To the Honorable Board of Selectmen

Report of the Public Safety Advisory Committee

The charge of this committee is to make short and long term recommendations concerning Police, Fire and Emergency Medical Service to the Selectmen.

The committee completed the cost/benefit report requested by the Board at the end of 2006 on establishing a fulltime Fire Dept including a town operated ambulance service.

The committee came to the following conclusion. It is not possible at this time for the Fire Dept to operate an ambulance service with the present Mon-Fri 8am -4pm staffing. The revenue and expenses are nearly a wash and with no capacity to build a reserve for future and/or unplanned expenses. The Fire Dept would need to be full time 24/7 in order to have an acceptable response time and to have a positive cash flow. A town wide survey indicated strong interest from the residents in having the Fire Dept provide ambulance response.

The committee made a recommendation to the Board that establishing a fulltime dept should take place over a ten year time frame and comprise of two or three phases that increased the number of hours per week that the fire station is staffed with fulltime people with the last one resulting in a 24/7 operation. Our report attempted to provide accurate figures as to what each would cost using the current wage scale and other expenses.

Our thanks to Fire Chief Richard Brady, Police Chief Doug Mellis and Dr Mike Lemanski for their valuable contributions to our work this year.

Andrew Fraser, Chair

Barbara Mulak, Clerk

George Moriarty

John Bobianski

Phil Chapman

John O’Neil

Craig Tedeschi

Mike Sacenti