FAIRVIEW PARK, Ohio -- City Council last week accepted MagneGrip Group’s $52,629 bid for the Fairview Park Fire Department’s new Source Capture Exhaust Systems (SCES) unit, which is designed to remove and control vehicular emissions from inside the apparatus floor.

The expenditure is being paid for with a recently awarded FEMA Assistance to Firefighters Grant, with Cuyahoga County covering the city’s required matching portion of $3,095.

Something that is normally boilerplate and innocuous had its share of drama when City Council President Michael Kilbane -- who was on vacation last week and not present for the vote -- questioned the bidding process for the SCES unit.

After receiving a first reading on Jan. 21, the ordinance then went back into committee because of Kilbane’s questions. This move surprised Fire Chief Tony Raffin, whose biggest concern was that the SCES must be installed before the grant expires in September 2020.

“I had lots of questions,” Kilbane said. “For one thing, the chief had initially brought this before City Council out of the blue at a Tuesday special council meeting. That’s not the forum for department heads to come and say: ‘I’ve got this ordinance. I’ve already done all of the bidding.’ It was done completely out of order.”

Kilbane said the normal bidding process for any purchase more than $50,000 is for the administration to bring an ordinance before council for permission to put out a bid for work, which includes the city engineer drawing up plans and specifications.

“Once the bids are advertised and come back, they’re supposed to go before the Board of Control, which is an advertised public meeting to be discussed and voted on,” Kilbane said. “None of this was done. The fire chief is citing some emergency language in the Ohio Revised Code that applies to state contracts, not municipal contracts.

“I’m also aware that we allowed the chief to do this twice before with a fire truck -- that went out on piecemeal bids -- and the purchase of some respiration equipment. That was council’s fault. The process wasn’t followed properly back then.”

Prior to council’s approval, Raffin read a statement at first laying out the grant application process before detailing conversations with Kilbane regarding the recent passage of the Fairview Park Fire Department Union contract, as well as citing previous fire department expenditures that followed similar guidelines and were approved by Fairview Park Law Director Tim Riley.

Raffin said, “In his attempt to suggest that any approval of the Fairview Park Fire Department union contract would somehow be related to the hiring of non-union workers to install the capture system, Mr. Kilbane comes dangerously close to the appearance of trying to influence the hiring of contractors that would be used in the Assistance to Firefighters Grant project.”

Kilbane replied: “The chief made some insinuations I should be removed from office that I find absolutely ridiculous. Anyone who knows me, knows my opinions on workers’ rights and wages. I’m a union construction worker. I’ve been one my whole life.”

As for the installation of the SCES unit, Raffin said the plan is to have it installed as soon as possible.

“I couldn’t be happier with the support that I received from the six council members that were present,” Raffin said. “They were 100 percent all onboard in passing a piece of legislation that was critical to the health and safety of the department, the health and safety of the community and everyone who works at City Hall.

“We’ll move as quickly as we can, because every day that it’s not installed is an additional day that everybody at the fire station and in City Hall is exposed to these carcinogens from the apparatus bay.”

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