The Hollister City Council this week passed a resolution to authorize the fire chief to change the job title of the administrative captain to battalion chief.
Fire Chief Bob Martin Del Campo described the resolution as basically a name change and authorization of the position into more of a supervisorial role. He said the position’s pay scale would remain the same, but the job title would reflect a more traditional functioning of the battalion chief position. He described the current fire department command structure, which includes an operations and training division, logistics, finance and admin, and planning. He said the three shifts are normally led by a battalion chief, but presently are headed by Division Chief Leo Alvarez, who heads two departments: the Fire Prevention Bureau and Code Enforcement Department.
“Chief Alvarez and myself manage the 42 personnel under that block,” Del Campo said. “As an industry standard, you’re looking at about expanded control between sometimes three to as much as 42 people. During a large-scale event, we would have a lot more personnel on the ground than we do have management.”
Del Campo compared the fire department’s leadership construction to that of the police department, which consists of a police chief, a captain and two lieutenants. He said because of the short staffing, Police Chief David Westrick cannot promote a sergeant to lieutenant until he has more people. He said the police lieutenant positions are comparable to the fire department’s battalion chief positions and that these leadership roles provide the front-line troops with the level of management and support so they can advance in their careers.
Del Campo described with a slideshow the make-up of what the fire department would look like should the council approve the battalion chief title. He compared the flow chart to the command structure he experienced in the military.
“I took a page from when I was in Afghanistan,” he said. “In a tactical operations center, this is what you have running operations for your forward operations basis. You have the operations division, your planning division and your logistics division. The unity of work is going to be cross-level among them in order to get the day-to-day work taken care of.”
Del Campo said the Fire Prevention Bureau would stand alone and carry out support to the community with fire prevention, life safety inspections and code enforcement.
“Chief Alvarez has his hands full, along with having 42 personnel to manage,” Del Campo said.
Councilman Ray Friend asked if the fire marshall position would be a battalion chief. Del Campo said it would actually be one step higher. He said the top-down command structure would be himself, then the division chief, which he said is more akin to being a deputy chief, and would serve as the chief when he was absent and could make command decisions without asking for permission.
“That’s the kind of management and supervisor support that we want in this department,” Del Campo said. “If something happens to me, any one of those folks should be able to step into the position of the chief rank and conduct business.”
He said if the position were approved, the proposed organization would consist of: the fire chief, a division chief, A, B, and C shifts, each led by a battalion chief. During a structure, fire there would be 16 people on the ground with one chief officer.
“Everybody would be doing their assigned tasks, from ventilation to fire impact to rescue to water supply, backup, and a rapid-intervention team, in the event that if somebody goes down in the building we can send two more people in there to pull the firefighters out,” he said.
Councilwoman Mickie Luna thanked Del Campo for his presentation because she felt the public needed to see it.
“I think it’s wonderful what you’re doing, and what all the departments are doing for the city and for the residents and the safety of our community,” she said.
Friend concurred with Luna’s sentiment, but questioned his own understanding of the command flow chart.
“You’re actually going to have a battalion chief on each shift?” he asked Del Campo. “So, you’ll have the assistant chief and he’ll have three battalion chiefs, along with the captains that are running the rigs?”
Del Campo agreed with Friend’s interpretation, but said he would defer from using the assistant chief title.
“An assistant chief is the guy who holds the door open for me or answers the phone,” he quipped. “And this guy ain’t that guy, just to let you know.”
Friend wanted to make sure he understood correctly that each shift would be led by a battalion chief, and at any one fire scene there would be a line officer responding and not necessarily the chief or assistant chief. Del Campo said he was correct.
“And along with that, we will certainly show up and be the incident commander,” he qualified. “Once the battalion chiefs show up, they’re going to manage the operations. They’ll direct strategy and tactics and then we’ll provide the resources they need to fight the fire, work on the flood and everything that comes with mitigating the incident.”
The resolution passed 4-0, with Councilman Karson Klauer absent.
In other matters
The council, in its function as the Joint Powers Financing Authority, passed without comment a resolution to approve the issuance and sale of wastewater revenue bonds, authorizing the distribution of an official statement and the execution of related documents and actions. Then, in its city council capacity, a resolution was adopted, after council and public comments, to provide a supplemental appropriation of $25,000 for the construction of a dog park at Frank Klauer Memorial Park. And a resolution to provide annual funding of the Hollister Downtown Association’s (HDA) economic development activities was shelved until a yet-to-be-determined date at the request of the HDA.
Consent resolutions adopted without council comment:
- Allow the fire department to apply for the assistance to firefighters’ grants to acquire personal protective equipment for 21 firefighters and type 3 fire engine for urban use.
- Transfer reserve $400,000 from Fund 601 to four Designated Fund Balance Accounts.
Individual council member committee reports
Councilman Raymond Friend reported that the San Benito Fire Protection Committee met on Feb. 4 to discuss career development (Del Campo’s presentation) and Fire Station No. 3 to be built on Fairview Road. He said the architect and contractor have been hired and the station is expected to be up and running by the spring of 2017. He also attended the Intergovernmental Committee meeting Feb 4 that included a discussion on future development and how the county and cities will work on future development so, “we don’t have 1,500 homes being built and nobody knew about it.” He said there was also a presentation about the proposed aquatic facility. He said the next step would be for the non-profit proposing the facility to make the same presentation to the city and county, followed by the formation of a steering committee. He concluded by saying his committee on the Student Advisory Committee was done (the students were recognized and sworn in earlier during the meeting).
Informational Reports
- Councilwoman Mickie Luna said she and City Manager Bill Avera toured all the soundwalls throughout the city. She met with PG&E to get an update on some of the company’s activities and also met with the Parks & Recreation Department to discuss partnerships between the city and nonprofits to sponsor sports activities. She reminded everyone that the Board of Equalization is coming to Hollister.
- Friend said he and Councilman Karson Klauer toured a wholesale marijuana facility regarding upcoming meetings concerning the medical marijuana cultivation issue. He said he believes the county has an ad hoc committee (it does) and that it has requested the city council coordinates their efforts with it.
- Avera said San Benito County is organizing a high-performance training session Feb. 29, and asked interested council members or staff to let him know if they are interested in attending.
- Police Chief David Westrick said the regional PAL (Police Activity League) meeting took place at the Hollister Police Department to discuss free, youth programs that might be brought to Hollister. “The Junior Sharks looks really interesting,” he said. “And Junior Giants is going to start March 4. JuniorGiants.com is the online registration. I’m asking for community volunteers for that. Lastly, we’ll have a meeting with (motorcycle) rally stakeholders tomorrow. First, we’ll have a site walk-through.”