Alpharetta Council Tweaks Ambulance Service

publication date: Jul 14, 2008

 | 

author/source: Jonathan Copsey / STAFF

By Jonathan Copsey/ STAFF

The Alpharetta City Council reached an agreement with Rural Metro ambulance service at last Monday’s weekly meeting. Rural Metro will provide an ambulance dispatcher to Alpharetta, which will free up a city employee. The agreement also includes Rural Metro coverage of the cities of Johns Creek and Milton from this position. 

Fulton County recently ceded control of the ambulance service north of the Chattahoochee River to the local municipalities. In order to maintain a certain level of service, Alpharetta has direct control over the emergency 911 calls within the city, while calls from Milton and Johns Creek will go to Fulton County and then be transferred to Alpharetta for ambulance service.

“That’s huge,” exclaimed councilman John Monson upon hearing that each ambulance will be equipped with a GIS transponder, which will allow the city to accurately know the position of each vehicle.

The restructuring of the ambulance service has come since Fulton County relinquished control in order to achieve a standard level of service, with the aim of an eight-minute response time for ambulance service in North Fulton.

Jim Paine made the motion to approve and David Belle Isle seconded. The motion passed unanimously.

Development Grant Attained
Amanda Day, the city’s Grants Administrator, addressed the Council regarding two items that would give Alpharetta money. The first item was for a grant from the Community Development Block Grant Cooperative, a federal program that grants development funds to communities. Municipalities in Fulton County are eligible for such grants because the Department of Housing and Urban Development has ruled that Fulton County can be classified as an “Urban County,” which is the qualifying factor in the process. The county helps run the program for the municipalities within it.

“Basically by signing the award contract we receive funding each year through the Community Development Block Grant. If we were not part of the entitlement program through Fulton County we’d have to go competitively through the state… it is a good deal for us.” said Day.

The agreement can be entered into every three years.

Monson made the motion to approve and Jim Paine seconded. The motion passed unanimously.

Defending the People
The second grant was an application to the Commercial Equipment Direct Assist Program through the Department of Homeland Security. This program awards grants to small communities in order for them to buy and maintain emergency equipment for the fire and rescue services. These are awarded in order for them to be better prepared should a terrorist strike happen and to allow them to better perform their basic duties. Often the equipment offered is refurbished federal equipment. Alpharetta was awarded a previous CEDAP grant last year.

This grant will come in the form of a “First Defender XL” device, which was specifically requested by the Public Safety Department. It is a small instrument that aids in the identification of unknown substances.

A prime example given by Fire Chief Keith Sanders was of narcotics in a box. Normally a drug dog would be called in to sniff the box, but drug runners have developed the tactic of masking drug smells with chemicals that either hide the scent or harm the dog. The First Defender XL will eliminate the need to call in the dog or a hazmat team in the case of unknown chemicals.

“This prevents us from having to contaminate our folks,” said Sanders, pointing out the importance of the device.

Paine made the motion to accept which was seconded by Cheryl Oakes. The motion passed unanimously. 

They See Everything
Next up were a couple of items for public safety, presented by Public Safety Director Gary George. The first item was for the purchase of an audio/video control system for the new Command and Control Center. This system would have access to all Public Safety tools, such as 911 services, dispatch, current weather, news feeds and an automated vehicle locator that keeps track of other emergency vehicles. The information from these systems will be relayed to the 911 center via monitors and speakers.

“[We can] actually look through the system and look at an officer’s in-car video to see what’s going on there,” said George. “Eventually we’ll have those same cameras on our fire apparatus and we’ll be able to see what’s going on at the scene of a fire. It’s another great piece of equipment.”

CrownTech gave the winning bid for the product at a sum of almost $82,000. While this was not the cheapest bid, it was felt that it was the best quality for the price. The money had already been approved in the budgetary process and the Department of Homeland Security is helping fund some of it.

Paine made the motion to approve and Oakes seconded. The motion passed unanimously.