All right, welcome everyone to the special public safety commission meeting for the fire department on April 27th, uh 2026 in the police department comment room and on WebEx.

I call the meeting to order at 724.

And if we could just give attendance of Councilman Darriell Ford.

And disalapia council.

Only general.

Councilwoman Kelly Sweeney.

All right, thank you all.

And next is approval for the minutes for March 16th, 2026.

So moved.

Second.

All right.

Any discussion?

All in favor?

Okay.

Any opposed?

Any abstentions?

All right, matter passes.

Next is public hearing for matters on the agenda only.

If there's anyone from the public wishing to speak at this time, please use your hand raise function on your device or raise your hand here in the common room.

And I don't see anyone here in the common room, and there's no one online.

So I will close this portion of the agenda and hand it over to Chief Albert.

Good evening, everyone.

Nothing under correspondence, but I just want to kind of go on the record.

I asked uh not going into too many details as councilman Ford to possibly share something with you guys.

Um, two of our members' child is going for through the fight of her life.

Um, I just want to say thank you to all the other city agencies, departments, uh, everyone that has reached out, uh, offering support in any way that they can.

I want to say how much I appreciate my department for how much they've offered to step up to help this family in need, and um that we're keeping them in our prayers every single day, hoping for a successful outcome.

How old is she?

Four.

Okay.

So um I will keep I I can kind of keep Darnell uh councilman Ford up in the loop so you guys know, but um we're praying, we're praying hard for them.

Um yeah, it's a tough time right now, but everyone's stepping up throughout the city to offer any type of help and support.

So I just want to go on record saying how much I how much we appreciate that.

So ask where she is.

Um children's Austin.

No.

Oh, here in Hartford.

Yep.

Yep.

So uh on that note, uh, monthly report, uh, 342 calls for service.

Uh a couple significant incidents.

Uh we got called out to East Haddam for a dive activation.

And yes, you said that you heard that right, East Haddam.

So when I got in my truck that night, I found out how far East Haddam actually is.

Because I don't really go out that way.

And it said it was a 45 minute drive just to get there.

Um, so that has uh with the dive truck, you know, ancillary vehicles.

We don't take the fire truck, we leave them, we take the dive truck.

It's an old bread truck, so I actually caught up to them from home.

Um, but it's it kind of just fell into the lines of what I've been trying to talk about lately, these last few years, our dive responses are going further, further and further because the word is out.

If I just call 911 and say, hey, I need a Middletown dive team, you're gonna get three teams.

Um, and I've had a meeting last year, we just had another meeting again this week about being prudent with our resources, right?

So we get called out an hour.

That's a 45 minute drive, and they're already an hour into an incident.

We're a rescue dive team, we're not a recovery dive team.

So at that point, state PD, local PD, whoever your dive team is, because you know, obviously, my obligation is to this river front right here, right?

I want to always make sure that I have a contingency and a resource back in the city in case God forbid something else happens.

How do I answer to someone if we're an hour away, three dive teams, and then we end up not even diving because you know there's no good sonar hits, or it's just not safe to put anybody in the water, and then God forbid something happens back here.

So I'm really um having other meetings with South Fire in Portland and trying to get everybody on the same page and possibly all creating a radius on how far we're willing to go because you know, mutual aid is mutual, right?

You're gonna get something back in return.