The City of Brea is committed to providing the most effective service to the community and upholding efficiency in the organization. Currently, the City is reviewing many aspects of the shared Command Staff between the Brea and Fullerton Fire Departments. As part of this review, Messina & Associates, Inc. was consulted to conduct a high-level assessment of the current service-delivery model. As a result of the firm’s report, Messina & Associates, Inc. highly recommends that the City of Brea engage in a detailed review of the entirety of their fire operations as well as a community risk profile. This type of comprehensive review is contained in a Standards of Response Coverage (SOC) and a Community Risk Assessment (CRA). It is important to note that these two critical evaluations have never been done before in the history of the Brea Fire Department.
The modern fire service is more complex than ever before, as the nature of the all-risk service model places more expectations on agencies responsible for the delivery of these services. Because of this, it would be beneficial for the City of Brea to obtain SOC and CRA reports, as these assessments are designed to evaluate the needs of the community as well as provide important information to be utilized in developing effective plans for the deployment of emergency services. Should a change be desired, these two studies offer the potential to assist the City in developing a plan to structure the department in a more effective way.
These two studies are proposed to be conducted by Citygate Associates, LLC. (Citygate). Citygate has served the City on several prior engagements, most recently in 2016, by completing a feasibility analysis for providing multi-city fire and ambulance transportation services under Joint Powers Authority jurisdiction to the cities of Brea and Fullerton. At that time in 2016, Citygate used their subcontractor, AP Triton, to conduct a review of emergency medical transport. The data provided by AP Triton informs the type of transport model that would be best to use after responding to a medical call. However, the data from AP Triton does not address staffing, deployment, and response time models prior to arriving at the scene of a medical emergency. Additionally, it does not include any information on calls for service for fire or hazmat emergencies. While the report from AP Triton is helpful to guide decisions regarding emergency medical transport, it does not include the critical information needed to develop an SOC. Therefore, in order for Brea to have a holistic review of fire department operations, a comprehensive study is recommended to create the SOC.
Citygate has an extensive background in fire and emergency services consulting, specifically in fire department deployment, risk assessment, staffing, and strategic/master planning. Over the last 19 years, their staff has performed over 400 fire service studies; in California alone, this has covered over 19 million residents, or nearly 48 percent of the State’s population. Citygate has extensive experience conducting SOC and CRA reports for other cities, including the nearby cities of Orange, Costa Mesa, and Huntington Beach. They have also executed fire studies for large jurisdictions, including the counties of Los Angeles and San Diego and the cities of San Bernardino, Sacramento, and San Jose, just to name a few.
Citygate is expected to deliver the City with concrete information designed to identify the risk factors within the City. They will also provide concepts on how to effectively deploy resources in a sustainable manner within the fiscal boundaries and community expectations. This review will also include an evaluation of the administrative workload which will assist in identifying the actual effectiveness and capacity of the administrative staff.
Completion of these assessments is key to understanding the needs of the community, as well as the current operations of the Brea Fire Department. These studies assist leaders by providing the most relevant data and information possible, which could further allow for the development of realistic, effective, and attainable master and strategic plans. Once completed, the SOC and CRA will be informative tools used to guide future decisions about the Brea Fire Department by relying on the concrete, relevant data and analysis provided to the City.
Since the SOC and CRA studies will not evaluate emergency medical transport, staff can bring back a proposal for this scope of work separately, should it be of interest to the City Council. |
| The cost for the studies is listed as a “not-to-exceed” totaling $66,056. Given the complexity of this study, it is recommended that City Council authorize an additional 10% ($6,605) as a contingency for any additional work or meetings that the City may deem necessary with Citygate. This bring the potential total of the contract to $72,661, but only if any additional work is deemed necessary by the City to complete the report. A budget adjustment will be required and included in the next quarterly round of citywide budget adjustments. |