City of Oak Creek

Common Council Report

Meeting Date:  1/6/04

Item No.:         1

Recommendation:  This presentation is informational only; no Council action is being requested at this time.

Background: The “Tax Day” fires on April 15 of this year required support from 14 mutual aid fire departments.  Our existing mutual aid agreements only had two volunteer fire departments, the Town of Raymond and the Town of Sturtevant that remained uncalled during that day.  It would have been possible to call the City of Milwaukee Fire Department to respond, but unless the countywide disaster system was activated, they would be able to charge us for response at the rate of $4,280 per vehicle responding.  They may not impose those fees but it is very unlikely that the Fire Chief would take the risk of those fees being charged.

There is a very large mutual aid system known as MABAS, the Mutual Aid Box Alarm System.  MABAS has been in operation for over 25 years and has grown into one of the largest systems in the United States.  It covers most of the State of Illinois, smaller portions of Indiana, Missouri, and Iowa.  It has been gradually moving into southern Wisconsin.  Kenosha County and Racine County fire departments are a part of the system and Waukesha County fire departments are in the process of joining.  The Milwaukee County Association of Fire Chiefs has recently voted to request approval to form a MABAS division.  Upon the approval of that request, the Oak Creek Fire Department will request approval from the Mayor and Council to join that group.

There are significant advantages to joining this system.  Instead of the individual mutual aid agreements signed with each community, we will only need to have one master agreement with the MABAS system that will cover all communities in the system.  The system uses common procedures and common radio frequencies to improve operations.

The fire department will present a short Power Point presentation at the December 16 meeting to inform the elected officials about the program and allow them the opportunity to ask for additional information before the formal request to join MABAS is presented.  We expect to bring the request to join to the Council in January.

Fiscal Impact: The proposal will not significantly change our incidences of mutual aid given or received.  Therefore it should not create new costs.

Prepared and approved by: Gerard R. Hammernik Fire Chief	Respectfully submitted, Robert L. Kufrin City Administrator
Fiscal Review by: Beverly A. Buretta, CMC City Clerk