Latest / Aired Out / Will Bennington and Zach Tillinghast - firefighters with the Barre City Fire Department and members of union Local 881

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Will Bennington and Zach Tillinghast - firefighters with the Barre City Fire Department and members of union Local 881 · Aired Out

• 0:56
  Speaker 1: Um, all right, good morning and happy Tuesday. If I
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: say it's Monday, please pardon me. Are we gonna do
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: it all over again this coming weekend? Gosh, I I
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: hope not. But we're looking at this possible nor easter
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: Saturday into Sunday, at least according to the euro Model,
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: And I'm watching this last night. It was kind of
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: geeking out a little bit watching this possible nor easter
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: headed our way this coming weekend. But still plenty of
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: time between now and then, and I will be keeping
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: a very careful eye on it. I hope you're you're
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: shoveling out, You're you're doing okay, Your neighbors are doing
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: all right. God bless DPW staff and all of those
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: who are driving plows uh privately commercially. Matter who you are,
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: where you are, I'm sure you're tired. Just a great
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: big thank you for everything that you're doing and have
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: done it all winter, but especially since Friday. It's been crazy.
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: While so many of us are staying home and cozying
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: up on the couch with our fluffy blankets and being
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: with family and popcorn and movies, you guys are out
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: busting your ass and on behalf of all vermonors everywhere,
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: Just a great big thank you for sacrificing sleep and
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: time away from your family to keep our roads as
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: clean as possible, and with these temperatures being what they are.
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: I think it was one degree this morning here in
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: the Granite City. Not easy, So don't crowd the plow,
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: give them plenty of space, give them some kudos, throw
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: some love at him on social media, and yeah, just
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: a great big thank you. We got a busy community calendar,
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: especially for the second half and later part of the week.
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: Weather forecast is pretty much calling for some cold temperatures
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: that are going to stay with us a little bit longer.
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: Tuesday today's high, they're saying around seventeen degrees only with
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: a chance still for some snow showers at about fifty
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: percent Tonight two above it's one on the plus side,
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: cloudy skies, and then we get into Wednesday tomorrow much
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: of the same, mostly cloudy, about eighteen degrees, so kind
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: of a carbon copy of what we have. Pardon me today.
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: The national and regional fire departments everywhere are struggling with staffing.
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: This is something that I think many of you are
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: not surprised to hear It's something that we've talked about
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: on the here on aired out. It's something that we
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: have posted regularly over the last really last couple of
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: months on the aired out page, sharing posts from our
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: local union Local eight eighty one from their social media
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: onto the aired out page, and it has garnered quite
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: a bit of reaction from the populace. Not just here
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: in Washington County either, I've seen comments from everywhere. IAFF
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: unions are working so hard right now to advocate for
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: higher staffing minimums to meet safety standards via hiring and budgets.
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: Here in Barry this is most certainly the case. We're
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: asking for minors to, especially right here in the Granite City,
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: to take this survey that we have promoted on the
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: aired out page. We're going to do it again this
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: morning about what you would like to see happen with
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: our budget. Next to me, Will Bennington and Zach Tillinghast,
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: firefighters with the Berry City Fire Department and members of
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: Union Local eight eighty one. Will you're the president. What
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: is it like being the president? I can only imagine.
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: Well, I mean, it's a huge honor and privilege to
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: be able to represent the sixteen other hard working guys
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: that comprise the Berry City Fire Department and local IAFF
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: Local eight eighty one. We have a pretty strong union,
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: very active. We are are the entire IFF internationally is
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: very focused on local democratic control. So it's it's we
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: roll our sleeves up and we do the work, which
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: gets busy sometimes, but as I said, it's it's really
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: an honor and a privilege to be allowed to serve
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: in this role to represent the sixteen other members who
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: are working twenty four to seven three sixty five to
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: keep our community safe.
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: Twenty four seven sixty five. That's that's it, man, Gosh,
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: I mean there's no you guys. Are there any locks
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: on the doors anywhere at the fire Department.
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: Well, there are locks on the doors, but we we
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: are there ready to respond to your call whenever you
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: need us. And honestly, that's a big part of our message,
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: is wanting to to be more ready and more capable
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: when when our services are needed by the community, because
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: we're seeing her after year more calls for service, which
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: we are happy to respond to. It's what's what we
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: get paid to do, and we are just wanting to
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: make sure that we are well prepared to provide the
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: service that this community expects and deserves.
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: The union highlighted that even at full staff, and EMS
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: has had trouble responding when multiple calls are coming in simultaneously.
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: What do you say about that, guys, either one of you,
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: Let's let Zach go all.
• 8:44
  Speaker 3: Right, I'll jump in.
• 8:50
  Speaker 4: No, No, it's it's absolutely true. From you know this,
• 8:54
  Speaker 4: from annual year twenty four to twenty five, we've seen
• 8:58
  Speaker 4: a percent increase in our callou overall call volume. Yeah,
• 9:05
  Speaker 4: you know, we finished out our year into the community.
• 9:09
  Speaker 4: This might be just numbers right without context, but you
• 9:13
  Speaker 4: know the twoy seven hundred and fifty calls approximately for service,
• 9:19
  Speaker 4: and that's essentially boiled down to nine one one responses,
• 9:23
  Speaker 4: Like somebody calls nine one one, they need assistance, they
• 9:26
  Speaker 4: need an ambulance, they their fire alarm going off, whatever
• 9:30
  Speaker 4: the emergency may may be. In our local four square miles.
• 9:35
  Speaker 4: It's two thousand, seven hundred and fifty calls to service
• 9:38
  Speaker 4: for the for the annual year of twenty five. And
• 9:40
  Speaker 4: that's for a community this size. That's that's a lot.
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: How many calls one more time? Two thousand.
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: The official number I have it right here is two thousand,
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: seven hundred and forty eight AH calls, which is approximately
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: a ten percent increase from twenty twenty four, which had
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: two thousand, four hundred and eighty seven.
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: I mean, you know, I was just telling you guys
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: off the air that just in the short amount of
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: time that I'm here on North Main Street five days
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: a week, it seems like over the last couple of years,
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: I'm hearing the sirens, I'm seeing you guys moving past
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: the studio here. It seems like more so I'm not
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: imagining that.
• 10:29
  Speaker 5: It's not a fiction of your imagination.
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: Okay. So collectively, do you think the union is aligned
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: with its members with agreement that there's some some serious
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: staffing challenges right now? Do you think everybody's on the
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: same page here?
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean our our union, we had a motion
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: that passed recently in a meeting to advocate for four
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: additional full time positions. Those would be union positions that
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: would meet all of our minimum hiring requirements. UH currently
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: firefighter one advanced and an advanced Emergency medical Technician. All
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: of our staff is cross trained in fire and e
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: m S, which we believe is the most cost effective
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: model of providing our side of emergency services. Obviously there's
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: the police department side of the building, but our side,
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: fire and e m S. The most cost effective way
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: of providing that service is cross train staff who who
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: who can respond to fire incidents and e M S
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: incidents Sometimes they are one and the same. And so
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: that that's the union is aligned in in wanting more staffing,
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: and we know that it's it's a it's a big
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: ask on the city. We know that there's a lot
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: of needs in the city and that the city budgeting
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: process is a complex task that department heads, the manager,
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: city Council, and then ultimately the voters have to have
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: to figure out and weigh in on. And we just
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: think that it is it is pastime to increase the
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: staffing levels at our department, which haven't changed since two
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: thousand and four.
• 12:29
  Speaker 3: I think really yeah.
• 12:32
  Speaker 5: With yeah, with yeah.
• 12:35
  Speaker 4: On shift staffing was last progressively updated in two thousand
• 12:42
  Speaker 4: and four when they went from a model of you know,
• 12:46
  Speaker 4: four shifts of three to four shifts of four hiring
• 12:48
  Speaker 4: of four people. So it's it's been over twenty years
• 12:51
  Speaker 4: since we've had an increase of boots on the ground
• 12:55
  Speaker 4: who are running the nine one one emergencies.
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: On a day to day basis, and our current for
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: people who don't know, and this might be a little
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: in the weeds for some people, but it's sort of
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: a understaffed model. So we rely on off duty staff
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: coming in whenever there's a call for service to maintain
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: our minimum. Our minimum which is written in our contract,
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: an agreement between the union and the city, we will
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: maintain three people at all times. Obviously, when if you
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: have three people on duty and there's an ambulance call,
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: that's at least two people going out the door. So
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: we call back to additional staff. It's voluntary call back,
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: but we called emergency call back or call back coverage,
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: and that requires people who are off duty, should be resting, recovering,
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: spending time with their families, running errands whatever, to drop
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: what they're doing, come in and spend an unknown amount
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: of time at the station ready to respond to the
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: next call. And we're compensated for that. It's not volunteer
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: volunteer work, but and we try our hardest, most of
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: us try our hardest to be available when we can
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: to cover the city. But that model has been in
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: place since nineteen seventy four. Or nineteen seventy three, and
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: it's a model that just like the volunteer fire Service,
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: which a lot of Vermock communities' that's what they're served by,
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: is struggling to find volunteers, people who have the free
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: time to commit. Our staff is struggling to find the
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: time to come in and cover calls. We do it
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: as much as we can, but people have people have kids,
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: they have lives, they have lots of things going on.
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: You know, we live in a busy world, a little
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: bit busier than nineteen seventy four.
• 15:00
  Speaker 4: And I think that's an important point too, was in
• 15:02
  Speaker 4: the seventies it was a lot more common for a
• 15:05
  Speaker 4: family household to have maybe one breadwinner in the family
• 15:09
  Speaker 4: and one person to take care of kids. You know,
• 15:12
  Speaker 4: I grew up under that model. My father was a
• 15:14
  Speaker 4: fireman for thirty one years, mainly with the city of
• 15:17
  Speaker 4: mont Failure. And you know, my mom was a stay
• 15:19
  Speaker 4: home mom and I really appreciate her for that and
• 15:22
  Speaker 4: it worked for our family at the time. But now
• 15:25
  Speaker 4: you're seeing a lot of most of our staff our
• 15:30
  Speaker 4: duel income families. Childcare is incredibly expensive. So with the
• 15:35
  Speaker 4: flexibility in our schedules, a lot of our members try
• 15:37
  Speaker 4: to manage, you know, primarily watching their kids or trying
• 15:42
  Speaker 4: to figure out a way to not have to utilize daycare,
• 15:44
  Speaker 4: which are all new changes in our society that have
• 15:49
  Speaker 4: changed how we have to approach this occupation. And that's
• 15:54
  Speaker 4: not just Barry, that's the state of Vermont, that's the country.
• 15:58
  Speaker 4: That's well beyond the local challenges we're facing here. It's
• 16:02
  Speaker 4: it's everywhere, and it's cultural. It's cultural change, right, It's
• 16:05
  Speaker 4: it's and and where. We feel that just as much
• 16:08
  Speaker 4: as everybody else. It affects the volunteers who are even
• 16:11
  Speaker 4: more strapped in that respect, and it's changed the dynamic
• 16:16
  Speaker 4: for us over the last several decades.
• 16:17
  Speaker 5: For sure.
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: If you had to, if you had to guess what
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: percentage of staff were taking advantage of over time coming in,
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: especially in the middle of the night, what would you
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: What would you guess?
• 16:37
  Speaker 3: I don't know.
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: If I could make a good guess, I will say
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: and and And Zach is a captain, so he he,
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: he knows this more than I do. But middle of
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: the night is the time when there's often just one
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: person sitting at the station alone. Because yeah, I'd say,
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: once it hits midnight people come in a lot less.
• 16:57
  Speaker 4: I would say, there's from a mean again, these are
• 17:01
  Speaker 4: really rough, you know, non analytical, ten thousand foot view
• 17:10
  Speaker 4: of it. But yeah, once we hit midnight, the the
• 17:17
  Speaker 4: the ability to get call back from op duty staff,
• 17:21
  Speaker 4: it drops very low, very very seldom. I would say,
• 17:27
  Speaker 4: if we're fully staffed at four people, you know, that's
• 17:31
  Speaker 4: two people back at the station, but that's two people
• 17:34
  Speaker 4: trying to meet the needs of a second ambulance call
• 17:38
  Speaker 4: or a fire coming in. And you know, we have
• 17:41
  Speaker 4: had a couple instances in the last several years where
• 17:47
  Speaker 4: an officer sitting back at the station who's attempted, you know,
• 17:51
  Speaker 4: be a radio call out in electronic communications to try
• 17:54
  Speaker 4: and get callback hasn't been successful, and a fire's come
• 17:58
  Speaker 4: in and they've had to respond by themselves and do
• 18:01
  Speaker 4: what they could while everybody else was scrambling to get
• 18:05
  Speaker 4: their mutual aid partners and whatnot.
• 18:07
  Speaker 5: So it has happened.
• 18:08
  Speaker 4: And I'm just certainly not saying that to garner any
• 18:12
  Speaker 4: like fear out there. It's just it's the reality that
• 18:16
  Speaker 4: we live in.
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: And wow, that kind of puts the hair on the
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: arms up a little bit.
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't and again, I mean, we we feel
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: very supported by this community, and with the social media
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: posts we've been making to try to raise awareness, we've
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: gotten a lot of support. But we want to make
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: sure that people know we're not trying to fear monger,
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: but that people know.
• 18:40
  Speaker 3: The reality of what it's like.
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: And it is a reality that when you have an emergency,
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: whether it be fire, carbon monoxide alarm, medical emergency, there
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: are times of day when it's pretty likely that one
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: person is going to be the first person there and
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: they might be on scene alone for five minutes.
• 19:02
  Speaker 3: And that's that's a lot to.
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: Ask for for one individual to do, especially at a fire.
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: It's and it's it's a dangerous situation for our population.
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: It's a dangerous situation for us as as firefighters. Going
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: to those incidents alone or even with two people is
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: not ideal.
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: The recent local news reports say that both the union
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: and Chief Cushman have acknowledged this call volume increase significantly.
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: We're talking about between two and fifty additional calls, is
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: what Chief Cushman was saying.
• 19:48
  Speaker 5: Oh, that's accurate.
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, over the year, and this this surge is is
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: making it difficult as you're both as we're all alluding
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: to to respond appropriately, especially when calls are coming in
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: at the same time. I mean, that's crazy.
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's actually another I'm going to consult my
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: notes here.
• 20:12
  Speaker 3: Because I can never remember the numbers.
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: But in so second calls, what you're talking about is
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: when there's a there's an ongoing incident and then another
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: nine to one to one call comes in, so simultaneous, simultaneously,
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: there's two calls occurring at the same time, and more
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: often than not, it's usually overlapping ambulance calls, but sometimes
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: it's a fire call and then an ambulance call or
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: vice versa.
• 20:40
  Speaker 3: I think we've seen.
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: An eighteen yep eighteen percent increase from twenty twenty four
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: to twenty twenty five, seventeen percent increase from twenty three
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: to twenty four.
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: We're just or no, that's not increase.
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: That is percent of calls maybe, but are are the
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: amount of the total simultaneous Yeah, eighteen percent of our
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: total call volume are second calls, and that number keeps
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: going up every year. And it's so it's this year
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: twenty twenty five, we had four hundred and thirty two
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: second calls.
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: Would you guys would it be in over exaggeration to
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: say that this is historic.
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: So it is, the data is looking historically, Yeah, I
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: mean we the curve goes like this. If you go
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: all the way back to the seventies and even back
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: to two thousand, the curve is going up pretty fast.
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: There have been changes in how we collect our data
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: that make it a little complicated to get a super
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: clear picture. We're we're really focusing on the past three
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: years because that's it. This is should not be interesting
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: to anybody. But we switched our reporting software and and
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: and we also switched from tracking calls on the from
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: the fiscal year to.
• 22:09
  Speaker 3: The calendar year.
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: So that just created a kind of like, oh, how
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: do you the year that we switched, how do you
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: account for what our call volume was? We we've started
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: there's things that used to get call numbers assigned to
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: them that maybe don't now. But yeah, I think it's
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: I think it's historic, but I don't think it's going
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: to be a point in time.
• 22:30
  Speaker 3: I think it's going to keep happening.
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: And I think everyone out there who's forecasting, especially on
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: the EMS side of things, anticipates that call volume is
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: going to continue to rise.
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: What about mutual aid? How much are we relying Berry
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: City on mutual aid?
• 22:50
  Speaker 3: We actually so, we've been.
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: Requesting mutual aid more obviously as our our call volume
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: and our second calls have increased, but we've been utilizing
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: them less as an overall percentage of our calls, meaning
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: we are able to You asked about what percentage of
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: guys are utilizing that callback and coming into work over time,
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: and it's enough that we are covering those second calls
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: fairly often, but we.
• 23:21
  Speaker 3: Do have numbers there.
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: We requested mutual aid in twenty twenty five one hundred
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: and seven times, and that's I think twenty two percent
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: of our calls we used mutual aid for from twenty
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: twenty five.
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: You know, I see a comment here and we're getting
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: lots of them, and it says by all means hire
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: more people. We're talking about a price tag here for
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: an additional full time firefighter of an annual salary around.
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: What well we uh are Our rough calculation is that
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: it costs the city overall, because our salary is just
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: one part of it. There's benefits, uniforms, all these all
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: these things. Somewhere between one hundred and one hundred and
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: twenty thousand dollars a year per person.
• 24:39
  Speaker 3: That's that's a rough, rough guestimate.
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: That's certainly not coming from the Finance office is the
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: sure number, but it's it's a pretty safe, safe number.
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: So yeah, I mean, that's between four and four hundred
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: and eighty thousand dollars.
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: What you got, No, that's what I'm saying. Okay, Yeah,
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: that's the point.
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: We are in a unique position as a city department
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: that we actually generate revenue though through ambulance billing and
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: UH giving credit where credit credit is due. Under the
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: leadership of our current chief Cushman, we have increased UH
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: what we're bringing in for ambulance revenue quite significantly. Increased
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: call volume is a part of that, but also just
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: billing rates, insurance billing rates, which which he's he's taken
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: a lead role on on increasing those. But we bring
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: in over a million dollars a year to the city.
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: Last year it was a million and nine I think,
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: not one point nine million, one million, nine thousand, I
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: think somewhere around there, but around a million dollars a year,
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: and that money goes into the general fund and it
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: gets used for all sorts of things and I think
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: what we're saying is, you know, we would like to
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: look look into that money and that revenue source as
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: a way to get us more staffing. And more staffing
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: means we can cover more second calls without relying on
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: over time, we can cover more third calls. And every
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: time that ambulance goes out the door and transport someone
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: of the hospital, that is billable services for the city.
• 26:25
  Speaker 3: So it allows us to bring in more revenue.
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: So that's that's that's that's really the avenue we're going
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: down is is it possible and we think it should
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: be to reallocate existing revenues to support.
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: That formosition that'llocating uh And and that's why we're all
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: here today talking about this. You know, there's a survey
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: that the city Council is looking for feedback on as
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: it crafts this fiscal year twenty twenty seven budget, and
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: that survey has been everywhere on social media. We're going
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: to post it up here in the comments right now,
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: but we ask you to just take a couple of
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: minutes and have your voice heard, especially with what we're
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: talking about this morning. This survey is going to be
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: open until twelve noon tomorrow, so just over twenty four
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: hours from right now. You've also got the option of
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: leaving an email or a phone number as well, but
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: please speak up. So we're talking about as you said,
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: So if it's one hundred grand, we need four more
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: full timers, that's a minimum of four hundred thousand dollars
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: right there, h plus benefits and all that stuff more
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: comfortably somewhere in the figure of around four eighty.
• 28:12
  Speaker 3: And declare.
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: One hundred to one hundred and twenty that is including
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: our benefits.
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: It's okay, gotcha.
• 28:21
  Speaker 3: Not base salaries are not one hundred thousand dollars.
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: Okay, gotcha.
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: You know, if people want to advocate for that, I
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: don't think any of us are going to fight against it.
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: But we feel very, very comfortably compensated for the work
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: we do. But it's not that's that's the one hundred
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: to one hundred and twenty thousand is trying to encompass
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: insurance benefits, uniforms, new gear you need for new people.
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: I've seen the posts on social media from Local Aid
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: eighty one of ambulances going on, fire, going out.
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: How you guys are doing this at the at the
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: same time is baffling to me and so many others
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: in our community. How tapped out you guys must be
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: and exhausted. I can't imagine the stress of you're heading
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: to this car accident or this fire or or whatever,
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: and you get you know, carbon monoxide situation all happening
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: at the same time. I mean, who's fielding all of
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: the stress everyone?
• 29:46
  Speaker 4: That's a shared endeavor all the way up through management.
• 29:48
  Speaker 4: You know, it's team effort all the way through. You know,
• 29:51
  Speaker 4: just two days ago, during the height of that snowstorm,
• 29:56
  Speaker 4: shift four kudos to them. They feel that eight team
• 30:00
  Speaker 4: runs for service on top of how many inches of
• 30:04
  Speaker 4: snow and they and they did it without somehow calling
• 30:10
  Speaker 4: in mutual aid one time. It's astounding, and it's I'm
• 30:15
  Speaker 4: going to take the minute to honestly praise our entire organization.
• 30:18
  Speaker 4: Our you know, our Chief Cushman is a longtime dedicated
• 30:23
  Speaker 4: member of this department. Who is you know, been leading
• 30:28
  Speaker 4: from the front and all the way down through our
• 30:30
  Speaker 4: entire membership of the union itself, which comprises the majority
• 30:34
  Speaker 4: of uniform staff obviously, but the people the Berry City
• 30:39
  Speaker 4: Fire Department. This is my fifteenth year on the job,
• 30:41
  Speaker 4: and it's I would not want to work anywhere else,
• 30:44
  Speaker 4: and I don't say that just because of life circumstance.
• 30:47
  Speaker 5: It's truly a dedicated.
• 30:48
  Speaker 4: Group of people who care deeply about the community, who
• 30:53
  Speaker 4: all live within this community, who go to the same restaurants,
• 30:57
  Speaker 4: who go to their kids go to the same school
• 30:59
  Speaker 4: system as everybodybody else in this community, and we care
• 31:02
  Speaker 4: deeply about the Our whole point here is we want
• 31:07
  Speaker 4: this community just to be safer, and yes, to some extent,
• 31:11
  Speaker 4: the Union has to look out for the health and
• 31:13
  Speaker 4: well being of their membership and to look out for
• 31:16
  Speaker 4: our safety because it is a dangerous profession, even on
• 31:20
  Speaker 4: the EMS side working in active roadways. You know the
• 31:24
  Speaker 4: increasing in provider violence that we see, you know, towards
• 31:29
  Speaker 4: medical providers, whether it's in hospital or pre hospital, that's
• 31:32
  Speaker 4: increasing nationwide. We see that our police department partners do
• 31:36
  Speaker 4: a phenomenal job keeping us safe and working in partnership
• 31:41
  Speaker 4: with us, And we can't say enough good things about
• 31:42
  Speaker 4: the police department. They work tiressly to protect this city
• 31:46
  Speaker 4: as well. I think Barry City it's very lucky to
• 31:49
  Speaker 4: have a public safety network of dedicated people and our
• 31:52
  Speaker 4: area partners. Berrytown EMS, Berrytown Fire Department, Mont Pilier Fire
• 31:58
  Speaker 4: and Ambulance. We have great partartners, but you know, with
• 32:03
  Speaker 4: an increasing call volume and a limited finite resource of
• 32:08
  Speaker 4: people people power. Sure, yes, there isn't a There is
• 32:12
  Speaker 4: a facet of we're very proud of what we do.
• 32:16
  Speaker 4: We're very proud when we're able to not turn over
• 32:19
  Speaker 4: or call mutual aid and cover our calls and serve
• 32:22
  Speaker 4: the community. But it is it can be, you know,
• 32:27
  Speaker 4: a long recovery after that shift of eighteen calls. Yeah,
• 32:31
  Speaker 4: you know those guys go home when they sleep all
• 32:33
  Speaker 4: day just to get caught up because they didn't sleep
• 32:35
  Speaker 4: it all that night.
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: Right, did you guys finding find yourself scratching your head
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: at the end of the day or a weekend saying
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: I don't know how we did it.
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: I mean, we certainly have those shifts where seven seven
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: am rolls around the next day and you're getting ready
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: to go home and you're just kind of like.
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: What just happened or what day?
• 33:04
  Speaker 3: Oh? Yeah, yeah, well yeah, we don't.
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: You just know that it's been three days since you've
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: been at work, so you better get ready to go
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: to work tomorrow.
• 33:12
  Speaker 3: Day of the week not important in this line of work.
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: But uh yeah, I mean I think there's a week
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: a lot of we all feel an immense sense of
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: pride after those shifts because you think about the amount
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: of work we just did, the amount of calls for
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: service we fielded, especially when we do it all without
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: mutual aid, and you feel I think what I speaking
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: for myself, what I usually feel is is pride that
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: you know, I am a part of an organization that
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: takes our mission seriously and and and gets down to
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: it and gets.
• 33:48
  Speaker 3: The job done.
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: And then yeah, you you will also go home and
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: fall asleep for as long as possible if you're lucky.
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: I mean sometimes I get home and it's get the
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: kids in the car and get them off to school,
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: and you know, halfway home from dropping them off of school,
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: I'm like, where am I right now? And and if
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: you're lucky, you get a little power nap in there somewhere.
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: And we're fortunate enough that we have what we feel
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: is the best most appropriate schedule for that. That should
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: be the industry standard that allows us three days in
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: between shifts to rest and recover so that when we
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: when we come back on that fourth.
• 34:29
  Speaker 3: Day, we're ready to go. Ready to serve the community.
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: You're ready to get sleep deprived together exactly.
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but there's a lot of studies showing that that
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: is actually that three days is the appropriate amount of
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: time to be able to recover from being awake for
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: twenty four hours.
• 34:44
  Speaker 3: The tough one is.
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: When it's you've been up all night and then you
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: know that you're in for another twelve hours for an
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: overtime shift around to thirty six.
• 34:54
  Speaker 3: But somehow we get through it.
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: The poison girls that are doing this, this this incredible work,
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: are not doing this for the sake of getting rich. Uh.
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: There's so many other careers that you can have where
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: you're not out in the cold, you're not getting your
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: hands dirty, you're not covered in water that's freezing all
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: over your body, working insane hours and maybe uh quite
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: possibly making a lot more money. I mean, your your
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: staff is is doing this for reasons far beyond the back.
• 35:35
  Speaker 4: It's a very unique occupation where it really transcends to
• 35:40
  Speaker 4: an identity for a lot of our yeah, are our
• 35:44
  Speaker 4: members in our area partners, especially even on the volunteer side.
• 35:48
  Speaker 4: It's it's it becomes an identity and and and a
• 35:51
  Speaker 4: sense of of like work community. Sure, right, and there is.
• 35:55
  Speaker 4: It's for a lot of people. It's described as a calling,
• 35:58
  Speaker 4: not to make it poetic, but and to your point
• 36:02
  Speaker 4: about money, Yeah, my dad told me a long time ago.
• 36:05
  Speaker 5: I come.
• 36:05
  Speaker 4: I'm a third generation and career fireman, and he told me, hey,
• 36:09
  Speaker 4: you want to be a fireman.
• 36:10
  Speaker 5: You're not doing it to get rich.
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, sure, sure. A question here that just came in
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: from Artie. Are you considering forty eight ninety six for
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: on off hours?
• 36:22
  Speaker 3: We are not.
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: That is a fifty six hour work week schedule, and
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: we are not. We are We work on a forty
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: two hour a week schedule, which is study after study
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: proves that it is the best for our mental well being,
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: our physical well being, and our ability to rest and
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: recover and rest and be.
• 36:43
  Speaker 3: Ready to serve. So no, we're not. We're not entertaining
• 36:47
  Speaker 3: a change to that schedule.
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: Donna has a question here that I was going to
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: shift gears and go down this road. Why do you
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: think there's been such an increase in call volume? And
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: we're talking nationally. We're not talking about just here in
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: the Little Green Mountain State. You're getting you know, Zach,
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: You're talking about the seventies and stuff. I'm guessing that
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: you're getting a lot more calls that are related to
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: other things that maybe could come back to something involving
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: our mental health or substance use. And not so much
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: the fire alarm, the flooded basement, the car accident, the fire,
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: but more things that are rooted domestically.
• 37:55
  Speaker 4: Approximately eighty percent of our total call volume is is
• 38:00
  Speaker 4: medically related. And we are we are we are a
• 38:05
  Speaker 4: link in the medical system pre hospital e m S
• 38:12
  Speaker 4: is just a link of a very complex nationwide network
• 38:18
  Speaker 4: in hospital, out of hospital where you know, we are
• 38:24
  Speaker 4: far from any I think it's it would hard to
• 38:28
  Speaker 4: maybe put a finger directly on exactly what is the
• 38:33
  Speaker 4: societal driver. I guess is what you're what you're asking.
• 38:36
  Speaker 4: But I think we all watch enough news to know
• 38:39
  Speaker 4: that nurses, doctors, hospital systems across the nation are struggling
• 38:47
  Speaker 4: to figure out how the whole system, from the top
• 38:51
  Speaker 4: to bottom, from the time you call nine one one
• 38:53
  Speaker 4: to the time you're in ICU getting you know, really
• 38:58
  Speaker 4: critical treatment, how that entire system from the top to
• 39:01
  Speaker 4: the bottom can be optimized and made better.
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: Sure, Wow, yeah, I mean I think a simple answer
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: of why is people are calling nine to one one more.
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: It's people need our services more. That's why we're going
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: out the door more. If anyone knew the magic answer
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: of how could we decrease call volume, you know, and
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: it was easy, we'd snap our fingers and do it.
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: But I think the reality of it, I mean, we
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: we we all, we all know people are struggling out there.
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: It's it's hard times for folks, especially just going all
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: the way back to the pandemic that really and and
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: the call increase was happening before that. But there's a
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: lot of people who are struggling out there. And a
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: lot of times when people are struggling physically, mentally, financially, whatever,
• 39:56
  Speaker 2: they something happens that causes them to need to interact
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: act with emergency medical services. And you know, we have
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: there's a lot of great community efforts and state, local,
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: and federal efforts trying to to kind of bring disciplines
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: together to figure out how can we deal with some
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: of these overlapping issues we're seeing around substance abuse and
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: mental health, because that that is certainly it's part of it,
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: and it's all very complex, and uh, these are big,
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: big issues that aren't going to be solved overnight. And uh,
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: that's why we we really think we need to address
• 40:41
  Speaker 2: this staffing issue because we know the even even with
• 40:44
  Speaker 2: a lot of the initiatives that are out there right now,
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: it's it's not going to create it's not going to
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: be instant change. It's going to be slow, slow progress.
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: And we're on board. I mean, we are often brought
• 40:56
  Speaker 2: into different initiatives. We participated, maybe it was two years
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: ago now in this this pilot program to distribute cell
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: phones to try to link people up with recovery coaches
• 41:08
  Speaker 2: that was spearheaded by the hospital and US mont Pillier
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: and I think marry Town we're all kind of the
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: test sites for that. And you know, anytime an outside
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: agency organization approaches us, and generally it's through administration. People
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: aren't approaching the union directly, but we're we're the people
• 41:28
  Speaker 2: playing it out. We're always more than happy to try
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: whatever we can to get people access to more resources,
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: figure out different ways of accessing the care they need.
• 41:39
  Speaker 2: But you know, ultimately it's people are people call us
• 41:44
  Speaker 2: when they think they are having an emergency and need
• 41:46
  Speaker 2: our help. And there's there's an old adage that you know,
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: when it's when it's no one else's problem to solve,
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: it's the fire Department's problem to solve. And I I
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: don't say that flippantly. I I take great pride in
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: being a part of that.
• 41:58
  Speaker 3: Like we are.
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: If you got a problem out there, like we're a
• 42:02
  Speaker 2: group of dedicated, highly trained, skilled problem solvers and we
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: will come try to help you figure it out. Jeez,
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: not a guarantee we'll solve it for you.
• 42:09
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, we'll give it our best.
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: I'm listening to you. I'm thinking of Washington County Mental
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: Health and Capstone and all of the area churches and
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: services around here that are doing all they can to
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: work to step to step up and offers so many resources.
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: But still, I mean, but still, it's it's amazing. What's
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: what's going on? I mean, look at this right just
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: right here. We could walk within minutes from where we're
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: standing right now to so many different services for meals, food, yeah,
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: help with help with finances, uh, patiental help. You know,
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: the list goes on and on. But still, but still,
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: so many of us are struggling, and and it creeps
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: in to all kinds of homes, no matter what kind
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: of job you have, what kind of car you drive.
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: The stress of every day has made its way into
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: so many lives. I don't know of anyone who's exempt
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: from it.
• 43:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean we see people when they are often
• 43:39
  Speaker 2: having the worst day of their lives, and we see
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: people from all walks of lives, sure, all walks of
• 43:43
  Speaker 2: life in those situations. Because emergencies don't discriminate. They happen
• 43:49
  Speaker 2: to everyone. And that's why we want to make sure
• 43:53
  Speaker 2: that we're taking every step we can to be prepared
• 43:57
  Speaker 2: to respond when people need us. And I will say,
• 44:01
  Speaker 2: going back to something Zach said about mutual aid partners
• 44:04
  Speaker 2: and kind of what you're talking about the greater Washington
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: County area. You know, if this was just a Barry
• 44:10
  Speaker 2: City problem, it would be we'd figure it out, we'd
• 44:15
  Speaker 2: rely on mutual aid. But every town around us is
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: experiencing the same They're experiencing call volume increases. I think
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: Barry Town ey Ms just had their busiest year ever,
• 44:26
  Speaker 2: and everyone, I mean mont Pilier just had the their
• 44:33
  Speaker 2: city wide staffing study which called for the same staffing
• 44:37
  Speaker 2: we're asking for. And we have a higher call volume
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: than they do. So they had a staffing study that
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: said you need four person minimums. They need to hire
• 44:48
  Speaker 2: additional firefighters, and we run more calls.
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: Than they do.
• 44:53
  Speaker 3: Five person shifts.
• 44:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, four minimum, oh yeah, yeah, essentially the same staffing
• 45:00
  Speaker 2: levels that we're asking for.
• 45:04
  Speaker 3: But my point is.
• 45:07
  Speaker 2: We can't just I've seen comments people asking what about
• 45:11
  Speaker 2: mutual aid and saying that that's what mutual aid is
• 45:13
  Speaker 2: for when we have these overlapping calls, and that is
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: absolutely true, and this area has an amazing mutual aid system.
• 45:18
  Speaker 2: We really help each other out, but that isn't going
• 45:24
  Speaker 2: to make up for it when everybody else is busy.
• 45:27
  Speaker 2: I mean, just a couple of shifts ago, we had
• 45:30
  Speaker 2: a situation where our primary we had four on shift,
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: the primary ambulance went out mutual aid to another community.
• 45:38
  Speaker 2: Then we got a second ambulance call, and we knew
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: that the agency we would usually call for mutual aid
• 45:45
  Speaker 2: didn't have an ambulance available because we were providing mutual
• 45:48
  Speaker 2: aid to them. We hadn't been getting a lot of
• 45:51
  Speaker 2: callback coverage, complicated by the Verizon network going down on
• 45:54
  Speaker 2: this particular day.
• 45:55
  Speaker 3: But yeah, and so we made the.
• 45:59
  Speaker 2: This and you know, so we can either call this
• 46:02
  Speaker 2: other agency for mutual aid and we might be waiting
• 46:05
  Speaker 2: twenty minutes because they're far away, or another agency that
• 46:10
  Speaker 2: could come provide us mutual aid, but then that's our
• 46:13
  Speaker 2: fire coverage that we would be relying on. And it
• 46:16
  Speaker 2: just turns into the situation where you're kind of like, well,
• 46:18
  Speaker 2: no one has anything to give right now, so we
• 46:20
  Speaker 2: just need to leave the station empty, send our second
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: ambulance to the second call, and hope that somebody comes in.
• 46:29
  Speaker 2: And you know, we often get one person to come in,
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: but then that means and this has happened Laurel Street
• 46:36
  Speaker 2: fire last summer last year, both ambulances were out. Fire happened.
• 46:43
  Speaker 2: Thankfully there were two people, maybe one on their way
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: in ready to respond. But still you think you're paying
• 46:49
  Speaker 2: for four people to show up in the fire engine
• 46:51
  Speaker 2: and you get two.
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: You guys have stressed me out.
• 46:55
  Speaker 3: Man, Well, we don't want to. We just listening to you.
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: I mean, this is this is seriously, this is absolutely
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: amazing to hear this. Yeah, on the other side, which
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: we all are, we're hearing.
• 47:09
  Speaker 3: This, and we don't want to alarm people.
• 47:11
  Speaker 2: We are we are, We're gonna we're gonna show up,
• 47:15
  Speaker 2: We're going to take care of you.
• 47:16
  Speaker 3: We have mutual aid.
• 47:17
  Speaker 2: But we are talking about I mean, we could be
• 47:19
  Speaker 2: talking about the difference in minutes, which, right of course,
• 47:22
  Speaker 2: in a modern fire minutes really make a difference.
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: You only have so many vehicles and you only have
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: so many humans top rate those vehicles, right yep, damn
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: comment here that says, unfortunately, staffing has and is always
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: an issue on trucks. Cities don't want to properly man them.
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: Always should be a minimum of three on an engine
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: and four on a truck. The public calls nine to
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: one one we show up. They don't know what is
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: involved with with staffing. What do you say about that?
• 48:09
  Speaker 2: Well, the actually the National Fire Protection Association minimum is
• 48:14
  Speaker 2: four on an engine and four on a truck. I
• 48:16
  Speaker 2: think they've recently increased it to basically just four on
• 48:19
  Speaker 2: every apparatus. But you know, point taking, yes, what the
• 48:25
  Speaker 2: gold standard for a single family dwelling structure fire is
• 48:31
  Speaker 2: four on an engine and ideally four on a truck,
• 48:34
  Speaker 2: both getting there around about the same time, and we're
• 48:38
  Speaker 2: not asked.
• 48:38
  Speaker 3: I mean, yeah, that would be great if we.
• 48:40
  Speaker 2: Had eight people on a shift and an ambulance and
• 48:43
  Speaker 2: an engine company and a truck company. We know we're
• 48:46
  Speaker 2: not getting the FDNY here, and that's not we think
• 48:49
  Speaker 2: what we're asking for is an appropriate scale for our community.
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: What if someone in our community, someone listening, whatever, says,
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: you know what, I live here, I love my community,
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: I want to be a fireman. I want to volunteer.
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: Is that allowed?
• 49:09
  Speaker 5: Uh?
• 49:09
  Speaker 4: The fire Department does have a call force, but it's
• 49:14
  Speaker 4: not volunteering in the sense of volunteering. And as a
• 49:17
  Speaker 4: point of clarification, the state of Vermont still uses the
• 49:21
  Speaker 4: term volunteer, but there's actually a probably large percentage of
• 49:26
  Speaker 4: those volunteer agencies that get either a stipend or paid
• 49:29
  Speaker 4: per call or an hourly rate once they're on the clock,
• 49:33
  Speaker 4: just to entice people to to be able to participate
• 49:36
  Speaker 4: in a more rural setting. Our call force works in
• 49:41
  Speaker 4: that type of same situation where it's an auxiliary to
• 49:46
  Speaker 4: assist in large scale incidents that do occur, and you know,
• 49:51
  Speaker 4: it's an hourly wage set by the chief.
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: We need but we need that badly, right.
• 49:57
  Speaker 4: It's it's the administration has has worked to maintain and
• 50:03
  Speaker 4: to foster that, but it falls victim to the same
• 50:06
  Speaker 4: realities that any volunteer agency does. In our local areas.
• 50:11
  Speaker 4: It's a large commitment and people are working primary jobs elsewhere,
• 50:16
  Speaker 4: and you know, it falls victim to the same thing
• 50:21
  Speaker 4: we're seeing countrywide with a decline in volunteerism just because
• 50:25
  Speaker 4: you know, everybody out there has got more to do
• 50:28
  Speaker 4: than they did thirty forty years ago. Definitely, you know,
• 50:31
  Speaker 4: it's just the society has made a shift, right, and
• 50:35
  Speaker 4: we're trying to I think is a I think locally,
• 50:39
  Speaker 4: regionally and nationally, we're all just trying to find a
• 50:41
  Speaker 4: way to tweak the model to approach to catch up
• 50:46
  Speaker 4: with that societal shift.
• 50:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and the training requirements have really increased as the
• 50:55
  Speaker 2: hazards that fire departments are expected to respond to have increased.
• 50:59
  Speaker 2: I mean, wow, Zach is a is a Vermont Fire
• 51:01
  Speaker 2: Academy instructor, so he knows better than I do. But
• 51:05
  Speaker 2: people say that when you take your firefighter one, your
• 51:08
  Speaker 2: initial certification, which is our minimum requirement for hiring. The
• 51:13
  Speaker 2: has Matt Textbook hazardrious Materials section of the course used
• 51:16
  Speaker 2: to be like, I don't you know this thick?
• 51:19
  Speaker 3: And now it's like this thick it's its own textbook. Wow.
• 51:22
  Speaker 3: And and that alone is just that's it's a lot
• 51:25
  Speaker 3: to ask and this this.
• 51:26
  Speaker 2: Is a challenge that that volunteer agencies are facing as
• 51:30
  Speaker 2: well as just the training requirements have And I'm not
• 51:35
  Speaker 2: saying the training requirements are overburdened some and absurd, just
• 51:41
  Speaker 2: that the things we respond to are more complex and
• 51:45
  Speaker 2: we're trying to get better at responding to them, and
• 51:49
  Speaker 2: so it requires more training and and it's a lot
• 51:52
  Speaker 2: to ask of people to do it if it's not
• 51:55
  Speaker 2: going to be their full time occupation.
• 51:58
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and that's absolutely true. I mean from the the
• 52:01
  Speaker 4: days that you know, my dad was getting started, you know,
• 52:07
  Speaker 4: in the fire service, you know, the training requirements that
• 52:13
  Speaker 4: have like tripled, I mean in hours per course. I mean,
• 52:17
  Speaker 4: if I put on a firefighter level one course, it's
• 52:20
  Speaker 4: you know, it's it's not like a two month get
• 52:23
  Speaker 4: you up and running thing. It's it's a it's a
• 52:27
  Speaker 4: it's a like eight month ish depending on how we
• 52:30
  Speaker 4: schedule it out endeavor. Like it's a large commitment for
• 52:33
  Speaker 4: anyone to undergo. And that's just fire and has matt response.
• 52:39
  Speaker 4: You know, then you have to put on the E. M.
• 52:42
  Speaker 4: S side, which is a huge commitment, and then you're
• 52:44
  Speaker 4: looking at you know, liabilities, you know, making sure that
• 52:49
  Speaker 4: you're maintaining competent medical care for people. It's you know,
• 52:54
  Speaker 4: it's it's it's it's you know, training is the training,
• 52:57
  Speaker 4: and that's just a facet of you know, people have
• 53:00
  Speaker 4: limited time, and then the time that they do have,
• 53:02
  Speaker 4: you're asking them to go, especially in rural communities where
• 53:06
  Speaker 4: it's maybe paid per call or or some type of
• 53:09
  Speaker 4: volunteer system. It's it's a huge ask on on folks,
• 53:13
  Speaker 4: but they do it. And every time I put on
• 53:15
  Speaker 4: a course, I am amazed. In our area, our rural
• 53:18
  Speaker 4: area partners, they do. The people who dedicate themselves to
• 53:21
  Speaker 4: it are truly My hat's off to them. They they
• 53:23
  Speaker 4: I'm always amazed.
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: We have a comment here from a lady who brings
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: up a great point listen to and there's so many
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: of us that listen to scanners. The calls that are
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: coming in to you guys, is there. I'm guessing that
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: there's some training that that we're the the the dispatcher's
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: calls are coming in. They know, Hey, we're going to
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: get calls at the fire department for broken pipes, for
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: frozen pipes. How do we say, Hey, we got bigger
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: fish to fry right now, call a plumber.
• 54:11
  Speaker 3: Well, I'm not.
• 54:13
  Speaker 2: I have zero, zero dispatching experience, so I think, you know,
• 54:18
  Speaker 2: talking to our dispatchers about that and what what they
• 54:21
  Speaker 2: do is just it's amazing, amazing, and especially there. I
• 54:25
  Speaker 2: mean they're usually at best there's two of them, uh
• 54:29
  Speaker 2: and overnight there's one of them, and they're they're dispatching
• 54:33
  Speaker 2: our police department, our fire department, our ambulance service, a
• 54:37
  Speaker 2: couple sheriffs agencies. I mean, they do a lot and
• 54:42
  Speaker 2: then in a snow events, they're they're the ones who are.
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: They're not sitting around surfing Facebook.
• 54:48
  Speaker 4: Oh god, no, they are. They are some of the
• 54:50
  Speaker 4: hardest working, dedicated people I've ever witnessed. And we have
• 54:55
  Speaker 4: to be fairly like competent and multitasking in our line
• 54:59
  Speaker 4: of work, our local Berry dispatchers they bring it to
• 55:04
  Speaker 4: a whole different level. They they are truly amazing at
• 55:07
  Speaker 4: what they do. They have a rigorous training program and
• 55:11
  Speaker 4: they're truly like they're they're really top tier folks, and
• 55:14
  Speaker 4: they they make my head spin when you just sit
• 55:17
  Speaker 4: back and watch them work. You know, they both their
• 55:20
  Speaker 4: hands are going the phones in there, you know, the
• 55:22
  Speaker 4: crook of the phones and the crook of their elbow
• 55:24
  Speaker 4: and they're just there's three screens up and they're just
• 55:27
  Speaker 4: going and then.
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: They're they're going home as moms and dads and and
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: and juggling the kits and making lunch and and getting
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: dinner on the table. And it's why crap.
• 55:37
  Speaker 2: But I mean, to the to the uh commenters point,
• 55:44
  Speaker 2: people call, the people call nine on one, and we
• 55:47
  Speaker 2: have to respond.
• 55:48
  Speaker 3: It's it's it's just a.
• 55:51
  Speaker 2: Thing that if we want to have a functioning nine
• 55:55
  Speaker 2: to one to one system. I mean, there are there
• 55:57
  Speaker 2: are there are parts of the country that have different
• 56:00
  Speaker 2: ways of triage and calls and stuff, and you know,
• 56:05
  Speaker 2: we're maybe we're gonna get there someday, but we need
• 56:11
  Speaker 2: to respond because we because you know, what actually happens
• 56:13
  Speaker 2: a lot is we get called for something that sounds
• 56:15
  Speaker 2: very minor and we show.
• 56:16
  Speaker 3: Up and oh boy, hey, get the engine headed down here.
• 56:21
  Speaker 3: We need help.
• 56:23
  Speaker 2: We need help because this isn't just a lifticist this
• 56:26
  Speaker 2: is major injury, cardiac arrest, whatever, you know, Because sometimes
• 56:30
  Speaker 2: it's just people are in an emergency situation, something gets
• 56:34
  Speaker 2: lost in communication, or some people will just call and say,
• 56:38
  Speaker 2: I don't know, my foot hurts. You show up and
• 56:40
  Speaker 2: you're like, your foot hurts.
• 56:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah, your foot's crooked.
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 56:46
  Speaker 3: And honest, I mean, frozen pipes can be a real emergency.
• 56:49
  Speaker 2: We've gone to basements where the water pipe burst and
• 56:51
  Speaker 2: the water is getting pretty close to the circuit breaker,
• 56:53
  Speaker 2: and we'd rather come help you figure out how to
• 56:55
  Speaker 2: handle that emergency than have you wade into water in
• 57:00
  Speaker 2: your basement and get electrocuted.
• 57:01
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 57:01
  Speaker 3: That's you know, if win in doubt calls.
• 57:03
  Speaker 4: Out, Yeah, I mean the Fire Service, you know, take
• 57:05
  Speaker 4: the medical side out of it, because that's also a
• 57:07
  Speaker 4: primary mission of ours. The Fire Service has always, since
• 57:10
  Speaker 4: its inception in the United States, been about three things.
• 57:14
  Speaker 4: One is life safety protecting people. Two is about property conservation,
• 57:19
  Speaker 4: and that's where that burst pipe comes into play. I mean,
• 57:22
  Speaker 4: people's homes are a valuable commodity that give them shelter,
• 57:26
  Speaker 4: that give them a place to be in this world.
• 57:29
  Speaker 4: And maintaining that and responding to it to salvage their
• 57:36
  Speaker 4: property and to have it continue to be a place
• 57:38
  Speaker 4: where they can habitate.
• 57:41
  Speaker 5: Is important.
• 57:42
  Speaker 4: Obviously it comes second to life safety in protecting people's lives,
• 57:47
  Speaker 4: but it is the number two driver of our mission.
• 57:49
  Speaker 5: And the number three is the environment.
• 57:51
  Speaker 4: Is that hazardous materials response aspect of the services we
• 57:55
  Speaker 4: provide here in the city, and making sure that we're
• 57:59
  Speaker 4: doing our best to not contaminate our environment, and that
• 58:02
  Speaker 4: if there's fuel.
• 58:02
  Speaker 5: Spills, oil spills, floods.
• 58:05
  Speaker 4: I mean, even silly to think a milk tanker coming
• 58:08
  Speaker 4: out of the hood plant is a very milk, is
• 58:11
  Speaker 4: a very base substance, and it's bad.
• 58:14
  Speaker 5: For the environment.
• 58:15
  Speaker 4: So silly as it might seem to some people, that's
• 58:17
  Speaker 4: just a little milk, Like that's a big emergency for
• 58:19
  Speaker 4: the environment.
• 58:20
  Speaker 5: We're looking out for that as well.
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: And then maybe even number four, prevention and education. I mean,
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: I remember the little kid. My god, the fire department's
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: always showing up to the school. You get the red
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: plastic fire hat.
• 58:35
  Speaker 4: I'm really happy you said that, because honestly, that is
• 58:38
  Speaker 4: number one. An emergency prevented is the ideal situation.
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and you guys still find the time to do
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: that somehow. You still have events. You still do things
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: touch a truck and getting the kids over to the firehouse.
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: You come to curry your park. All the time, you're
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: shooting the hoses off when it's one hundred degrees outside.
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: You're cooking hamburgers and hot dogs for our community. How
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: you guys are doing it, I don't know.
• 59:09
  Speaker 2: I mean, we have the coolest and best job in
• 59:11
  Speaker 2: the world, and so we like to brag about it
• 59:13
  Speaker 2: sometimes and show kids out how cool it is.
• 59:17
  Speaker 4: And I mean, hats off for the City of Barry.
• 59:19
  Speaker 4: You know, one of our union members, Fire Marshall Copping,
• 59:23
  Speaker 4: is our point person for prevention, minimum housing inspections, making
• 59:26
  Speaker 4: sure that the buildings are safe, making sure that the
• 59:29
  Speaker 4: community structure, its infrastructure is safe.
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: Code.
• 59:33
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean it.
• 59:34
  Speaker 4: Code compliances obviously can be a touchy subject depending. Yeah,
• 59:39
  Speaker 4: it's a whole it's a whole different. Yeah, it's not
• 59:41
  Speaker 4: my area of expertise, but you know it's a service
• 59:44
  Speaker 4: that our agency in the city provides in prevention is huge.
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 59:49
  Speaker 5: Unfortunately. You know, in our line of work we.
• 59:51
  Speaker 4: Say that the entire fire codebook was written in blood.
• 59:57
  Speaker 4: I mean not to understate it, but there the country
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 4: from you know, way back in the Benjamin Franklin eras
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 4: has reacted to tragedy to prevent it in the future,
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 4: and you know, we try our best to be proactive
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 4: and to prevent these tragedies from happening.
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: In the first place, what are you gonna finally this morning,
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: are you gonna budget present tonight in at city council.
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 2: Uh, we have not been asked to present before city Council.
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 2: You know, We've we've had been pretty open dialogue with
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 2: our chief about our our request for more staffing, and
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 2: we have sent a formal letter to the city manager
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 2: making the requests and offering that we are more than
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 2: happy to present before council one on one meetings to
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 2: talk about budget specifics whatever.
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 3: I mean.
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 2: We understand that it's not our job to come to
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 2: to uh build the city's budget. Where we just wanted
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 2: to raise the issue. Not that it was news I
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 2: think to anyone in city Hall that that we were
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 2: facing staffing challenges, but let them know that we're we're
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 2: thinking about it, and and we have come up with
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 2: what we think is a pretty reasonable solution, and that
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 2: we're more than happy to to have a seat at
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 2: the table if offered, or or to.
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 3: Present our.
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 2: Our perspective on the matter. But no, I mean, I
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 2: think right now we're really just trying to share information
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 2: with the public so that people people can make informed
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 2: decisions about how their valuable tax dollars are spent, and
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 2: how they want to see the city invest in different
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 2: different parts of the city. I mean, obviously people have
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 2: a lot of feelings about the roads.
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 3: And again, hats off to dp W. We see how
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 3: hard those guys work.
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 2: I mean they were out through our parking lot three
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 2: or four times just last night after being up for
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 2: who knows how long, plowing through the storm. So every
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 2: city department is facing issues, and we just wanted to
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 2: make sure that we're we're advocating for for our staff
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 2: and and for the service that we provide for the city.
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 2: So yeah, you know, eagerly awaiting an opportunity to to
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 2: share more with with the council. But yeah, I love
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 2: love having this opportunity to come in here and chat
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 2: with you and and share a lot of people listening,
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 2: it seems like, so hopefully we we shared some valuable
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 2: information with people.
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: Yea, I think it's it's opened my eyes big time,
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: big time. It's beyond just hey, we have a staffing shortage.
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: There's there's a much bigger picture here, more systemic issue
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: I think to look at, and it's complicated. As you've
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: you've you've you both have alluded to it's very complicated,
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: but ultimately it comes down to our people, our community members,
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: and hopefully things are gonna are gonna change soon. And
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 1: that I can hear sirens in the background right now
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: coming down North Main Street.
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 3: All it's hard to tell, is it is it barry
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 3: Town coming through or is it it's PD.
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 5: Hey, there they go. They're busy too.
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like dealing with and then you throw in
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 1: Mother Nature and she has been a a huge pain
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 1: in the ass over the last couple of couple of
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: days here and throw that into the mix for what
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: you're all dealing with is amazing, amazing.
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, and that's uh, not to go on forever.
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 2: But something that we have been looking at as a
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 2: department is adding some level of water rescue capability because
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 2: we've I mean, we we do want to rescue sometimes.
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: Just in the Minuski River in Montpelier. Was it last
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: week a week before?
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 4: Yeah, hats off to to the Montpelier Fire Department. They
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 4: did a really great job executing a dangerous to you know,
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 4: the actual rescuer situation, and they did it successfully, and
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 4: they in a really valiant way, and it was it
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 4: was amazing what they did.
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Thank you both so much for committing. Maybe I'll
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: hit up Chief Cushman. Yeah, see if he can come
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: in in another yeah, a couple of weeks, a month
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: or so for some follow up stuff here. Yeah, And
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: hopefully things are are going to get easier better and
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 1: you guys can can get some rash. And when I
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 1: say you guys, I'm talking about all of you, all
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: of you, just patches, all of you. God bless each
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: and every one of you will.
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 4: Be there regardless. We'll be there for this community regardless.
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for committing here. Please know you
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: always have a hot microphone anytime you want it, any
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 1: anytime you guys want to come in here for any reason.
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 3: Thank you for Thank you. I appreciate it.
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: Do you have any time to watch any football or
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 1: with the Super Bowl? Anything, with what's going on.
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 5: With the listening.
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 4: I made sure that you know, I was fortunate enough
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 4: that I think it was. It was an off day
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 4: for me and and the Patriots are going to the
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 4: super Bowl.
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 5: Yeah, so oh yeah, I was.
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: Are they gonna win? Are they going to win the
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 1: Super Bowl?
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 5: You know, see, Hawk's gonna be a tough match.
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: That's an understate.
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 4: They're going to be a tough match. They they understatement
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 4: that that that game with the NFC was. I don't
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 4: want to spiral into sports, but it's gonna be a challenge.
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 4: But listen, it's the Patriots. You can never you can
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 4: never count them out.
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: Will what say you prediction?
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 3: Uh? For football? I just whatever Zach said.
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 2: There.
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: Thank you boys so much for committing here. Man, it's
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 1: absolute pleasure.
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 3: Thank you, thank you.
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: Thanks up. Commuter Union SA