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City presents community-safety update: fire-station builds, Community Connect, wallet card and water emergency plan
Summary
Deputy city manager and department leaders updated commissioners on community-safety initiatives: Station 5 construction and Station 2 hardening, the Community Connect resident portal, a wallet-card and decals program for people with disabilities, fire-inspection digitalization and a water-department emergency response plan; a $1.5M DEP reclaimed-water grant (WS127) was also presented.
City staff delivered a strategic-pillar update on community safety that covered fire-station construction, a new resident portal for first responders, outreach programs for people with disabilities, fire inspection modernization and the utilities’ emergency response planning.
Nicholas Bilbrey, division chief for planning and finance in the fire department, updated the commission on Station 5 (Lake Cartridge) — a roughly $5.6 million investment sized to cover about 5½ square miles and an estimated 9,000 people, with an expected opening about the first of next year — and on Station 2 (Lucerne Park Road), where a hardening grant will fund generator, roof and window upgrades to improve hurricane response.
Chris Curran (division chief of training and safety) previewed Community Connect, a voluntary, secure online portal where residents and business owners can provide pre-incident details (occupancy, medical needs, pets, Knox Box info, building construction and hazards) that first responders can access en route to calls. Curran said Community Connect also integrates with prevention services and can trigger automated outreach (for example, smoke-alarm installation requests through a Red Cross partnership).
Fire Marshal Jeremias Perez described the department’s switch to online inspection reports (from paper), said the move provides transparent code citations and photos, and noted the Red Cross initiative that supplies smoke alarms for residents.
Deputy Police Chief Goric described the Wallet Card Project (a one-time $10 fee; cards contain individualized flags and a sensor to indicate stress level) and an autism/dementia decal program (free distribution) intended to improve first-responder interactions.
Michael Short, water asset manager, reviewed the utilities’ updated emergency response plan — a “war room” operations center that monitors SCADA and coordinates resources during hurricanes and other incidents. Separately, staff presented Resolution 26-11 accepting a Florida DEP WS127 grant of $1,500,000 for a reclaimed-transmission loop (total project estimate about $4 million), with the grant structured as reimbursement and no state match required.
Deputy city manager closed by asking commissioners to sign up for the Community Connect portal and noting the next strategic update (Quality of Life) is scheduled June 3.
