In a message dated
Ms. Varpetian, the Glendale Fire Department, as a public agency whose primary mission is to provide emergency care for trauma and other medical patients in crises (88% of their emergency responses are medical in nature) with an annual budget of $60 million, I am not just surprised it hasn't been keeping any records of its multiple victim incidents filed by that category, but I wonder what other key data they do not compile that could provide records of trends or patterns that will go undetected. Last night Deputy Fire Chief Howard, in response to questions at the Neighborhood Coordinating Council Meeting, said the fire department missed the data that presented irrefutable evidence of excessive response delays when firefighters were jogging in remote parts or at other locations that were out of their fire districts. It was only after I had presented the data to the public and city council did they acknowledge the need to cancel the off-site jogging policy. With twice the average response times, this policy has been adversely affecting emergency responses since 1995. This has amounted to thousands of emergency calls where medical victims experienced long, and in some cases, delays that may have had adverse outcomes. It is interesting to note that the fire department began to experience these excessive delays when it first put the off-site jogging policy into effect (1995), but, due to their interest to allow firefighters to jog in lush park surroundings in deference to the need to get to time-sensitive emergencies quicker, this flawed policy continued for over a decade. Last night Chief Howard said they were unaware of this problem before I presented the data. That is absolutely incorrect and flies in the face of common sense and reason. In 2004, their own consultant told them of these excessive delays. He labeled them "failed incidents". I then tried to inform the fire department of this problem and presented them with my preliminary data three years ago in a formal meeting with chief officers. I guess the dislike of the messenger trumped the value of the message because they chose to ignore the data at that time. It was only until I made the data public by sharing it with the city council did the fire department acknowledge and correct the problem.
What other policies or practices are contributing to
excessive and preventable emergency response delays? I have discovered many
more and will be presenting them to the city council in the months ahead.
The fire department chose to ignore them when they made their power point
presentations to the city council on
None of these policy changes could have come about without
the benefit of the Public Record Act. While the City of
Sincerely,
Bruce Philpott
In a message dated
Mr. Phipott:
I now understand the
confusion. The
Lucy Varpetian
Office of the
613 East
Broadway,
Tel: 818-548-2080
Fax: 818-547-3402
-----Original Message-----
From: Brcphilpott1@aol.com [mailto:Brcphilpott1@aol.com]
Sent:
To: Varpetian, Lucy
Subject: Re: Request Response to my letters
Ms. Varpetian, without any record
of past Multi Victim Incidents, how can the
In a message dated
Mr. Philpott:
It was implicit in my earlier email, that the City had received your request for records outlining 10 different categories of documents. Our response to your request remains that the City has no responsive documents. The Fire Department does not keep record for incidents where there are multiple victims and/or casualties.
Lucy Varpetian
Office of the
613 East
Broadway,
Tel: 818-548-2080
Fax: 818-547-3402
-----Original Message-----
From: Brcphilpott1@aol.com [mailto:Brcphilpott1@aol.com]
Sent:
To: Varpetian, Lucy
Cc: Howard, Scott
Subject: Re: Request Response to my letters
Ms. Varpetian, you did not respond to the portion of my email that requested up to ten (10) different documents that the MVI records may have morphed into. You did not acknowledge the formal Public Records Act Request that was contained in the email. Question: when I send you (City Attorney's Office) an email with a formal request for records by citing the Public Records Act, are you allowed to ignore it? If the answer is no, then why did you not acknowledge the request and tell me that it was received on the date that the email was sent to you. If the answer is yes, then please state the authority under the law that permits you to deny my the request by submitting it to your office, and tell me what I have to do to make the formal request for the records I am asking for.
Sincerely,
Bruce Philpott
In a message dated
Mr. Philpott:
It is not my intent to vex you. I am simply stating that the City does not retain records of multi-victim incidents. We cannot produce records we do not have.
Lucy Varpetian
Office of the
613 East
Broadway,
Tel: 818-548-2080
Fax: 818-547-3402
-----Original Message-----
From: Brcphilpott1@aol.com [mailto:Brcphilpott1@aol.com]
Sent:
To: Varpetian, Lucy
Subject: Re: Request Response to my letters
Ms. Varpetian,
Please note that this response to your latest email contains a public records act request.
Thank you for a quick response, however, you only
informed me that the forms were destroyed after the data was transferred
onto an
Without any further information, I have no other choice but
to request (
This could be a lot easier, cost-effective process by just cooperating a little. It seems like you are making an intentional effort to vex me.
Sincerely,
Bruce Philpott
240-8949
In a message dated
Mr. Philpott:
Consistent with my letter of
Lucy Varpetian
Office of the
613 East
Broadway,
Tel: 818-548-2080
Fax: 818-547-3402
-----Original Message-----
From: Brcphilpott1@aol.com [mailto:Brcphilpott1@aol.com]
Sent:
To: Varpetian, Lucy
Cc: Howard, Scott
Subject: Request Response to my letters
Dear Ms Varpetian,
I am, once again, trying to get an accurate and proper
response from the City of
In a response letter to you dated
Dear Ms. Varpetian,
I am in receipt of your letter dated February 29, 2008, wherein you state that records responsive to item # 3 (Multiple Victim Incident Reports) do not exist and therefore are not maintained by the Glendale Fire Department.
I would like to refer you to the Fire Department Policy and Procedure Manual, Chapter 7, page 7 of 7, which address the procedural issues of MVI events. Please note under the last subheading "Transport", last entry, it states, "Use Multi Casualty Recorder Worksheet". I can only assume that fire personnel are directed by this policy to complete these forms that are then made a matter of historic record and are on file. Either this policy has been repealed, universally violated or there are, in fact, files that contain these records.
Please let me know which is the case as soon as possible.
Sincerely,
Bruce Philpott
240-8949
Attached to that letter I enclosed a copy of the page of the GFD's policy that states:
Fire Department Police and Procedure Manual
Multi Victim Incident (MVI)
Use Multi Casualty Recorder Worksheet
If I am not using the exact terminology to get you to extract this data for me, please inform me as to what language would produce better results. Do I have to use in my PRAR the words "Multi Casualty Recorder Worksheet? This information is extremely important to my continuing investigation of policies that have implications of fiscal waste and unnecessarily adding delays to emergency response times.
Sincerely,
Bruce Philpott
240-8949