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Fire dispatch service hot issue GREGGCHAMBERLAIN gregg.chamberlain@eap.on.ca
municipalities in the UCPR decide if they want to stay with Hawkesbury or go with Ottawa. Gamble noted that there is a chance that Hawkesbury’s setup would end up collapsing if one or more municipalities switched over because then it would prove too expensive to maintain for Hawkesbury and the remaining clients. Both Gamble and UCPR Emergency Services Director Michel Chrétien also noted another situation that all municipalities in the UCPR will face with their !re dispatch service, regardless with whom they contract. They all need to look at replacing or upgrading their existing pager systems for their !re departments as those systems approach the end of their life expectancy. “The paging and the radio (contact) system is a municipal responsibility,” said Gamble. “It needs to be replaced.”“It’s something that needs to be done in the next few years,” said Chrétien. “My recommendation is that we work together,” said René Berthiaume, Hawkesbury’s mayor. “It’s a question of cost for the service.”“We’re all intertwined,” said Gary Barton, Champlain Township mayor. “Whether we like it or not.”“It’s one or the other,” said Warden Jean-Paul Saint-Pierre. Counties council voted to set the report aside for !nal review and a decision later in the month or in September after all the mayors have consulted with their administrations and !re chiefs.
L ’ORIGNAL |Stay with Hawkesbury’s "re dispatch service or go with the City of Ottawa’s program instead? That is now the burning issue for many of the mayors in Prescott-Russell. The United Counties of Prescott-Rus- sell council (UCPR) received a consultants report during its August 13 committee of the whole session concerning the costs and bene!ts between !re dispatch services with either Hawkesbury or Ottawa. One thing that Peter Gamble, of the Willow Falls Consulting !rm, emphasized, is that the !- nal decision may be a choice of either status quo or the entire UCPR becomes a client of Ottawa !re dispatch. “The decision of one municipa- lity,” Gamble said told the mayors on counties council, “will have impacts and consequences on other municipalities.” For several months now the counties council has been debating whether or not the UCPR should develop a comprehensive regional !re dispatch setup for all the member municipalities. Counties council decided during its June 24 regular session to hire a consultant to review the current !re dispatch setups for both the City of Clarence-Rockland, which contracts with Ottawa, and the rest of the UCPR, which deals with Hawkesbury. The arrangement with Hawkesbury’s !re dispatch service demands that the client municipalities cover 75 per cent of the operation cost through their fees. Gamble noted that situation will not change, given the expense involved for Hawkesbury to maintain the service both for its own needs and that of its clients. “At the end of the day they (Hawkesbury) need to recover that 75 per cent of costs,” Gamble said. He also noted there is “no perfect choice” between going with either Hawkesbury or Ottawa for !re dispatch service. Both can provide bilingual dispatch service and both also require that clients have communications tie- ins speci!c to the service system. Neither service can accommodate two di#erent communication setups. Mayor Marcel Guibord indicated that
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Clarence-Rockland and satis!ed with its current arrangement with Ottawa. “We are already adjusted to working with Ottawa,” he said. Gamble’s report presented four options for UCPR member municipalities. First option is to leave things as they are. The status quo means that in 2016 the per capita charge to all municipalities dealing with Hawkesbury for !re dispatch service will be $4.46 per person living in each community while the City of Clarence- Rockland pays $3.25 per person in its area for !re dispatch service through the City of Ottawa. Second option is for Clarence-Rockland to switch from Ottawa to Hawkesbury. The per capita cost for all clients dealing with Hawkesbury would become $3.33 in 2016 with the addition of Clarence-Rockland. All existing clients would bene!t from this option while Clarence-Rockland would have to budget for an increase in !re dispatch service costs. Option three is that all of the UCPR contracts with Ottawa for !re dispatch service. The per capita cost would be $3.25 for each municipality in Prescott- was settled
Russell in 2016. There would also be a one-time “switchover” expense for every municipality except Clarence- Rockland because they would have to change their communications setup to !t the Ottawa system. Option four is that individual
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