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4 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 City Council Regular Meeting Minutes November 10, 2014 Page 4 Motion carried unanimously. B. Resolution 14-072; a resolution authorizing a Joint Powers Agreement with North Suburban Hazardous Materials Team. Fire Chief Mark Sitarz reviewed the recent increase in urban rail traffic has caused a number of fire departments to reevaluate how we would respond and mitigate any type of accident or incident within our own city limits. Hazardous Materials incidents in general have always been a resource and time intensive operation to deal with. The level of training that is required as well as the tools and equipment needed is very cost prohibitive to many area departments. This has prompted the need to look at and support a more collaborative effort in building regionalized teams to respond to hazmat incidents. In 1992, the Lake Johanna Fire Department along with the Roseville Fire Department combined efforts to develop a Joint Powers Agreement to respond to such events together. Since then Roseville dropped out and the new group is made up of Lake Johanna Fire Department, New Brighton, Vadnais Heights and Falcon Heights. The group now operates under the name of the "North Suburban Hazardous Materials Response Team". Mr. Trevor Hamdorf, Chief from Ramsey County reviewed the team is regional in nature, trained to a higher level for hazardous materials incidents and has been utilized by our city as recently as 2013. Costs associated with the team are ongoing equipment maintenance and insurance, which are invoiced quarterly. The cost to the participating cities last year was $1092 per city and New Brighton acts as its fiscal agent. The group has also been very successful in the area of grant funding which has provided both equipment and member specialized training. The joining of this team would be a very similar design as to the SWAT Team of which the Police Department is a member. The experience and higher level training that our members would receive as a major benefit to the department and the city as a whole. This is also another example of how collaboration between cities benefits numerous residents with improved service that they may not otherwise have access to. This also addresses our City Goal to "increase and maintain fiscal strength" with the action item of "Cooperative ventures with other governments and entities." Fire Chief Mark Sitarz recommends the City Council approve the JPA with the North Suburban Hazardous Materials Response Team as presented. Councilmember Roth asked where all equipment is stored and Mr. Hamdorf stated equipment is stored in New Brighton, Lake Johanna and Vadnais Heights. Councilmember Roth asked who takes command of a situation and are there definite lines of responsibility. Mr. Hamdorf stated if it is a member City the Reponse Team takes command. If command is transferred it is done over the radio so everyone is aware of who is in command. The State would never take over a situation. If it was beyond their capacity they may need to call in some assistance.