Updated: March 17, 2019
The short position:
I support cross-training police officers as firefighters, but believe we should maintain (and actively support) a core group of career firefighter/rescuers in Cedar Falls. I disagree with the concept of replacing career firefighters with Public Safety Officers on a 1:1 basis. I don't yet have enough information to have an opinion on the overall validity of the program & its direction, and still want Public Safety Services to present a Five Year Strategic Plan to make its goals and strategies clear....and for City Council to vote on that plan on behalf of residents.
The long explanation:
As residents, we cannot reasonably expect a single Public Safety Officer to be both an expert firefighter/rescuer and an expert law enforcement officer. And in situations where lives are on the line, a "jack of all trades" just won't cut it.
That said, I'm not seeing with the available information that we should dismantle the 'PSO Model' outright. I do support cross-training our law enforcement officers to support our career firefighters (which is what I understood the PSO program to be, two years ago)...and if there's a pay bonus and a new title for cross-trained officers, so be it. But a simple one-for-one replacement of career firefighters with patrolling Public Safety Officers doesn't seem to be a wise move in the long run.
One of the main reasons I'm pushing for a five-year strategic plan is to allow residents to truly understand what this PSO Model is, and where City Hall is headed with it. While I appreciate that building safety codes, new construction materials, and safer appliances/'fire-starters' have lessened the overall risk of life-threatening fire, there still is a philosophical question to be answered, of how much risk we're willing to expose our residents and our firefighters to, in the name of cost-saving? Even if all occupants are saved, is it still a 'successful firefighting evolution' if a home is severely damaged? Do we simply say, "That's what insurance money is for"?
I believe a reasonable first step in determining the way forward is to understand where we're headed with the program, and why. I discussed this in my Public Safety Strategic Plan issue statement. An impartial mayor is in a strong position to facilitate these discussions on behalf of Cedar Falls residents, but it's ultimately the City Council who should decide what our Public Safety program looks like in the coming years, and to give a full accounting to our residents (as partners and stakeholders) of the rationale behind that decision.