longer than it would be from
Libertyville.”
32:54
Chief Carani: “So for those types of calls, for
sure, car accidents, it is going to be a joint response. One’s going to send the ambulance, one’s
going to send the engine depending on where the accident is, and, full rest,
typically it gets dispatched with an engine.
So if Lake Forest is going to come with an
ambulance, we would most likely send a Station 3 engine. If we’re going with an ambulance, we’d send a
Lake Forest engine.”
Recalling Chief Carani’s
comments at 17:50 above, they indeed “are providing a unique coverage system
that is … an excellent level of coverage.”
North-versus-south of the tracks is an administrative tool only. Unlike any resident of Libertyville or Lake
Forest, Knollwood residents have both departments jointly over-watching.
Trustee Snoblin
observed that Knollwood
covers the Lake Bluff industrial park and speculated that Lake Bluff would have
to ask Lake Forest to cover it instead to which Chief Siebert replied
(34:22) “We
already do respond.”
Chief Carani
commented on reallocation to North Chicago in Knollwood’s absence and (35:26)
“We are a little out of control with the amount of equipment that gets sent to
calls, so, one-engine responses for fire alarms is acceptable. IUSO accepts it. A structure fire is a little bit different.”
35:38 Chief
Siebert: “I know, I see this over in the
industrial park all the time, all this frickin’ equipment
comes to a false alarm. You
(Libertyville) come, we come, if they’re (Knollwood) around they come…We
respond to LB for residential fire alarms.”
So, the volunteer department of Lake Bluff
depends on the volunteer department of Knollwood, but the professional
departments of Libertyville and Lake Forest must also respond.
35:50 Chief Carani: “But there’s a reason that’s
happening. It so that somebody gets
there.”
Chief Siebert:
“Yeah.”
Because it is just a little embarrassing to
everyone if no one shows up.
35:59 Chief Carani: “But when you have a reliable
person or group there, then you can back-off that response to the one
engine or the shift commander.”
A powerful argument for consolidation is
accountability. Efficiency is a happy
by-product.
At 36:48 President Rogers inquired of
the two chiefs if they might purchase the Knollwood Rescue 44. Chief Siebert said no but Chief Carani suggested it was possible.
At 38:58 President Rogers inquired of
the two chiefs regarding the Knollwood building use. Chief Siebert said that “it makes no sense”
since Libertyville #2 and North Chicago #3 are both located less than two miles
to the north of Knollwood and his two Lake Forest stations are south, that another firehouse in between
those four is a redundancy and “if we keep this as a fire station, we just
perpetuate the problem.”
At 40:00 President Rogers noted that the
District has eight more years of mortgage payments to which Trustee Snoblin replied that the levy must then “ethically” be
reduced by the annual mortgage payment.
Secretary Grum noted that the state may purchase it for fair
market value if an eminent domain action proceeds.
The huge Knollwood firehouse that serves our
one-square-mile district has five big truck bays. But money spent in the past is a sunk cost
and not relevant to decisions about the future.
Perhaps we will sell it to Haig Klujian for a million dollars next month. Perhaps we will sell
it to Lake County Division of Transportation for a million dollars three
years from now. Either way, the sale
will extinguish the mortgage with either a little (next month) or a lot (three
years from now) of cash infusion to the already flush district.
At 43:03 Trustee Snoblin wondered about a minimal Knollwood
presence after Libertyville became the prime actor to which Chief Carani replied that “there’s nothing that say Lake Forest
and Libertyville can’t work out a deal to relocate the paid-on-premises ambulance that posts to
Libertyville Station 3 to the Knollwood firehouse.”
45:30 President Rogers: “I think if something were to work out
between us, I think that escalates Lake Bluff working out something with Lake
Forest … (45:45) I’ve said for years it should be the LB/LF/Knollwood fire
department – it should be one department – a million years ago. That was my feeling for 30 years. This is almost there – I didn’t envision you
(Libertyville) coming into this, but I also didn’t envision that station
(Libertyville Station 3) which has been a Godsend, so I think it will be a
snowball effect if something comes up and if we can get to a spot where this
board feels like they can take a vote or have a discussion about it or whatever
the board decides to do, then I think the next domino to come down into the mix
will be Lake Bluff.”
46:31 Secretary Grum: “And
it almost seems like we’re wasting some time, if … I cannot believe that Lake
Bluff doesn’t understand the predicament they’re in should we do something.”
46:42 Chief Carani: “I think they
understand it very well.”
President
Rogers: “So
they’re trying to work something out with (Knollwood Fire Chief) Harlow
now. Chief Harlow and Chief Graf have
got something going on. I haven’t been
included in it yet but I don’t – Again, I haven’t
heard it, so I won’t pass judgement, but we’ve got two areas that both have the
same problem. I don’t think combining
the problems fixes the problem…I would like to have a full-time department
covering my calls.”
Regarding the volunteer department of Lake
Bluff, we’ve got two areas that both have the same problem. I don’t think combining the problems fixes
the problem…I would like to have a full-time department covering my calls.
47:13 Secretary Grum: “And both still have to rely on a
department to transport.”
President Rogers: “Right.”
This negotiation relates to fire service
only. Rockland had been contracting with
Libertyville and Lake Forest for the more demanding part of their mission,
ambulance service, for years, as had Lake Bluff.
But we have more truck bays in our firehouse
than we have structure fires per year.
The heroes who returned from war to volunteer seven decades ago would
not be volunteers today. Subtract
ambulance calls, false alarms and mutual assistance, and there is nothing left
to justify hanging around the firehouse 24/7/365.
Secretary Grum: “To me that doesn’t accomplish
anything. Two struggling departments
together are still struggling.”
President
Rogers: “And
adding us to the ambulance business, I don’t think that’s a solution.”
Our little Rescue 44 is just not up to the
job. The modern standard includes
expensive neonatal and cardiac support systems.
24/7/365 utilization requires five full-time crews that include at least
one paramedic, a special certification of EMT that requires regular classes at
the EMS school at Condell and in-district studies.
Muscle and courage are not necessary and are
certainly not adequate.
57:55 Secretary Grum: “A lot of people come on here to get the
training tools that will help them to get a full-time career, but also we’ve
got a number of people who are working full-time in other departments, but also
too they get the opportunity to function at a higher level, which will help
their career.”
58:26 Chief Siebert: “But I don’t know if they can do that
because you’re a volunteer fire department.”
Secretary
Grum: “Right. So your guys cannot
do that.”
Chief Siebert: “Because the union will not allow
it. It becomes a reclassification … how many people are actually
Knollwood residents who are actually working here.”
Secretary
Grum: “It’s less than 50 percent.”
Union rules abuse volunteer departments because
unions hate volunteers. Nostalgic ideas
of neighborly barn-raisings and neighborly fire-fighting
are from days long gone.
1:00:52 Chief Carani: “Can one trustee to
work with us on an IGA (intergovAgree)?”
1:01:29 President
Rogers: “Karl, the most qualified
person in the field of firefighting is Bob, of the three of us I would say I am
probably the least qualified to do that.
So if you’re okay with Bob?”
Trustee Snoblin
agrees and then asks, “A quick question for Brian (attorney O’Connor) is
discussing, preparing for contract discussion, is that acceptable for open session?”
Attorney O’Connor: “That is why the agenda was written as
is. That’s what you can talk about, it’s
very limited. My three takeaways from
this are personal use, station & equipment use and then the service
costs. If you provide them: Are we going to keep people? If we are going to keep people, how many are
we going to keep or how…and at some point you get to:
what is their compensation going to be?”
1:08:05 Chief Siebert: “I guess maybe, just looking at my things to
bring back to my boss, is, you went over, is there anything here in the
proposal that you guys don’t like or don’t want or needs to be added or
changed? The way I take it from today’s
meeting is that the price, the overall price, some of the logistics and the
fine points of the actual IGA are what need to be sorted out.”
This meeting probably did not require Executive
Session – anyone who objects to the ideas that were discussed is either living
in a lost past or is selfishly interested in his job. Either way, disqualified. What I see in the behavior of the three
Rockland board members and the two fire chiefs is an earnest effort to
accomplish a necessary outcome in a manner that is fair to everyone.
1:10:34 President Rogers: “…and the terms of
an agreement – I can’t look at, I can’t even think of this board looking at
anything less than 20 years and automatically renews at year 10. I just can’t.”
Secretary Grum: “I think it should
be longer than that. Personally, I’d
like to see 50 years and renew at 40 and be done with it. And then you’re done screwing around with it. This every ten years
stuff …”