Council Announces Special Meeting For SAFER Grant

The City Council’s first work session of the month once again focused on the Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response grant.

Prior to Monday’s City Council work session, a community rally in support of the Jamestown Fire Department was held at Tracy Plaza in front of City Hall.

Addressing members of the City Council during public comments at Monday’s meeting, Democratic City Committee Chairwoman Alyssa Porter expressed her gratitude for three council members who stopped by the rally at Tracy Plaza.

"I just want to thank Councilman Reynolds, Councilman Dolce and Councilwoman Brackman for stopping by this evening on Tracy Plaza as our fire department and community members gathered in support of creating a safer Jamestown using the $1.8 million to hire those eight additional firefighters to bring us to full staffing," she said. "Your just presence in that plaza today really meant a great deal to everyone who was gathered there this evening, and I just want to publicly thank you for showing up for our community today."

During the City Council’s full work session Monday night, the City Council continued its discussion of the resolution that would lift the hiring freeze and allow the Jamestown Fire Department to hire eight additional firefighters with funding from the SAFER grant.

After multiple community members addressed the City Council in support of accepting the SAFER grant and hiring eight additional firefighters, City Council President Anthony Dolce, R-Ward II, announced that the City Council will hold a special meeting next Tuesday with the Federal Emergency Management Agency regarding the SAFER grant.

"First of all, thank you everybody for coming tonight and voicing opinions," he said. "The timeline is we have tonight’s work session. It was on the agenda for finance, we will briefly discuss that if there’s any questions that come up. We have another work session next Monday. On Tuesday, we will be calling a special meeting."

Dolce explained that Mayor Eddie Sundquist and his administration met with FEMA officials last week regarding a list of questions and concerns members of the City Council had requested be presented to FEMA for clarification regarding the SAFER grant. FEMA is expected to compile answers to the City Council’s questions prior to next week’s zoom meeting between the City Council and FEMA officials, which will be held next Tuesday at 4 p.m. in the mayor’s conference room at City Hall.

"They’re going to address our questions and if there’s other additional questions that the council has, so that we can kind of get all the answers before we make a decision," Dolce said. "Two weeks from tonight is the regular voting session which will be May 22. That would be the night where we would vote on the resolution."

Sundquist added that he will be issuing a special meeting notice to inform the community that the meeting will be open to the public and will be streamed on the city’s website as well.

Dolce informed community members that the City Council had four main questions that have been presented to FEMA regarding the SAFER grant. The questions submitted to FEMA include whether or not the city would be required to hire exactly eight additional firefighters under the grant program, if the city could reapply for the SAFER grant after the three-year grant period and the likelihood of being approved a second time, if the city would be required to wait a certain length of time before applying for the grant a second time, and whether other municipalities have been approved more than once for the SAFER grant and how soon the second grant award came after the city’s first application was approved.

"Those are four of the basic questions, and I’m sure that the responses from FEMA will then generate more questions and back and forth dialogue," Dolce said. "I just wanted to make sure that people knew some of the specifics that were being tossed around and asked, looking at the different ramifications of those."​