City Council - Public Health, Safety, Justice, and Equity Committee
City Council - Public Health, Safety, Justice, and Equity Committee
Mon, April 27, 2026
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City Council – Public Health, Safety, Justice, and Equity Committee — April 27, 2026
This was a single-item committee meeting chaired by Council Member Dan Hammill, with Council Members Hollie Huthman and Skip Williams also present. Council President Hannah Stone and at least one other council member attended as non-voting observers. Fire Chief Bill Hewitt and Community Paramedic Captain Steve Larson presented the item.
Ordinance Amending BMC Chapter 6.10 — Penalties for Non-Emergent Lift Assists at Licensed Care Facilities
What it is: The proposed ordinance would allow the Bellingham Fire Department to assess a $1,000 penalty against licensed care facilities — assisted living facilities, skilled nursing facilities, and adult family homes — when they call 911 to have firefighters perform non-emergent lift assistance (e.g., moving a resident from a recliner to a bed, or helping someone who slipped without injury) rather than using their own trained staff.
Background: Captain Larson explained that the fire department averages over 230 lift-assist calls per year to licensed care facilities, with roughly 43 minutes spent on each call on average in 2026 so far. In 2024, nearly 45% of lift-assist calls to facilities resulted in no medical transport — meaning there was no true emergency. Over the years, the department has distributed educational materials, flowcharts, and guidance through its "Make the Right Call" program, but has seen a cyclical pattern: conditions improve briefly after education visits and then deteriorate with staff turnover. Chief Hewitt noted that a facility employee once told a department medic, "You guys should really fine us — then maybe they'll do something."
The core concerns are threefold: (1) these facilities are licensed and paid to provide care, including lifting and moving residents; (2) frivolous calls tie up fire companies for vulnerable residents who may have a genuine emergency elsewhere in the coverage zone; and (3) the fine is intended as a deterrent, not a revenue source.
The ordinance is modeled on similar programs in Tacoma (implemented 2018, $850/incident), Everett ($600/incident), and Cincinnati ($1,000/incident). Tacoma's experience was cited as encouraging: after an initial drop following adoption, they now issue barely any fines at all — the ordinance's existence alone changed behavior.
Discussion highlights: Council Member Huthman asked why facilities call 911 in the first place. Chief Hewitt and Captain Larson cited high staff turnover, lack of training on equipment like Hoyer lifts, and possible liability-shifting as likely reasons. Council Member Williams noted the issue seemed straightforward given his own background in the industry. Council President Stone flagged a drafting gap: the ordinance text authorized penalties but did not specify the dollar amount, which the city attorney confirmed needed to be corrected. Council Member Riccardi raised two substantive questions: whether adult family homes — which Tacoma and Everett excluded from their ordinances — should be included given potentially lower staffing levels, and whether a tiered penalty structure (lower first offense, higher repeat) might be more appropriate. Chief Hewitt responded that adult family homes are still licensed and medically staffed, their residents still pay for care services, and they are generally lower utilizers of non-emergent lift calls than larger facilities. On the tiered approach, he said the flat-fee model used elsewhere appeared to work effectively and that the goal was simply to create enough financial incentive to prompt adequate staffing and training. Council President Stone added that the fine needs to be meaningful enough that facilities don't simply treat it as a cheaper substitute for proper staffing. Riccardi said she would like more clarity on adult family home medical qualifications before the ordinance reaches third and final reading.
Amendment: Council Member Williams moved to amend Section D of the ordinance to explicitly state the penalty amount as $1,000 per incident. The amendment passed 3–0.
Final vote on the amended ordinance (forwarded to full council): Passed 3–0 (Hammill, Huthman, Williams in favor; no opposition or abstentions).
The ordinance will be brought forward for full council consideration the same evening.
Key Takeaways
The ordinance, if adopted by full council, would let the fire department fine licensed care facilities $1,000 per incident when 911 is called for non-emergent lift assistance that facility staff should be handling themselves.
The goal is deterrence, not revenue — Tacoma's experience shows that the existence of a penalty ordinance alone dramatically reduced misuse, with only one fine actually issued since 2018.
Surge capacity is a real concern: with fire companies averaging 43 minutes per non-emergent lift call, tied-up units can delay response to genuine emergencies elsewhere.
A drafting error was caught and corrected in committee: the original ordinance text authorized penalties without specifying the $1,000 amount; this was amended before moving forward.
Adult family homes remain in scope despite Tacoma and Everett excluding them; Council Member Riccardi signaled she wants more information on their staffing qualifications before third and final reading.
AI-generated summary from voice-to-text transcript. Not the official record. Verify important details with the source documents linked above.
What happened at this meeting
An ordinance regarding ambulances, amending Bellingham Municipal Code Chapter 6.10 to establish penalties for misuse of the 911 dispatch system to obtain non- emergent lift assistance
# Summary: Ordinance on Non-Emergency Lift Assistance Penalties for Care Facilities
Fire Chief Bill Hewitt and Captain Steve Larson presented an ordinance establishing $1,000 penalties for licensed care facilities that misuse 911 dispatch for non-emergent lift assistance, addressing over 230 annual calls that consume approximately 30 minutes each and divert critical resources from genuine emergencies. The ordinance targets the 28 licensed care facilities in Bellingham (14 assisted living, 5 skilled nursing, and 9 adult family homes) and is framed as an incentive program rather than punitive measure, with the fire department conducting education and outreach to ensure compliance. Council members, including Councilmember Williams and Riccardi, debated the penalty amount and scope—ultimately determining the $1,000 flat fee (aligned with comparable ordinances in Tacoma, Everett, and Cincinnati) was appropriate, though Riccardi questioned whether adult family homes should be included due to their limited on-site medical staff. The committee approved the amended ordinance in a 3-0 vote, with the understanding that the flat penalty should serve as a sufficient deterrent to incentivize facilities to invest in proper training and staffing rather than rely on emergency services.
Fire Chief Bill Hewitt and Captain Steve Larson presented an ordinance establishing $1,000 penalties for licensed care facilities that misuse 911 dispatch for non-emergent lift assistance, addressing over 230 annual calls that consume approximately 30 minutes each and divert critical resources from genuine emergencies. The ordinance targets the 28 licensed care facilities in Bellingham (14 assisted living, 5 skilled nursing, and 9 adult family homes) and is framed as an incentive program rather than punitive measure, with the fire department conducting education and outreach to ensure compliance. Council members, including Councilmember Williams and Riccardi, debated the penalty amount and scope—ultimately determining the $1,000 flat fee (aligned with comparable ordinances in Tacoma, Everett, and Cincinnati) was appropriate, though Riccardi questioned whether adult family homes should be included due to their limited on-site medical staff. The committee approved the amended ordinance in a 3-0 vote, with the understanding that the flat penalty should serve as a sufficient deterrent to incentivize facilities to invest in proper training and staffing rather than rely on emergency services.
Agenda items (1)
Procedural (1)
24915ProceduralAn ordinance regarding ambulances, amending Bellingham Municipal Code Chapter 6.10 to establish penalties for misuse of the 911 dispatch system to obtain non- emergent lift assistance
The city is updating its rules about calling ambulances to add penalties for people who misuse 911 to request help lifting or moving themselves when it's not a true medical emergency.
What happened
# Summary: Ordinance on Non-Emergency Lift Assistance Penalties for Care FacilitiesFire Chief Bill Hewitt and Captain Steve Larson presented an ordinance establishing $1,000 penalties for licensed care facilities that misuse 911 dispatch for non-emergent lift assistance, addressing over 230 annual calls that consume approximately 30 minutes each and divert critical resources from genuine emergencies. The ordinance targets the 28 licensed care facilities in Bellingham (14 assisted living, 5 skilled nursing, and 9 adult family homes) and is framed as an incentive program rather than punitive measure, with the fire department conducting education and outreach to ensure compliance. Council members, including Councilmember Williams and Riccardi, debated the penalty amount and scope—ultimately determining the $1,000 flat fee (aligned with comparable ordinances in Tacoma, Everett, and Cincinnati) was appropriate, though Riccardi questioned whether adult family homes should be included due to their limited on-site medical staff. The committee approved the amended ordinance in a 3-0 vote, with the understanding that the flat penalty should serve as a sufficient deterrent to incentivize facilities to invest in proper training and staffing rather than rely on emergency services.
Additional votes recorded in minutes
Amend ordinance regarding ambulances/911 misuse penalties
aye 3
Daniel Hammillaye
Edwin H. "Skip" Williamsaye
Hollie Huthmanaye
Recommend approval of amended ordinance regarding ambulances/911 misuse penalties
aye 3
Daniel Hammillaye
Edwin H. "Skip" Williamsaye
Hollie Huthmanaye
Verbatim transcript available
95 transcript segments indexed
Good afternoon and welcome back to the Bellingham City Council Committee meetings. We're going to start this afternoon with public health, safety, justice, and equity. That committee is chaired by Council member Hamel, so I'll turn it over to them at this time.
City of Bellingham Public Health, Safety, Justice, and Equity Committee minutes April 27, 2026, 1:00 PM Chair: Daniel Hammill Phone: 360-778-8200 Members: Hollie Huthman, Edwin H. "Skip" Williams Email: ccmail@cob.org Web: cob.org/council City Council committee meetings Standing committee members receive reports and information, ask questions, and vote on a recommended action for consideration by the full Council at the regular meeting.
There is no public comment period during committee sessions. Call to order and roll call Council President Stone called the meeting to order at 1 p.m. Present: Committee Chair Daniel Hammill, Third Ward Committee Member Hollie Huthman, Second Ward Committee Member Edwin H.
Uh thank you. Um good afternoon um everyone. I'm joined today by Council members um Huffman and Williams. He's here. I think he's just a little bit late getting to the dais. Uh we have one item before us this afternoon.
"Skip" Williams, Fourth Ward 24915 1. An ordinance regarding ambulances, amending Bellingham Municipal Code Chapter 6.10 to establish penalties for misuse of the 911 dispatch system to obtain non- emergent lift assistance Summary: Fire Chief Bill Hewett, and Steve Larsen, Community Paramedic Captain, presented the ordinance, which amends Bellingham Municipal Code Chapter 6.10 to establish penalties for misuse of the 911 dispatch system to obtain non-emergent lift assistance.
This is an ordinance regarding ambulances amending Bellingham Municipal Code Chapter 6.10 to establish penalties for misuse of the 911 dispatch system to obtain non-emergent lift assistance. I'll go ahead and read the summary statement uh provided here.
Council Members discussed the ordinance and asked questions. Action: Edwin H. "Skip" Williams moved to recommend approval of the ordinance. Action: Edwin H. "Skip" Williams moved to amend the ordinance: “D.
Licensed care facilities are required by state law to provide adequate staffing to meet their residents' needs, which implicitly includes the ability to lift and move their residents in non-emergent settings.
Assessment of Penalty. The Fire Chief, or designee, shall be authorized to issue a $1,000 penalty charge for each incident determined to be non-emergency lift assist at licensed care facilities.” AMENDMENT CARRIED 3-0.
The fire department responds on average over 230 times each year to licensed care facilities to assist facility staff in lifting or moving a resident with no emergent medical issues. Approval of this ordinance would allow the fire department to assess a penalty to the care facility when they are called for these non-emergent assists, and uh today we have um Fire Chief uh Bill Hewitt and Captain Steve Larson here to take us through.
All right. Good afternoon, Council. Thank you. Um yeah, and I have Captain Steve Larson, who's our current supervisor in the community paramedic program with us. Um Steve actually has been working on this uh for the last year along with Matt Stamps in the legal department.
Um and base this off of ordinances uh we've seen in other cities. Um the couple of things I just want to point out is um and I'm going to turn it over to Steven, um but uh just want to point out that you this ordinance is about only about licensed care facilities.
So, um there's different types of licensed care facilities, but these are places that are being paid to provide medical services to their residents. Um this ordinance is not looking to, you know, we still stand by our um our mission of helping people every day.
And if somebody at home needs assistance, they call 911, we're going to go, and we're going to help. This is more about for facilities are getting paid to provide that help, and then using the fire department as the muscle to do the job that they're paid to do.
So, the this is what the ordinance is very tightly focused on. It's uh we're not and we're also very much uh looking at or hoping that this is just an incentive program for those licensed care facilities to adequately staff and train their staff to do the do the job that they're there to serve.
So, not a program that we're looking to um go out and institute a lot of fines or or try and get people. We're just hoping that it's a a program that will help encourage, and we've got some statistics that kind of back that up.
It's a program to encourage them the facilities to do what they should be doing. So, that I'll turn it over to Steven. Hi, Council. Hi, everyone. Good afternoon. Steve Larson, community paramedic for the fire department.
Uh like Chief said here, I've had a part in developing this ordinance, and um to give a little historical background on the community paramedic program, one of the main reasons this program started was the identify high utilizers of 911.
Uh about 10 years ago, 12 years ago when this program started, and today, the thing we still struggle with is those high utilizers are in fis- care facilities. And where we can't discourage them from calling 911, nor do we want to, the main goal of this ordinance is holding is three things.
Is holding these care facilities responsible for what they're billing these vulnerable population. We want to be able to support these vulnerable populations that are paying large amount of money to get care and support.
We also want us to create surge capacity for the fire department. We want on 24,000 over 24,000 calls with 231 of those being lift assist lift assist, which doesn't sound like a lot, but when you're spending 30 minutes for someone that didn't need to call 911 because someone else is paid to do this job, but yet the fire department is coming to do it for them.
We over the years created brochures, decision-making trees to give to these facilities, which we've given year after year after year to help guide them on when and when not to call 911. The one that we're identifying here are individuals that have had {quote} non-emergent falls.
These are individuals that have slipped from bed, melted down on the ground. They didn't have a medical component to this, and there was no trauma to this. We're talking about individuals that need assistance moving from a recliner to a bed.
But yet the fire department gets called. We want to discourage that from using public funds in the fire department to support private sector. We also want to make sure that this vulnerable population is not on the ground any longer than they need to be when there's staff on site 24/7 for these people.
There's 14 assisted living facilities in Bellingham. There's five skilled nursing facilities, and there's nine adult family homes. These These are the groups that are licensed, and we'd like to identify.
Part of my goal in the next months coming would be going through, making sure meeting with the staff, educating them, making sure they have a clear understanding of our goals in this ordinance. Uh and making sure very clear that it is not to discourage them from using 911.
We want them to call 911 when there's an emergency. We want individuals. And nor does this apply to private residents at their home. Uh and I think lastly, dovetailing on what Chief was saying, we're not creating the wheel here, which is nice.
Everett Fire Department, Tacoma Fire Department, Cincinnati, multiple other departments utilize a non-emergent lift assist fine. Speaking with Tacoma, who was kind of the front runner in our state, had it implemented in 2018.
They've only fined once. The ordinance in and of itself was enough discouragement and reminder for those facilities to do the correct thing. Um I think those are the key points I wanted to make sure everyone is aware of that yeah, this the population is these facilities.
Can I answer any questions? Thank you. Um committee? Uh Council member Huffman. I'm curious um I guess more behind the why of uh the fire department 911 being called in these circumstances. Is this something that um where the calls for these situations have increased over time?
Have these calls always happened? Um I'm interested in hearing why I think from the kind of from the maybe the standpoint of the the staff at these facilities, why are they choosing to call um rather rather than other options?
Yeah, great question. And I could only kind of guess in some circumstances, but things that pop up is training. The staff turnover pretty fast in these facilities. It's hard work that they do in there.
And so, whether it's lacking training that they're training their new incoming staff, if they have enough staff, if they have appropriate equipment like Hoyer lifts, which is a device to help lift an individual.
Um they'll the reasoning they'll be that they'll say their staff's not trained on a Hoyer lift. Um I could also imagine punting liability to the fire department that they can say that the fire department has come and done an evaluation and did and did the lifting, and so they can say they can maybe push that liability to the fire department.
Um those would be some of my top running guesses that the why behind it, but this has been a chronic issue over decades. And we as the Bellingham Fire Department haven't seemed to be able to move that pendulum to correct it at all.
And I think we had some statistics in here, but 2024 was a pretty tough year where we were called to lift assist, and we're identifying the ones that had no medical or component to it and no transport.
And in 2024, it was nearly like 45% of the lift assists that we went to facilities were not transported, which is the identifying population that we're looking at. Um but it's also not isolated to Bellingham Fire Department.
These are as Tacoma and Everett have identified, it's it's a common theme. Um maybe it's a generational thing that or my grandfather didn't call 911 for certain things, today's population utilizes 911 as a different type of resource than maybe decades ago.
Uh I'd also add in there um the community paramedic program since its inception has uh run a program called make the right call. That's what Steve was referencing to some of the handouts and the flowchart that we routinely give out to these care facilities.
We've always kind of seen a bit of a cycle in there where they get a new manager, our community paramedic makes a visit, goes through the handouts and the flowcharts. Things get better for a little while, a new manager comes in, things get worse for a while.
We make another visit. So, we've been in this kind of up and down cycle of just trying the educational route. Um I think the telling one for me um was literally um Steve or I'm not sure if it was Steve or one of our other medics having a conversation with um a an employee in a facility and again suggesting that they need the right training, need the right experience, or the right staffing levels, and literally the employee looking at us and say, "You guys should really fine us cuz then maybe they'll do something." So, I There's There is a little part of this that is again helping to incentivize and helping to support the employees that are out there.
We have some really good employees in these facilities that are being asked to do hard tasks with maybe without the proper training or without the proper staffing. And so, this helps to support them as well.
And I guess I'd take on another thing and the client that Chief speaking to, it was someone we went to twice within like 12 hours and that person literally didn't fall at all. They were in a seated position in a chair and they needed staff.
They needed the fire department to move them to a bed and they called twice in a 24-hour shift for that. And the manager the next day I followed up with it and was totally transparent about the situation and recognized the inappropriateness of utilizing 911 and said, "You guys should just fine us for these reasons." And the only other thing I wanted to maybe take on to this was that Yeah, so it's 230 calls a year averaging about 30 minutes each call.
And even though that's not a huge number and not a huge amount of time, it is a big amount of time when that fire company is tied up on something that's not critical and shouldn't maybe have been utilized and now someone else in that territory is having a true medical emergency, a heart attack, stroke, seizure, something that is life-threatening and now the next closest fire company is responding, which is a delay of response.
Seconds means lives and that's a big deal to me. Councilmember Williams. Sounds pretty straightforward to me. Um Having having worked in that industry for a while, um it seems like the lack of training and the lack of ability to do those things on site is what's causing this.
And it sounds like this is going to hopefully be an incentive to the uh health uh uh to the centers to make sure that their staff are capable of doing this, they have enough staff to cover things that are non-critical.
And so, it sounds pretty straightforward. So, I I'm going to move that we approve this ordinance for first and second. Okay. Uh motion's been made by uh committee member Williams. Uh Councilmember Stone.
Yeah, I just had a question in the background on the agenda bill. It references toward the bottom that the proposed ordinance would allow the department to fine the facilities. It says $1,000 per incident.
Um I don't know if that particular amount is referenced maybe somewhere else in the code. I didn't see it specified in the proposed ordinance. Um I noted that subsection D you know, speaks to assessment of penalty.
It says the fire chief or designee shall be authorized to issue a penalty charge for each incident determined to be non-emergency lift assist at licensed care facilities. But I didn't see where it specified the amount of the penalty.
I want to look to the lawyer for a second. Uh yes, I I agree with you, Councilmember Stone. It does not specify in the ordinance the amount of the penalty and it should. So, is that Pardon me, is that intended to be $1,000 as referenced in the agenda bill per incident?
I believe so. I think I would um recommend a motion to modify the draft ordinance so that it reads issue a penalty charge in the amount of $1,000 for each incident. I don't serve on the committee, so I'll defer that motion to someone else.
I'll I think I think the recommendation from staff was that it be a flat $1,000 penalty and then there's uh discretion in the ordinance built into the ordinance for that amount to be either waived or reduced based on mitigating factors or other circumstances.
Councilmember Williams. Um I'll make the motion to amend this. What was the wording that you used? In section D, um have it read to issue a penalty charge in the amount of $1,000 for each. >> Okay. Amend section D of the ordinance uh to reflect that the penalty shall be be $1,000.
As you stated it. Okay. So, there's an amendment to amend section D to include language um to authorize the fine to be $1,000 per incident. Councilmember uh Huffman then President Stone. Can you uh explain how we determine that dollar amount?
I I want to say well, I can briefly. Um it was just based on So, Tacoma is set at $850. Everett's at 600. Uh Cincinnati, Ohio is at $1,000. And mind you, Tacoma's this money dollar amount was produced nearly 10 years ago, 8 years ago.
So, I think in today's money $1,000 seems appropriate. And like specified earlier, we're not trying to generate revenue from this. We're just trying to have it be a discouragement from utilizing inappropriately utilizing 911.
I hope not we're to fine somebody. I hope that they just do the work that they're supposed to and help these vulnerable people. And I'll add to that our average cost of transport, which is a number that we have to identify for Medicare and Medicaid, is over $3,000 a transport.
So, if you think that that's the average cost of an aid call um is what we've what how we've defined it for Medicare and Medicaid, $1,000 seemed very reasonable for what's an aid call but not a transport.
Okay. I'll vote. Uh thank you. That That makes a lot of sense. Um and this ties to another question. Cuz I'm I'm thinking about um adding an element where we're going to be dissuading people from calling 911, which I think the concern for me is um does it go swing a little too far where there are situations where someone should call 911 and they don't because they're concerned about this fine.
Um what are What are the I guess what are the controls for ensuring that um people are still calling 911 when um they're not being too cautious about not calling 911 to avoid the fine. Well, and I think that that's the probably the biggest part of why we our our discussion today and then also um some of the discussions I've had with our local media is that this is very much about those licensed care facilities only.
Facilities that have medically trained personnel at the facility. Um of course, you know, if again, go back to our mission statement, helping people every day. If we have somebody in a home uh or private residence or we have somebody in a business or out on the street or wherever it is, we want them to call us and we'll go help them.
These penalties aren't related to that. And so, um and even within the care facility, you know, again believing that the care facility has medically trained personnel on scene. So, they should be able to quickly identify what is a true medical emergency versus what is just lifting and moving.
Um so, I I think that's where we we have the good balance there that this is only going towards the you know, that group. That's where the majority of our informational, you know, if this passes through third and final um and gets enacted, then the first thing we're going to be doing is a educational tour of all of those facilities to make sure they have the most up-to-date make the right call information and that they're aware of you know, that we're still here when you have a medical emergency.
Um we're just not here to move the person from the chair to the bed because you didn't have the staffing for it. Council President Stone, did you still have Okay. Okay. Uh Councilmember Riccardi. Um thanks for bringing this forward.
Uh this is an issue that I'm I've heard about a number of times over my 2 years on council, so um uh yeah, I'm just also watching my grandparents age and just non-emergent falls just like feels like my mom was getting that call every other day, so um it and yeah, facilities need to be prepared to handle those.
Um my question is about um the definition of licensed care facility um which as drafted would include adult family homes and I think both Tacoma and Everett uh did not include adult family homes. I think that I'm guessing the difference is that they don't have a a license medical professional on site 24/7, so I'm I'm open to to hearing more about why those were included, but I just wanted to make sure we're being intentional.
Yeah, we went back and forth on that decision and I think working with uh Mr. Stamps, we felt that as long as there's trained medical staff within the home that is licensed, we feel that they fall within the same category.
Um I'm not aware of any of these facilities that don't have some level of medical training in there. And again, we are not trying to cut the thin line of whether they had a medical emergency of or not.
We if we're ever hesitant, we're going to assume that there's a medical emergency here. We want >> [snorts] >> to support them in this. And so, we're talking about people that literally need help sitting from a chair into a bed.
We're not going to do their dishes, we're not going to make the beds, we're not going to move these patients when the staff is supposed to do that work. No different than I can't go help uh do a construction project and move the sheetrock to the third floor cuz they're short-staffed and untrained that day.
We're talking about work that they are licensed to do. And so, yeah, on the adult family homes, we went back and forth. We feel that they're identified as medical medically trained and should be required to do a lift assist or identify if it's a medical component or not.
I I think the other piece in there, too, is the adult family home uh just like the other facilities, they're getting paid by the client to provide those needs. Or the client is paying them to provide those needs.
And so, this is trying to help them also um again, we're not trying to discourage people from calling 911. We do you know, we do still want whether it's the adult care home or anyone else, somebody's having a medical emergency, they call 911, we'll triage it.
Um and we'll respond. We're always going to default to a place of we're going to respond. This is if this ever comes up, it's always going to be an after-the-fact, you know, we're going to go out, we're going to respond, we're going to do what's needed in the moment.
If we get there and um and they need lift assistance and it is one that would fall into a fine, we're still going to lift the patient and help move them, solve the problem in the moment. This is um this would come up afterwards that we would go back to that facility and remind them of their duties and our ordinance and and that part of it.
Councilmember Ryu, um Williams, go ahead. Chief Streeter answered my question. Okay. Councilmember Riccardi, do you have follow-up? Yeah, it seems like that case of moving someone from the the recliner to the bed is a very like clear case of, right?
Um uh even if there wasn't necessarily someone qualified to make those determinations on site, that's just a clear-cut and dry case, right? Um I guess I'd be wanting to get some more clarity about yeah, the the medical qualifications of adult uh family home staff um before third and final.
Um And I also am curious just about the fine cuz obviously this is not about making money, right? This is about making sure our public safety resources are going where they need to go. Um so, if there was um openness or previous consideration of like a tiered right, for your first you know, violation, a smaller amount and then escalating with um repeat, you know, um misuse of of uh non-emergent lift assistance required.
And speaking generally, our adult family homes are not our higher utilizers uh in these circumstances. It's the massive assisted living facilities, skilled nursing facilities are our higher higher utilizers in these circumstances.
I think specifically because those adult family homes are typically smaller, they're working with a less um vulnerable population that has lesser needs cuz they're typically lower staffed as well. And then on the the question about the tiered penalties per use, any thoughts about that?
I I think again, we we went off of the ordinances that have been working in other cities and they just had the flat fee. I I do want to stay um in your packet, it's in there and then I know Steve made a statement that's a little contradictory there, um but the I think Tacoma, the initial numbers we got from Tacoma were like in their first year, there was 25 or so uh calls that they identified as um part of that.
And after a couple years, they were down to two or three. And I think when you're talking about they find one, that was just in the last year. Yeah, so they've they were they went from this large number of calls in that first year and have tapered off to where yeah, they're hardly getting any because again, that it is mainly about the education and and I think the $1,000, you know, again, we we can talk about it being related to what everybody else was doing a little bit into what the reality of our average cost per transport and these I'm looking at our live stats for year-to-date this year.
Um and that on average, we've been this year, we've been sitting about 43 minutes a call on these calls. Um we need to make we want to make sure that that fine is enough of an incentive for them to pay for the right training >> [clears throat] >> or to ensure that they have enough caregivers on site.
And so, I think that's that's the other maybe the more important piece of it. And I don't know that a tiered system would really um necessarily provide that. Uh I'm yeah, I think that's our hope again is just the knowledge of the system or knowledge of the fine that's out there will be that incentive for them to move forward.
Council President Stone, do you have any more? Yeah, actually, I think Chief Streeter just addressed it. My other question was regarding whether it was, you know, a penalty versus a cost of service. I mean, we're right, at a facility, if if it doesn't factor or if it factors in where that's still cheaper than the training and staffing that we're hoping to encourage these facilities to maintain on site, right?
That's a balance. And so, I think for the um I mean, to ensure that the facility is able to provide the services that they've been contracted to provide, you do want it to be significant enough. Um so, my question actually to Councilmember Hedlund and Cotton was where the opposite side of wanting to make sure that feeling was that this was significant enough that hopefully it wouldn't just be a supplement for other training and, you know, um staffing that might be needed.
So, I appreciate that. Yeah. Yeah, I would I would hate for a facility to be weighing uh is it cheaper to pay the fine to the fire department than it is to do the right thing. Yeah. Okay. Further uh questions or conversation from committee or council?
Okay, seeing none. We have two uh we have an amendment here that I need to dispose of. So, that amendment is to include um the following language uh to pursuant to section D, assessment of penalty, the fire chief or designee shall be authorized to issue a penalty of $1,000 per incident uh for each incident determined to be non-emergency lift assistance or list lift assistance at licensed care facilities.
I'm just going to check with legal real quick to make sure I that I've got that. Did I capture it? Uh yes, I think um uh the city clerk had suggested maybe just reordering it to put a $1,000 penalty charge for each incident.
>> Sure. Okay. Okay. All right. Um any further discussion on the amendment? Seeing none, all those in favor signify by saying I. >> I. I. Okay. Opposed, abstentions. Uh that motion carries 3-0. We'll go back to the original motion now modified to include that um uh amendment pursuant to section D, which is to pass the ordinance with that um amended language.
All those in favor signify by saying I. Opposed? Abstentions? Recusals? Motion carries 3-0. I'll bring that forward tonight. Thank you. Thank you. And that we just had that one item here this afternoon for public health, safety, justice, and equity.