By Rudolph Bush and Dave Levinthal
Dallas Morning News
Copyright 2007 The Dallas Morning News
DALLAS — Dallas Fire Chief Eddie Burns asked the City Council on Wednesday to fund a multimillion-dollar plan to address problems outlined in a sharply critical efficiency study that concluded his department is fractured by racism, sexism and divisions among firefighters, inspectors and paramedics.
Released to the council late Friday, the study by Ohio-based Berkshire Advisors Inc. painted a bleak picture of the department as a bureaucratically choked organization that lacks financial oversight, misuses its personnel and doesn’t have the proper equipment to properly fulfill its mission.
Chief Burns acknowledged that many of the study’s findings were on point and asked the council to implement a four-year, $15 million vision plan to streamline the department’s administration and address deficiencies in staffing and equipment.
“The report identified that we operate in silos,” Chief Burns said.
The chief said he wants to cross-train Dallas Fire-Rescue employees to break down resentment among different branches. He also said the department needs to implement a zero-tolerance policy to address racism and sexism.
Tough, but important
City Manager Mary Suhm described the report as a tough assessment but said it was important to take it to heart.
“It’s hard to look sometimes, but these hard looks at where the warts are, are the only way to improve sometimes,” she said.
Council members praised Chief Burns for presenting the report and agreed to support his plans to change the department, which includes a $1.35 million infusion in this year’s budget.
Council member Tennell Atkins asked whether the council should speed more money to the department to try to hasten changes.
Ms. Suhm cautioned against that.
“When you have an organization in crisis, paying all the money in at once is like drowning it,” she said.
Mayor Tom Leppert agreed with Mr. Atkins that the department should look at ways to speed up changes in its administrative structure.
The presidents of two of Dallas’ firefighters associations generally expressed support for Chief Burns’ approach to fixing the department’s problems.
Capt. Mike Buehler, president of the Dallas Fire Fighters Association, said Chief Burns has already taken steps to address problems of discrimination. Capt. Buehler also pointed out that the efficiency study noted feelings of discrimination across racial lines.
“Obviously it’s not possible everybody is being discriminated against,” he said.
Capt. Buehler also argued that the study failed to address the need for increased staff to train new firefighters.
Lt. James Hunter, president of the Dallas Black Firefighters Association, disagreed with the study’s conclusion that racism was a widespread departmental problem.
“I think you got a small number within the department that still has that notion. But we do get along. We have a lot of togetherness,” he said.
Lt. Hunter said members of his association are keeping an open mind about Chief Burns’ plans to reorganize the department.
“We need some explanation in detail,” he said.
Alarm policy split
Dallas’ contentious “verified response” burglar alarm policy appears primed for revisitation.
“I do plan to bring it before the council again. ... Clearly there are different opinions on it, and at that time, they will come out,” Mr. Leppert said Wednesday morning, acting on sentiments he voiced early this year during the mayoral campaign.
The policy, passed 8-5 by the council in late 2005, requires business owners to independently corroborate the validity of a sounding burglar alarm before police respond to the business. Police still respond to all activated residential alarms and “panic button” calls from commercial operations.
Police Chief David Kunkle, a strong proponent of the policy, says it conserves limited police resources by allowing officers to respond to other calls. More than 19 in 20 burglar alarms in Dallas prove to be false, city officials say.
But opponents of verified response -- and there are apparently a growing number on the council -- argue the policy gives criminals a free pass to terrorize businesses and places business owners in peril by forcing them to confirm burglaries that may be in progress.
“It’s doing the businesses of Dallas an injustice,” District 13 council member Mitchell Rasansky concurred after a business owner complained to the council. “Council -- we need to take another look at this. It’s wrong, and it’s wrong for businesses.”
District 9 council member Sheffie Kadane agreed, saying, “This is a very dangerous situation for our property owners.”
Such comments give hope to Chris Russell, president of the North Texas Alarm Association, which has unsuccessfully fought Dallas’ verified response policy.
“Since it was enacted, the policy has pretty much failed. You have private citizens responding to their own alarms, and that’s a dangerous situation,” said Mr. Russell, who says he’s open to working on a compromise policy even if the council won’t consider a full repeal of verified response.
But not all council members shared such enthusiasm for amending the policy.
“It’s not black and white. There’s some gray in the middle,” Mayor Pro Tem Elba Garcia said.
“They’re not able to answer other calls that were actually an emergency,” council member Steve Salazar said of police officers, noting that Dallas is poised to hire at least 200 officers during the next fiscal year. “The last thing I’d hate to do is have all of those officers answering false alarms as they were in the past.”
Ms. Suhm said her office has no specific recommendation to the council to change Dallas’ verified response policy.
“It’s an issue the new council wants to take another look at, and I trust they’ll look at it,” she said.