TAMPA, Fla. — Some of Tampa’s top influencers got a chance to hear from the city’s fire chief firsthand about public safety challenges being created by Tampa’s rapid growth.
Tampa Fire Rescue Chief Barbara Tripp was the featured speaker at this week’s Café con Tampa event.
Tripp was invited to speak just two months after the city’s fire department union addressed the same group and raised concerns about the department’s response times.
“I just want to make sure that we get accurate information out there,” said Chief Tripp, sighting issues with some of the union’s assertions.
Administrators and the union both agree more resources are needed, but they disagree on the most efficient way to allocate those resources.
The union wants more firehouses and more fire engines. But around 90% percent of Tampa Fire-Rescue’s calls are medical, not fire.
That led some attending the event to question why a fire engine is often dispatched to a medical call.
“The question is, functionally, could we respond better and faster if we deployed a whole lot more ambulances with qualified paramedics to the 80% of calls that we have?” attendee Bill Lazarus asked. “And I think the answer is almost certainly yes.”
Chief Tripp agreed.
In addition to updating outdated communications equipment, Tripp says the city would be better off placing more EMS units around town to bring down response times.
“If I can get the stations and get the rescue cars in the stations that’s going to assist,” Chief Tripp said. “If we see that there are hotspots in certain areas that are running more medical calls that's where we went implement some stations that will just only house medical calls, or rescue units.”
Union reps, who listened and took notes during Chief Tripp’s presentation, said they see it differently.
“We need more stations,” Union President Nick Stocco said. “We can't continue to fit any more vehicles in the stations. Currently today, 70% of the stations are past life expectancy.”
Stocco calls the issue a life safety concern for the public. He says the industry standard calls for an advanced life support unit to be on scene in four minutes or less, but that in Tampa, nine out of ten times the average response takes more than twice that.
People who attend the weekly Café con Tampa events are often many of the same people at city council meetings and represent larger groups of homeowners and organizations.
Both administrators and the union hope that by influencing the group’s members, they in turn will put pressure on city leaders to fund the projects they say are critical to maintaining public safety.