There won't be a move to add paid fire fighters in Vernon's Okanagan Landing, any time soon. A request for council to consider it two weeks ago from a resident of Canadian Lakeview Estates on Tronson Road as a way to improve response times, didn't even get any debate from city council. Councillor Mary Jo O'keefe says now is not the time to consider changing from the paid on-call volunteers in the Landing. "We will see further development out there and we will need to develop more resources, but right at this stage after this huge economic downtown, are we really in the position to spend this kind of money improving response times?" Councillor Patrick Nicol says they got a report from fire chief Keith Green Monday who said the response times are within acceptable ranges using paid on-call volunteers. "The report was really to answer those citizens in the appropriate way," says Nicol. Chief Green says city crews responded to 70 percent of their 3,013 emergency calls last year, in under 6 minutes. 529 were in 6 to 9 minutes, and 269 or 9%, had response times over 9 minutes.
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- Agenda Package
(P.88)
Memo dated May 30, 2013, from Fire Chief Keith Green, re: June 10, 2013, Regular Meeting "Unfinished Business" - Staffing Fire Station #2.
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