Ariola questions FDNY priority list discrepancies

I just want to note that I was just given another list that actually the fire department gave our office in 2025 that were priority engine companies and EMS stations that needed,

they were in terrible disrepair.

And again,

The engine companies that you gave, 325, 161, 54, 74, and 301, they're not even on your own priority list.

You didn't take anyone off your own priority list.

Is there a reason for that?

Because those projects that were referred to were already funded.

So they would have been higher priorities, but because we were able to allocate funding to them, they weren't on the unfunded list.

And so as projects get funded, they will move off that unfunded priority list.

So the list that I have here, are they in priority?

It's engine 60, 91, 162, 236, 251, 257, 258, 259, 284, 290, 295, engine company 318, 332, EMS station 45,

FT4,

S or I number 7 and S228.

Are they in priority order in this chart?

When the funding is available.

I don't think that they are in priority order, but we could follow up.

Okay, we're going to move on.

I'm sorry.

I'm so sorry.

Councilmember Ressler has one follow-up question.

Just one question.

I'm really sorry.

Commissioner, remind me, how many years you worked in EMS?

I worked 31 years before I retired.

So one of the things that we hear a lot about, just like Councilmember Brewer, is the extreme impacts of the noise from ambulances.

We, of course, want ambulances to get where they need to go as quickly as possible.

But I have long worried about the impact it has on workers.

Have you ever thought about the impact the sirens has on the hearing of EMS workers?

Is this something that you're concerned about at all?

Yeah, that's a common concern for all first responders because we spend our lives underneath the sirens.

If you ask my family, they will probably tell you that I've suffered from that problem.

But yeah, it's definitely something we look at, and it's something that the entire EMS community looks at.

And that's where these conversations about rumblers versus sirens versus wailing versus intermittent, like all those conversations come out of that concern.

But that's...

That would be the same for all first responders.

Yeah, I mean, I think it's just worth remembering.

We banned smoking in restaurants because of the safety of, thank you, Gail Brewer.

Yes, good.

We should just premise most statements.

Thank you, Gail Brewer.

But preface most statements, excuse me.

But we banned smoking in restaurants because of the safety of the workers in the restaurants and the health impacts they suffered from secondhand smoke.

I think it's worth thinking about, do we need to devise a safer siren for the workers that are dealing with that noise, you know, throughout all day long, every single day?

Yeah, I appreciate you bringing that up.

I mean, we're happy to continue those conversations.

I think, you know, these sirens.

Need to be safer for the people who sit under them all day long.

They're exposed to so many things.

The siren is one aspect of that.

But they also need to be functional in a way that people in a city this size can hear us.

Recently, we've added an EMS division chief to our safety battalion.

And just last year during the summer, we actually did do a decibel pilot in which we monitored or we tested the levels of the siren inside the cab.

And we expanded that to our Gator and ASAP units, which some of the council members have been so gracious to be able to purchase for us.

So these are the units that operate on the beach during the summer because they're in an open compartment rather than a closed compartment.

And we had those decibel levels tested, and we tried out different types of hearing protection that also allowed them to be able to hear the radio transmissions and pedestrians.

And it wasn't very conclusive that the hearing protection changed.

The decibel level wasn't above the OSHA amount inside, and the hearing protection was more of a hindrance to the members than it was through their own...

Through what they stated, it was more of a hindrance to them hearing the radio, hearing pedestrians.

So we are, but we are looking at that.

Thank you both for the response.

And thank you, chairs, for the latitude.