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Mayor Eddie Sundquist is hoping a meeting between City Council members and the Federal Emergency Management Agency will boost support for the Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response grant.
After the City Council's decision last week to table a resolution that would allow the Jamestown Fire Department to hire eight additional firefighters in conjunction with the SAFER grant, Sundquist announced that his administration would set up a meeting between the City Council and FEMA officials for any additional questions to be answered.
"There were additional questions raised by City Council the night of the vote, new questions that we had not heard," he said. "What we are doing now, since they have tabled the vote for another month, is we have asked to set up a special meeting with FEMA, the federal agency overseeing this grant, so we will be working to call a special meeting with City Council so that they could do a zoom session with FEMA and directly ask their questions of the individuals overseeing that grant fund."
Asked if there could be a compromise made to lessen the number of additional firefighters hired by the city, Sundquist said he was not sure there would be a way to compromise on the grant funding. He explained that the concept of the SAFER Grant is to help cities and municipalities achieve minimum staffing standards that are determined by state and federal guidelines.
While Sundquist said the city received waivers from FEMA regarding some of the grant requirements, he believes the city would need to hire eight additional firefighters to bring the Jamestown Fire Department to the minimum staffing level required by state and federal guidelines.
"We do know that we will most likely have to hire the eight, but there might be some leeway in the total roster number of firefighters that we need to have," he said. "We do know under the grant, as it's written currently, that whatever those eight firefighters are that are hired we have to keep those eight on, those specific eight, because they are grant funded for three years. If we lose one from the eight, we have to replace them."
While Sundquist indicated that the city would be required to hire eight additional firefighters under the SAFER grant, he said there might be "some leeway" regarding the total number of firefighters on the Jamestown Fire Department's roster at any given time.
Sundquist said his administration's request that the City Council meet directly with FEMA is the result of the City Council asking so many questions at various times to different people in his administration. As a result, he said City Council members have been asked to provide a list of questions that can be provided to FEMA prior to a special meeting held with the City Council and FEMA officials.
"We want to make sure that all of the City Council's due diligence questions have been answered," Sundquist said. "There have been so many at different times and to different people that we're trying to bring them all together, ensure that we've answered all those questions, and then any remaining questions can be answered directly by the organization that is overseeing that grant."
Sundquist told The Post-Journal that his administration believes the best way for City Council members to have their questions answered would be to meet directly with FEMA officials regarding the SAFER grant.
Regarding the timeline for the grant, Sundquist said the city has 180 days to start the process of hiring additional firefighters after being awarded the SAFER grant. If the city has not started the hiring process by that time, the city would have to request an extension of the hiring process grant process from FEMA.
"The concern here is just that the longer we wait, the harder it is to bring people through program, because it takes one to two months just to hire off the civil service list, and then you have to also send those individuals to training or run a training program in order to get them ready to be on the job," Sundquist said.
Sundquist noted that FEMA recognizes the extended period of time it can take for municipalities to complete the process of hiring additional firefighters. He added that FEMA is currently working with the city to figure out that period. However, he warned that the longer the city waits to approve the grant, the less time the city will have to start the hiring process, put candidates through the training pipeline and have additional firefighters on the job.
"At the end of the day, under the grant we would be getting eight firefighters that would provide that lifesaving care, whether that's from a fire or whether that's from EMS service," Sundquist said. "I recognize that the city has not in the past normally received these large grants, which has obviously caused some pause for City Council, but as an administration and as mayor, that's what I've been trying to do, which is to reduce the cost of our services on taxpayers by going out and getting these federal grants."
Sundquist said his administration is going to continue to work to reduce costs for taxpayers in Jamestown by continuing to pursue additional grant funding opportunities.