report on 911 meeting

The meeting

This was an information meeting, to inform us why we should support joining the NI911 system. Merrick was there, along with Powell River Regional District (PRRD) Emergency Services Manager Ryan Thom, the manger of the NI911 service in Campbell River, and their communications/technology person, and PRRD Information Services Coordinator Nancy Schmeister. They did an admirable job of explaining their system and how it works, and would work on Lasqueti, too, and answering the many questions asked (though not always to everyone's satisfaction).

Lasqueti fire chief Richard Carlson and Lasqueti's Emergency coordinator Ross Thompson, and a number of firefighters and first responders attended and participated.

The meeting began at 7 and ended about 11. There were something like 40 people there at the beginning, but fewer at the end.

Merrick, as our regional director, said that the Regional District has an obligation to provide emergency services to Lasqueti, and based on the recommendations of our fire chief (Richard Carlson) and the PRRD Emergency Services Manager (Ryan Thom), he and the board supported the decision to include Lasqueti in the NI911 service, along with the rest of the PRRD area.

Three major issues were discussed: the paging/communication system, the mapping and house numbering, and PRRD process and decision-making, which did not include informing citizens about the issue, let alone consultation with us.

The pager/communications system

The precipitating event for this decision by Powell River Regional District (PRRD) is the end of the Telus pager service on March 31. The pagers are how our volunteers (firefighters and first responders, both operating under the Lasqueti Island Volunteer Fire Department - LIVFD) are called out and can begin to respond to a fire or illness/injury.

The Telus pagers didn't work all that well, and it seems clear that other pager services (Rogers and Pagenet) won't work as well as the Telus ones did. The bill for renting the Telus pagers had climbed to more than $8,000 each year.

Without the pagers, there is no way for people on Lasqueti to report a fire, other than phoning each of the volunteer dispatchers and volunteer firefighters, to let them know that there is a fire, and where it is. In the old days, we had a siren at the fire hall, and drove down the road honking horns, and used a telephone call-out tree, to let people know that there was a fire, and everyone should come and help.

For the first responders, we will still be able to call the ambulance service and let them know where we need help, but there will be no way for the ambulance service to alert the LIVFD that there is a need, and no system for them to communicate with first responders.

Presumably we could have a dispatcher on duty 24/7 here on Lasqueti, but they would need to be able to reach all the volunteers that were needed, and tell them where to go. NI911 offers 24/7 dispatchers, and a reliable pager and radio system

The department has VHF radios, but they are not a substitute for pagers. They are much heavier and more awkward, and would have to be left on all the time, which will run through their batteries in a few hours. Something like this system will be used for a short time, until the NI911 pagers (which work better than the Telus ones did, with voice and text capability) are in place and operable, which will also require a new NI911 transmitter on Mt. Davie on Texada, which will serve most of Lasqueti quite well.

There seems to be no viable way to connect our phone system (land lines, cell and VOIP, which will all work in the 911 system) with the VHF pager/radio system that will be installed and operated by NI911.

Getting into the NI911 system will cost, one-time, under $100,000. This includes the new transmitter infrastructure and the mapping and house numbering. Future years will cost about $8,000 in ongoing costs, which includes maintenance and replacement of equipment and systems related to 911. That's about what we're paying now for pager rental, and the 911 system will, we were assured, work much better and be more effective.

Mapping and House Numbering

The 911 system is set up and operates on a street/road name and number system. In order for NI911 to give us service, they insist that we must have registered/official road names and house numbers, what they call “civic addresses”.

PRRD, and Nancy Schmeister in particular, have recently finished renumbering houses on Texada Island, which is not completely dissimilar to Lasqueti.

There are two problems with this: many Lasqueti people don't want to fit into the system, and the road and house numbering system and map becomes public, not limited to NI911, LIVFD, ambulance, police, and other emergency services.

It's also, to my mind, a problem to have a worker in Powell River work to figure out the details of where dwellings are, and contacting landowners to get them into the system.

The LIVFD has pretty good maps and systems for locating places they need to get to. It's not perfect, but it has been developed and improved over the years. To me, it would make sense for PRRD and Nancy Schmeister to hire/contract with some local people (maybe LIVFD people) to provide lots of the mapping knowledge and information, including landowner contact and agreements.

The process and the future

Our regional director and the PRRD board have been remiss in their duty to keep citizens informed, let alone allowing or encouraging community consultation. They have done the research (along with our fire department), and have concluded that NI911 best meets the needs of the community, and have just let us know this, and why.

They have also decided that we need a new fire hall, next to the current one, and are seeking grant funding to cover at least part of the projected $1.2 million cost.

At the meeting, we were told that going to 911 will address 4 of the 21 concerns that were reported about our fire department. Probably the new hall will address some of the remaining 17 concerns. Who knows what the remaining concerns are, and how much it will cost taxpayers to address them, if our regional director and the PRRD board feel that they have a responsibility to address all of them, and make sure we on Lasqueti have full emergency service? There are only 450 or so residents (plus a bunch of seasonal part-timers), and about 250 dwellings on Lasqueti. There are fewer than 400 existing lots, and (under our current land use bylaw) the potential eventually for just over 1200 lots if the island is fully “developed”.

If PRRD feels the need to "meet the standards" for our protection, the costs will be massive, and the taxpayers and landowners will be paying them. It looks like we need to hold a – or probably some – community meetings about this, so we can discuss the options before they are decided on. The community needs to be informed and included in the discussions, and in the decision-making process.

Given the appearance of the new parking lot on the roadway by the Arts Center last term, done unexpectedly by PRRD near the end of a long community discussion on parking in the False Bay area, we should not be surprised that Merrick has not kept us informed about what's going on, let alone consulted with us. We need to gently, but firmly, insist that he let us know what is coming up for discussion, and have discussions, publicly, with interested people in the community.