Streator firefighters no longer will handle code enforcement

Streator firefighters no longer will be involved with code enforcement duties.

The Streator City Council gave the nod Jan. 9 to City Manager David Plyman to continue with a plan that moves some code enforcement duties held by Streator firefighters, such as looking for grass and junk violations, to the city’s Community Development Department on a trial basis.

Plyman said the city will hire a part-time code enforcement officer, to share duties with the city’s community service officer and building inspector Joe Scarbeary.

Since 2010, firefighters have conducted nuisance code enforcement for the city. When code enforcement was moved to the fire department, the department was not involved in EMS response, enhanced training and fire safety inspections as it is today, and the emergency call load was smaller, said Fire Chief Gary Bird. As a result, time spent on proactive fire safety inspections of businesses, churches and other organizations were lost at the cost of the time spent in code enforcement, Bird said.

The idea of removing code enforcement from Streator Fire Department’s duties is to conduct more fire safety inspections, which in turn could improve the city’s score that helps set insurance premiums for businesses and residents.

City Engineer Jeremy Palm said the fire department averaged handling 570 cases per year and the community service officer averaged 317. A part-time employee would be encouraged to pick up about 300 cases. The more than 200 case difference would be split between the community service officer and building inspector, Palm said. He said the city may need to reevaluate the need for a second part-time officer should it fall behind on handling the case load.

City Councilman David Reed said he thought it was a good idea to have the fire department doing more work specialized in their field. Mayor Tara Bedei said the city will try it and readdress how it is going by as early as next year.

City approves ambulance personnel deal

The City Council agreed to increase its first-year monthly rates from $94,750 to $108,614, a 14.6% percent raise, with American Medical Response Solutions, the company that provides its 911 emergency ambulance personnel. Future year increases moderate to about 3%, Plyman said in a memo to the council.

AMR said it needs to offer large signing bonuses and higher than expected wages to attract EMS staff to Streator, Plyman said. The city had entered into a three-year agreement in July 2022 with AMR through 2024-25, with the option of a fourth and fifth year.