City spending, analytics & setting priorities

John Detweiler has submitted a letter to the editor regarding the City of Corvallis' desire to reopen Fire Station #5. The letter reads:

As I have said many times, there will never be enough money to fund everything. Therefore, we need to set priorities and make choices. Moreover, we need to support those choices with appropriate analytical work.

The City Council is considering reopening fire station five. Yet, the Corvallis Fire Department Response Time Simulation Study, dated April 25, 2012, tells us that we gained an average ten seconds in EMS response time and lost eleven seconds in average fire initial response time when we closed station five - a trivial amount of time. Are we conveniently ignoring this study now?

The Police Department is still trying to justify more officers by saying comparable cities have so many sworn officers per population, therefore Corvallis should have the same number. The underlying assumption being that the demand for service in the comparable cities is equal to that in Corvallis. Nothing is being said about the demand for service in Corvallis that Matrix Consulting Group quantified in 2008. Considering the growth in demand for service because of the OSU expansion, that quantification needs to be updated. Moreover, we need to establish the current relationship between the response time and the number of officers we deploy as I did in 2009 with the Matrix data - see my web site: www.peak.org/~detweij.

Any reduction in, or failure to increase, services will have adverse effects on public safety. But, since we can't afford everything, risk needs to be balanced against costs. That is what good governing is all about.

John H. Detweiler