Okay, good evening, everybody. Welcome to the fourth and final session of the North Dakota State University Spring Fever Garden Forum. My name is Tom. It's a little wintry outside. Yes, it is snowing now in Fargo. But it is April, spring. I've heard it is coming and we're going to be ready for it this year. And that's why we're really happy to be here tonight to give you the latest information on gardening and landscaping from North Dakota State University out to all 53 counties of North Dakota. And we even let some people listen in from surrounding states too. So they're welcome here tonight also. Our format tonight is going to be the same as our other sessions. We will have three segments tonight. Each segment will consist of about a 20 to 25 minute presentation followed by your questions. And we encourage everybody's questions out there in the counties. Please type in your questions in the chat. Fight unforgiving and cruel to us. So it can be a challenge to grow grapes in North Dakota. Tonight, we have the High Value Cross Specialist of North Dakota State University, Dr. Harleen Haderman-Valenti. She's going to give us some tips on how to successfully grow grapes in our backyards. So let's welcome Harleen. Well, unfortunately, you guys are stuck with me. It was supposed to be Steve's second daughter, but he had another engagement. So I'll do the best I can. I have been working with grapes ever since the farm bill was passed that allowed commercial wineries in the state. And so that's been a few years and we've learned a lot in that time. But so as far as growing your own grapes, there's lots of reasons that you may want to be growing these. Fresh eating, unfortunately, we don't have a lot of, I mean, whenever it speaks about fresh eating grapes, you think of your Thompson seed list or your red globes. We don't have red globes or Thompson seed list. We have actually something that looks like a red globe, but it has seeds in. And nowadays a lot of people don't like to have grapes that have seeds in. So we don't have a lot of opportunities for your traditional fresh eating, but juice, wine, some things can be challenging. Of course, as Tom was talking about, everyone feels very rewarded when you go and you see all these clusters growing on this plant and comes harvest time. And it is exciting and fun. And I remember when we lived up in Pennsylvania, we went to a little commercial winery and we helped them harvest, you know, of course, by putting in a day's work. We got a glass of wine. We weren't too smart there, but I mean, but it was just being out there and doing something and it was very peaceful, relaxing and fun and exciting. So grapes, as Tom mentioned, have been around for a long, long time. There's drawings where you'll see with the Egyptians having grapes and wine and so more than 6,000 years as Steve has talked about here. There is even a 6,000 year old winery. I'm not sure that the wine inside would have been that great. But, you know, so here was in 63 B.C. where they were actually transferring some wine barrels across and so wine and grapes have been around for a long time. Now, as far as in our area, well, they have been growing since the 1800s, but what we have is vitus raperia, the river grape. It's native to North Dakota and we can go along the river and actually find it anywhere that we can. Now, look, because it is growing very abundantly and actually vitus raperia has a huge native range. And so there's vitus raperia that is growing normally down into Texas. It's a very easy to grow grape, but it has some drawbacks. Great thing attributes can withstand our winners, but the clusters are small, the berries are really small, and they're rather acidic. What we're trying to do with the river grape or vitus raperia is to go and get those attributes that make it really hardy to go and make a better wine grape. Vitus vinifera, of course, that is the true wine grape and it grows great in California, but it's only hardy properly to about if the temperatures go down nice and gradually, maybe to 19 degrees Fahrenheit. Wouldn't you like to have a winter that only got to 19 degrees Fahrenheit? I don't think it's happening here. So, plan B. So, with some of the work that has been happening, well, along quite some time, Elmer Swenson had worked on cold hardy grape varieties. He was in Osceola, Wisconsin, and, you know, as an amateur grape breeder, brought forth over a hundred varieties. And there's even more. He has now passed away. He was 90-something years old.  Are they worthy of releasing and giving a name to? And so, I think there's still stuff that is untapped. But what Elmer did with his breeding, and we'll see later on, is something like you see in this picture, is he used the Concorde grape, Vitus lebrusca. And if anyone thinks about Welch's grape juice, that's mainly your Concorde grape, or Vitus lebrusca. And so, it has a lot of what they say, foxiness, kind of a unique taste to it. And so, a number of his releases, also, if you don't make the wine just the right way, or even if you do, has that kind of foxiness to it. The University of Minnesota has been breeding grapes for a number of years as well. And they have half-dozen releases. Very cold hardy, down to minus 35. We've had them for almost nine years now, and many of them have survived minus 40, because they know we've been down to minus 40. And there's just Elmer, and some of his releases. Stegravada is used quite a bit in Quebec. That's their grape of choice. That's Swenson red that you see there. That's the table grape. Just wonderful tasting to kind of have those darned seeds in it. The Somerset Seedless is one that we call it somewhat seedless, instead of Somerset Seedless. What happens is you get some seed remnants in it. And so, which, when you make that into, you dry them as raisins, you never know the difference, because they're already chewy. And so, we really like Somerset Seedless as a raisin. Here's the University of Minnesota introductions. Their most recent one is a Marquette, which has a lot of Vitus vinifera in its background. And so, it has some good tannins. It's still a little bit high in some of the acidity, but much better than Frotnet. Another release that they have that has really no tannins whatsoever in it, but it's extremely hardy. Now, you see that there's a Frotnet and a Frotnet Gree. This actually is a mutation that came from Frotnet. And so, it makes more of a white wine, more of a straw colored, actually. So, some people will go and say, ooh, this is oxidized, but it isn't. And now they found another mutation, which is Frotnet Blanc, which has more of a white grape and actually makes them much better like a Chardonnay type wine. So, here is some Frotnet grapes that are growing in Glenelon at Ken and Mary Ann DePonge's place. And we were there for one summer during the field day. So, all parts of the state, Frotnet, does a wonderful job and nice, large, loose clusters. And you may wonder, well, is that, do we want a loose cluster like that? And that's really good because type clusters, if you get some rainfall, especially late before harvest, you're going to get a lot of rocks in there. We don't want that. So, having a loose cluster actually eliminates or reduces any kind of a pesticide set or disease problems that we might have. Okay. So, some things that have changed recently. This is the 1990 Plant Hardiness Map. And if you look at that, mainly we see that North Dakota was quite a bit in the four, that's the 4A and 3B are formed. And so, but they've recently updated it. And so now we see, instead of being 4A and 3B, now we're more of a 3A and 3B. And Steve actually, oops, I took that out. I actually had another slide that had it a little bit closer where you could go and see the division. So, I'm not sure what this means. Global warming, well, that doesn't really make sense unless you think you get more extremes. But so, what the Plant Hardiness Zone actually talks about is just how cold it gets, absolute cold temperature. And on this slide you can see the Fahrenheit. And so, 3B is minus 30 to minus 35, and 3A is minus 35 to minus 40. And so, now, but that's on a big average. And we know that, you know, averages really just go and just kind of mellow out the extreme bumps. And so, but I do think we probably do get those kind of temperatures. So, we're going to go in one of gold grapes. The first thing everyone always talks about is site selection, very important with site selection. Full sun, grapes, no matter even if it's a river grape, really like full sun. And as much sunlight as possible. I'm getting excited and probably a bit loud. Sorry. This is a passionate subject of mine. And so, you want to eliminate any kind of shade trees that you might have, buildings, fences that will go in and shade your grapes. Good dream each is important. But what we found, you know, this is, our hardy grapes have that Vitus raperia, a river grape. What we found, unlike Vitus vinifera, that really can't take any kind of water, not saturation, but even, you know, saw these soils, aren't these hybrids do pretty well. So, there are a lot more forgiving of wetness in your soils than Vitus vinifera, which is good, because we have these heavier soils that don't necessarily drain that quickly. So, slope is important for drainage, but also when you think about how to capture as much sunlight and heat as possible, you want something that is facing the south. You're going to get a lot more sunlight and get a lot more what they call growing degree days than if it was facing the north. Now, if we were further south, maybe a north facing slope would be better because they get, you know, more fluctuation in the temperatures in the spring. So, that might wake up the grapes. But here in North Dakota, we don't have to worry about that. You know, maybe in Kansas or Southern Nebraska, you know, they've been up to almost 80 degrees already. Just think about how much more heat if they're on that south facing slope. You get a few of those days and then you get back to 20, you know, quite an extreme. You also want to avoid bottoms of valleys. And the reason for that is cold air always settles down in the lowest part. And so, two things we have to worry about frost. Late spring frosts when our grapes have already woke up and are starting to bud out and those early fall frosts and freezes. When our grapes haven't completely ripened and if we lose all those leaves, they're not going to ripen any further. That's it. That's where they're stopping. So, if we can avoid, you know, early fall freezes and frosts or late spring freezes and frosts, that would be wonderful. He'll close. I already talked about that. Okay. So, you know, as far as the slope, you know, having that one-and-a-half to three percent just helps that air move out. But the thing I want to talk about here is the wind. You see what I've written there, actually, Steve, is calm conditions can go and increase your temperature by 18 degrees.  And so, you can go and accumulate and capture more heat that way along with the clusters. So, having calm conditions is good now, people, but you're going to have more diseases. You know, we're in an area where we're not getting that, like, rainfall in the first place that we have a lot of disease problems. I'll talk about a few, but, you know, those can be controlled. You can't go and capture more heat any other way than to go and reduce the wind. And we know how the wind blows in North Dakota. So, here is actually a vineyard by Zenoa where they do have that south facing slope and, you know, where they can go and that cold air will go and move down towards the bottom of the hill. And when we visited out there, we did see that they did have problems with winter kill down towards the bottom. Because the cold air sat there. Here is a north facing slope. And so, you know, it can be done. Sometimes you're going, this is my land. I don't have a south facing slope. At Soraka where we have our grapes, we have no slopes. I mean, it's as flat as can be. We're still in the valley. And so, you have to go and, you know, when you get lemons make lemonade. And so, but if you have the opportunity, always pick that. Avoid too wet sites, of course. Anything that has a lot of clay, you're going to go and get, you know, potential hard pans and those. I've already talked about air circulation. If you can avoid chemical drift, you know, if you can avoid chemical drift, that would be wonderful. But grapes are extremely sensitive. If you're, you know, so even in town, a lot of homeowners will go and spray their dandelions. And they'll be, and they'll not even consider, well, it's windy out. This is ready to use. Just squirt. Well, I'm squirting from over here to go and fill that dandelion down there because I really don't want to walk all the way over there. And so, and then we needed some warm, really hot temperature when we're making those applications or a neighbor that your grapes are right next to them and they're, you know, spraying their dandelions. And that's what caused problems. Grapes are extremely sensitive to plant growth regulator herbicides. Your 2-4-Ds, Dicamba, MCPA, MCPP, those kinds of herbicides that do wonders on dandelions and red clover or sweet clover or white clover. But they also really can set back your grapes. That, I don't need to beat the dead horse. That near, you know, if you could be near a large body of water, I suppose around Devil's Lakes, you know, large bodies of water do do a wonderful job of really moderating the temperature somewhat. Now, if we were to buy an ocean, it'd be even better. But even up in the Singer Lakes, you know, they find, and I'm not saying Devil's Lake is going to be like one of the Singer Lakes. It does help moderate some temperature fluctuations. And that's the real thing that hurts any kind of production is when you have those drastic extreme changes in temperatures. When you go from, you know, something like that 70 down to the low-freezing plants don't adjust that well to it. I think I get to do two. You know, you probably want to go and make sure that you checked your soil for the various nutrients. Most of the time, if something's been growing there, it's probably not out of black. And you kind of understand what's been growing there. And if it's been really vigorous and whatever in the history of that soil, soil pH, we don't have a lot of extremes that occur. But you might have problems with dissolved salt and organic matter. You know, that can fluctuate a little bit. But now, if something's been growing there successfully, and it isn't something like kosher that really likes salt or a weed that thrives on extremes, then you should be okay. You can add sand and organic matter if needed. But with a lot of these hybrids, I don't think that's really needed. We do have problems with them having too much bigger because of the nitrogen. And so you might have to work with that. But it can be workable. Okay, let's get planting and establishing.  Let them grow. Let them get those roots growing and really get established. The first year is for establishment. With all the grapes that I planted, I bet you 95% have died all the way to the ground. I didn't die, but all the top growth died back. Important person as if it was, you know, herbaceous perennial.  That's what happens. And what we want to do is we're working on getting that root establishment. You don't really care what's above ground because it's probably going to die back anyway. So the second year when you start to go and work on your vine architecture, you're going to start to try to develop your trunk, depending on your training system. Some will go with one trunk. Some will go with two. So I've seen five trunks at one time because that's bigger and the things are growing all over the place. And so usually you go with trying to develop two trunks and you want to kind of keep them as straight as possible depending on, again, what your training system is. Then you're going to go and start working on your three, your two, you might get a few grapes that actually go away and come on because grapes will form from previous years would. So one year old buds will go in and actually be fruitful. And so you might have what you have coming up. These dots was, you know, everything died back, but this much. But there was two buds that close to the ground. And so then you see, you know, maybe two, three, maybe four clusters right there down at the base of the plant. Don't let them be there if you see anything.  So you go and pull those off the sooner the better. Don't let the plant go and put too much energy into those. The third year, you should start to have your, you know, trunks and cordons if you're going to go with a spur of pruning and depending on your system, you should have that established and you could probably allow half the fruit. Again, now this depends on what's your purpose for growing this. If you're growing it for wine, if you're just growing, I want to make jelly. Well, you could probably leave a few more buds because you don't have to, with jelly, you don't have to get those clusters completely ripe. You'll get some of that fruitfulness and taste, but you can always add sugar. Wine makers, you know, really aren't supposed to be adding sugar. And so what they're supposed to work with is what the grape has to offer. So as far as planting space, usually, you know, you'll want to go and as far as row spacing, six feet or more plant spacing, usually six to eight foot. And what we do with that is, you know, generally you want to have that row facing north to south because if it's facing north to south, you get the better coverage with sun. And so you don't have to worry about as much shading. And by having them about eight foot apart, what we find then we have cordons going four foot on each side and it works out quite nicely. As far as grow tubes, we actually did some research in grow tubes. The only thing they'd be really beneficial for is if you have deer that like to go in and they love grapes. So grow tubes do a wonderful job of kind of deterring the deer until they pop up above the grow tubes. The other thing is if you're going to be spraying anything down at the base, it's a physical barrier. And so but as far as having that greenhouse, it's not really working there. As far as planting like that, yes, a lot of times there's a lot of nurseries in Minnesota that you can go and get plant material from which probably nurseries around here as well that you can buy either potted plants. But if there was a large number, you'd probably want to get bear root plants pretty straightforward. First year, like I said, don't do anything. Second year, oh, Steve included this mini-J. If you really wanted to go and had the ambition that you really wanted to go and try to grow something like a vinifera, great. This is what the U of M uses to go and grow their chardonnay at their station. And so they use this mini-J system. So they kind of train the trunk to kind of grow on the ground and then they bring it up and they'll actually do a BSP in which at that low water they'll then allow all the cordons. And what they do then is every year they take them off those wires and they bury them with soil so that they would survive because soil is a great insulator. I know a grower west of here, he had some Swinson Red, which is kind of marginally hardy. And they probably work better in town where you can get these microclimates than they would out in the rural areas. And anyway, so the first year he was wonderful about laid them all down, covered them up with soil, you know, did all that in spring, on earth, all the soil, put them back up on the lines. Second year, he gradually did that, laid them all down. Third year, he decided that the tough ones live. Fourth year, he had only a couple. So, you know, if you're going to go and want to do this, you've got to be willing to put that time towards helping them survive. I mean, you have ten minutes left in this segment, so you can find minutes on your desktop and then find this question. Perfect.  And it's only the year old wood. You probably even the, it says here, it talks about two 80% or more of the second year old cane.  And so, last year, they were the primary, the cane that came out and they were green. And so, those, you prune back to 80% or more. Each one of these buds puts out two clusters. So, a lot of times with wine grapes on a typical plant, we'll leave about 30 buds. And so, if you're going for juice or jelly, you can probably double that and be okay. And some of these, though, you really have to watch. And if you're not getting those warm temperatures and things aren't ripening, then you might have to drop some clusters to go and get your sugars up. Here's the fact about, you know, how you have this cord on. What you see here is, you know, this is almost like a permanent trunk. So, here's where all our buds are going to be. And you can see, you take out quite a bit of that wood for pruning. And so, well, why trellis? That's a good question. There's more to that, though. It's a vine. It needs support. You need it to get, you know, the river grape. It climbs up and climbs over shrubs and climbs up trees and gets to the sunlight. So, it needs, you know, it wants to need that sunlight. So, we're just providing support and an ease of going and harvesting and doing all those things. So, here's trellising. You have this. This is more for a larger system where you're going to go and have one of those big 6-inch or 8-inch posts. You really, on a backyard, you probably wouldn't go to that kind of extreme. But you have to realize how heavy these grapes actually get. A lot of people, as far as trellising, then, there's a lot of them will go, well, in a backyard, I don't think you'll see a lot of VSPs. You won't see very many double curtains, which is just kind of like I call a close wire. But you will see a lot of arvers. And so, basically, with an arver, you just let them grow over. I had a friend in Morehead, she had an old dog cage. And so, we planted a marquette and she left it grow over it. And I said, now, remember, you might have multiple trunks. You've got to go and prune back 80% of that one-year-old wood to go in. And you'll have plenty of fruit to do that. So an arver is probably a nice way of doing that, all kinds of arvers. And, yes, the lack of pruning could be a problem with an arver, depending on how it is. You can see here, they've pruned back quite a bit on that the way you should in the springtime. And then they have just a few coming out. You can get it stravagant. And now, here, they really didn't care probably so much about the fruit. They wanted the grapes for the shade. So you probably wouldn't care about how much pruning you would actually do. This is a concord vine. And concord is somewhat in that not-so-hardy area. But it's been growing there for 30-some years. And it's just huge. Actually, it's planted in the front of the house and goes all the way to the back of the house. And then onto this arver, one plant covers a huge area. So varieties. You have here a list of really good ones as far as for juice, jelly raisins, and table wine. I've talked about a lot of the Minnesota ones for wine. Animals. I don't think you're going to, the only thing you're going to have to worry about as a homeowner is going to be, not these guys, birds. Bird netting is essential. I don't care if you have juneberries in your backyard or three grapes.  Because I have over a dozen juneberry plants in my backyard. I've never gotten a single juneberry off of them. Those birds won't even let them get purple. And it's like, OK. And it's like, I have a dozen. And we don't have any trees. And boom. I come home. They're all gone. Same thing will happen with grapes. And so bird netting is very important. And if you have a red grape, the minute it starts turning color, that's the time to go and get your netting on. And so with that, some of these things, pretty cosmetic diseases. I don't think you're going to see a lot of this as a problem. And if you do, Todd would be the person that would go and help you out with that. I haven't seen anthracnose. We've seen more herbicide injury, something like this from the 24D. And so. And this perasion is just when you get that color change. It's really hard to see with those white grapes because they turn from a green to like an off green to maybe a little more of a yellow. And so much more difficult to tell than with a red grape. And then I heard someone saying about, you know, not here. He said, don't pull, cut.   So that was the reason why Steve says don't pull the berries off the clusters First of all, can you recommend a variety that's good for snacking? Well, I do think that Somerset Seedless, if you can get over those occasionally finding a seed remnant, there is another Elmer Swenson somewhat seedless. It's a larger berry, but we haven't seen that. Somerset Seedless is probably our hardiest one. Swenson Red, if you're okay with true seeds, those will be true seeds, but very, very tasty. Boy, when you taste those, those red gloves, they don't have anything for taste compared to these. Okay, speaking of Swenson Red, are Swenson Red and King of the North hardy in northern North Dakota? Swenson Red, you're going to have to really protect and probably do as I said, lay them down, cover them up, do something. They aren't hardy by themselves unless you have a very, very unique microclimate. King of the North is, but if you want an acidic grape, that one always peaks up as being our most acidic grape. So it's one of those that's really going to, when you taste it, you're going to go, wow, that was pukery. So you need a lot of sugar to make that blend balanced. Okay, and just to be clear about our zones here, those maps that we saw were far away and those shades are hard to see, but the way our new hardiness zone maps are is the top one fourth of the state is zone 3B, and the bottom three fourths is 4A, right? Or we're getting warmer, global, our winters are getting warmer over the last 20, 25 years. So there's, is there a whole PS? So most of our, almost most of our, well, 75% and 80% of our population is in 480. Okay, I mean it only gets to be about minus 25. No problem, huh? Okay, how about just a couple more quick questions. This person has grapes that puts on too many clusters for the plant to support. You said all grapes, and you saw when and how many should you leave? Well, so if you think there's too many clusters for it to support, then the sooner you, you thin those out, the better off, because when that grape is trying to ripen everything, it's putting out nutrition to all those clusters. And so if they're really small and you take that away, then it's going to put that energy to those other clusters and to help ripen those. And so the sooner you can do that, the better. Now with wine grapes, we, we generally, you know, so if we're on average going to about 30 buds per, per vine, to, you figure two clusters per bud, about 60 clusters per vine for wine grapes. I think with juice, you know, you can probably increase that one and a half, two times and still be okay. Okay, those are good guidelines. How about, is there any information on how the spotted winged cassava will impact table grapes? I haven't seen anything yet. From what I've seen happen is they really like our cherries and raspberries. And these, you know, Kathy Wideroldt and Carrington, she had grapes in the same area where she had cherries and raspberries. The grapes, she didn't have any problem with them. And so. Okay, Harlee, how about pruning? What's the best kind of prune grapes? Excellent question. So what we like to do is we like to wait until we get just to that early buds well stage. Because when you start pruning, you tend to wake up the vine, unless you're doing it way early. Also, with our winners, this gives us a better assessment of what kind of winter kill we, we actually had. And so if we thought we had a mild wear, but then also we don't see this bud swelling occur, then, you know, we're going to leave more buds because they're not in as good a shape as we thought they were. So we wait until we start to see buds well. But the bad thing about that is those buds are really sensitive and easy to go and rub off. So you have to be really careful. So people go and do a double pruning. They'll do a long pruning where this time of year they'll go out and take just, and they'll leave probably a foot, two foot on the, on the cane that they're going to prune back to maybe two or three buds. And, you know, so they'll leave six or eight just to kind of keep things where they don't have to worry about knocking off some buds. And they'll do that. And then they'll come back and do another pruning and do a more meticulous pruning to get to their, their final count. Okay. How about a question from Southwestern North Dakota? Is pipe water okay for the watering of grapes, fruits and vegetables? Pipe water. Maybe they should be more specific. Maybe just in general, get your water tested. Yeah. If you think you have soluble salt problems, you know, that, that would be the only concern that I would have. And so you could probably see that from previous watering if you start to see the crystallization on the surface that you have high soluble salt in that. I think that grapes are not especially sensitive more than other fruits. They're all a little bit sensitive. Okay. Okay. Last question. Are grapes self-pollinating or do you need two different varieties for pollination? Okay. So that depends on the grape. Your vitus repairia there is talking about your riverbank grape. It actually has male and female plants. So the only way your female plant is going to go and produce fruit is if it gets pollinated by the male plants pollen. Most of the grape cultivars are perfect flowers.  There is an exception. Pepin you might have heard. And that one is pistilate. And so you have to go and you wouldn't go and plant a whole vineyard of St. Pepin without something else.  So what they do with that is they'll usually put a row of St. Pepin and then a row of anything else because those are perfect flowers. The others are perfect flowers. So they have male and female on them. Okay. Okay. But that's the exception, the most valiant or common grapes that are self-pollinated. Okay. Good. Thank you, everybody. Thank you, Harleen. Let's thank Harleen for her presentation. We're going to take a five minute quick break and then we're going to shift their schedule because Harleen has engagement after this. So we're going to get her right away talking about low maintenance perennials. So come back in five minutes and we'll get started with that. Thank you, everybody.


Item number SCP-302, Object Class, Safe. Special Containment Procedures, SCP-302 is to be kept in sight under Safe 3 protocols. Artifact should be handled with gloves at all times, and utmost precaution should be taken to ensure that the artifact does not make skin contact with unauthorized personnel. Any personnel not scheduled for testing that begin showing signs of SCP-302's effects may apply for termination. All subjects suffering from SCP-302's affliction should be terminated after no longer than 8 days due to data expunged. Description SCP-302 is a small tin sculpture with a bronze patina finish depicting two ants carrying a leaf. Whenever a human makes direct skin contact with the artifact, they will invariably find a single, small, relatively harmless ant on their person within two hours. This ant may belong to any of several different small ant species, and its appearance rarely causes much alarm. It is of note that in all recorded cases, subjects have always distinctly noticed this first ant and fully remember seeing it. Thereafter, an exponentially increasing number of ants will appear on the exposed subject by day. Throughout the entire day, the number of ants that appear seems to be in the range of 3X to 5X, where X is the number of days since initial contact with SCP-302. As time progresses, the ants not only increase in number, but also change in species. Smaller, minimally harmful species appear at first, later transitioning to larger species, or species with more painful stings or bites. Ants seem to appear out of the nearest unobserved space. This includes from under clothes, nearby objects, or, if left with no alternatives, bodily orifices. Ants seem singularly preoccupied with exploring or attacking the affected individual, and will not stop until either themselves or the subject is deceased. Addendum 3021 Subject of Test Log 2 was a single D-Class Personnel. Subject was told he was to participate in a study testing how a week of relaxation might affect the performance of D-Class Personnel and was kept in a relaxation chamber with exercise equipment, various books and magazines, and a color television. Subject was exposed to SCP-302 without his knowledge. Test Log 2 Days 1 and 2 Subject spends his time and leisurely pursuits. Subject expresses great satisfaction and reports nothing out of the ordinary. Day 3 Subject reports small ant problem and admits it is probably his fault for letting crumbs fall all over the couch and carpet. Subject admits he noticed an ant two days previous, but did not think it was worth mentioning. Subject reports great satisfaction otherwise and requests a can of bug spray. Day 4 Subject reports that ant problem persists despite his best efforts to spray the room and that the ants have become more numerous and occasionally painful. Subject reports that the ants seem bigger and different from those he saw the day before. Subject still reports relative happiness with the experiment. Day 5 Subject reports great annoyance and increased pain as ants are now nearly always on his person. Ants seem to have changed once more, becoming more aggressive and agitated. At this point, Subject clearly suspects ants are not of a normal nature. Day 6 Subject in Great Pain On average, five tropical green-head ants are seen to appear every minute on subject throughout entire day. Subject becomes aggressive due to pain and demands to be released from chamber. Pretense for experiment is dropped and Subject is restrained and given medical attention. Day 7 Subject in Great Pain An average of 25 tropical fire ants are seen to appear every minute on subject Subject requires continuous ant removal. Day 8 Subject is heavily medicated and unconscious through majority of day. An average of 140 bullet ants appear on subject each minute. Rapid ant removal and anti-inflammatory medicine is necessary. Day 9 Data Expunged Subject and experiment are terminated. Lesson complete If you missed the previous orientation, go watch SCP-301 Teleporter right now. Or for the complete course, watch this playlist.


Welcome to an overview of the set and a funding process. We're going through some slides and providing an overview of how the California statutes relate to the 988 surcharge, an overview of the state funding process, an overview of the fund condition statement and the budget process within the state of California. While this overview is focused primarily on 988, much of what I discussed today will probably apply to the 9-1-1 surcharge as well. I want to make sure that I put out this disclaimer. There are certain California statutes that apply to this process. Nothing that I'm going to present today supersedes those and I'm not providing an interpretation of those statutes. Just trying to explain this in everyday terms that people can understand on how the funding is set up. There's government code that gives authority to what Cal OES has with respect to the set and a 988 surcharge. There's also the revenue and tax code sections that apply to how the surcharge is collected and the rules and conditions. Please refer to those California statutes and government code sections for additional details. Now with the disclaimer out of the way, I want to walk through the process on how the 988 surcharge is determined, and this is all outlined in the revenue and tax code. When the Miles Hall Act was first passed, that set and established the surcharge at eight cents for the calendar years of 2023 and 2024. In calendar year 2025 and every year after that, there's a process that we have to go through to set the surcharge. The first step in that process is the budgets from all the agencies that are receiving revenue through the 988 surcharge process. They send in their budget request to the Department of Finance. And at the end of this, I'm gonna give an overview and flow chart of how that process works. And they're really focused on submitting budget requests that align with eligible expenditures for the surcharge. Now, once that budget is all put together, the California legislature votes on the budget, it goes to the governor and the governor signs it. That sets the authorized amount that each agency can use from the 988 surcharge. Once that happens in the July, late June, early July time period, we then start to receive the number of access lines from each of the carriers. So these are all the carriers that are out there, like AT&T and Verizon, NT Mobile and Comcast and Charter. And there's a whole list of what all these carriers are. They send us their access lines. And these are any device that when you use the numbers 988, you could access the system. So we get that total list of access lines. And it's provided to us by August 1st of each year. We then just do the math. We figure out the number of access lines that are out there. We understand and know the budget that we've been authorized, and we sent this surcharge fee based on those two numbers. We then have to send a letter to the California Department of Tax and Fee Administration by October 1st of each year. They then communicate that back to the carriers. And in January, the change in the surcharge is put into place by the carriers. And the new revenue starts coming in associated with that updated whatever it is set based on this process. Now, there's some information that you can use to determine what is the authorized budget. Each state agency is given what's called a fund condition statement. It's posted on the Department of Finance's website, and you can go and find that information there. Each year, obviously it updates and changes. This is the current fund condition statement that we're under. It went into effect on July 1st, 2023, and it's good through the end of June of 2024. I'm gonna walk you through the numbers in this fund condition statement that are important. Now, each agency is given an allocation in the budget for the surcharge. Keep in mind the numbers in this spreadsheet or in this fund condition statement are in thousands. So this is essentially $5.5 million that goes and is authorized for the Health and Human Services Agency that can be used out of the surcharge. Cal OES also has some authorizations in there. We break it down into two pieces. Local assistance is what we dedicate to the local agencies, all the 98 centers that are out there for the technology that we support under the statute. And then the state ops is what we have on our side to manage all this and do all this functionality. And the same thing happens over at the Department of Health Care Services. The 19 million that you see here would be dedicated for the operational side of the 98 centers and then the 773,000 that you see here is the state ops piece of that. Each year, these numbers are gonna change. The important number is this total expenditures and adjustments. That's what we would then use to set the surcharge for the next year. So I've got a graphic for you on that. Whatever the authorized budget expenditure is, in this case, I'm using 44 million. We look at whatever fund condition balance was in the fund from the previous year. Sometimes not everything is used. Keep in mind the money in the fund, the revenue in the fund is dedicated for only authorized 98 expenditures. So this is a special fund and can't be used for anything except what's outlined in statute. So that revenue needed, you subtract off any balance from the previous year. You arrive at the revenue needed for the upcoming budget year. You pull in the number of access lines that were reported to you from all the carriers. In this case, 46 million 121,214 is the number of access lines. And then you just simply start changing this number until you bring in the revenue that's equal to or slightly above, because remember each penny is gonna trigger a certain amount of revenue coming in so that you make sure that the projected annual revenue coming in is sufficient to cover the amount of authority that you have to spend out of the fund. This process happens each year. Now, probably the next question is, okay, how do you determine the revenue needed for the next year? It's actually a process. There's a lot of words on this chart. I understand, but I'm gonna walk you through it. So each agency in the timeframe from say January through April starts to gather information and data on the revenue that they will need the following year. So remember, this is January through April, but if you walk through the timeline, it's not until the following July, 18 months later, that you would actually have the revenue available to use. So you're projecting what you will need in the following year, not the current year. And that's a really important part of the process. So for technology related to 988, we're projecting ahead the technology needs of all of the 988 centers. Operationally the same process happens so there's going to be a back and forth between the Cal OES and DHCS, Department of Healthcare Services on the needs of the 988 centers. Once that needs and analysis is brought in, the state agencies will then begin to discuss those budget needs with the Department of Finance and they're gathering up what we call budget change process concepts. And we start to have these conversations. The Department of Finance is focused on making sure that requests align with Governor's priorities and guidelines and also that it's in alignment with what's allowed to be used in the fund. In September, by the first week, these budget change proposals are submitted to the Department of Finance. From September through December, there's some back and forth and questions and clarifications that happens as the Department of Finance is building the Governor's budget. On January 10th, the Governor's budget is released and that's where you see in printed form all of these budget requests. And then from January through May, you're going through the legislative process. So the Governor introduces the budget and now the legislature needs to go back and forth and make sure that what's in the Governor's budget aligns the legislative priorities and all of those details. There'll be questions that come from the Legislative Analysis Office or the LAO and budget hearings are conducted. These hearings are public and they're soliciting feedback from the public and also taking a look at the legislative process. In May, there might be some additional or unexpected revenue needs or some type of adjustment based on that legislative process that needs to be made. So the May revise budget comes out. If there is a new budgetary need that's discovered at that point, there is another budget change control process or budget change process that can be initiated to submit new budget requests. This way, the budget can be a little bit more nimble because you can see how we are in this timeline. Once that May revise budget is released, the budget bill will then be discussed through both the Assembly and the Senate and it'll be voted on and passed and then goes to the Governor for signature. Once it's signed, then as of July 1st, whatever revenue was requested now becomes available. So in July, what happens is, we'll go back to this fund condition. The numbers on this fund condition statement are updated and the 24, 25 budget is set and that shows the authorized expenditures that are allowed to be used by each state agency out of the 988 surcharge. And so that starts in July and then whatever those authorizations are, each state program starts to put the pieces in place and policies in place in order to start encumbering the funds and using the revenue that is generated from that. And there's a bunch of rules and policies and procedures on how you can get access to that revenue, but that happens as of July 1st. So it's a process that we will go through each year, I wanted to give this quick update and overview and really encourage you if you have questions, reach out to Cal OES and probably the best way to interact with us is through our regularly scheduled technical advisory board meetings where we'll have a public interface and Q&A and provide this type of overview. Thank you for listening and I hope this information was helpful. Have a good day.


Welcome to this episode of Talk of the Town. I'm James Milan. And, you know, on this series we like to do different things, including whenever we can, introduce somebody who's in either a new position or just coming into town, introduce them to the community and the community to them. Well, it's a little odd to be introducing the chief of our fire department because he's been here for a good long while. But he just became chief about two years ago. And this is our first opportunity, given the pandemic, etc., to be here and be able to speak with our fire chief, Kevin Kelly. So first of all, I want to welcome you very much. Thank you and welcome here. And thank you for welcoming us here. It's been several years since we were last here and the place still looks sparkling clean and impressive. Well, it's nice to have a civilian in here finally. It feels like we're starting ahead in the right direction. Absolutely. And we should make note for our audience that you and I are sitting here and we are six feet apart, but we're without masks. And we can do that because both of us are fully vaccinated and thank goodness. We're starting to enjoy the fruits of that. And we want to encourage you, obviously, if you have not yet been vaccinated, please to get a vaccine. Among other things, you get to start to enjoy doing stuff like this again. So anyway, really nice to talk to you. And what I'd like to do today is just talk to you a little bit about your own personal journey getting here to this position and then kind of a little bit behind the scenes here at the fire department and answering some probably pretty basic questions. But we'll see how the conversation unfolds. Certainly. So chief, let me ask you first of all, I remember when I was a kid, I remember lots of kids who whose answer to what do you want to be when you grow up is I want to be a firefighter, right? Lots of us feel that way for a little while when we're kids and go in other directions, obviously. Was that the case for you? Did you know this then? No, I didn't. Certainly when I was a kid, admired police officers and firefighters, but I had an uncle who was a Cambridge U of Tenant and I always respected him. I had no plans on being a firefighter. But what happened was I graduated high school in 1983 and here at Arlington High, I started working and about 10 months into work. I wasn't very happy. I got a call from a recruiter, an Air Force recruiter and the rest is history to say. I joined the Air Force shortly after, went in in 1984, did four years active duty. I spent three years in Illinois and one year in Korea. Oh, and I was a firefighter. They assigned me my job. I went in without a job assignment. They made me a firefighter, which was serendipitous, I have to say. And really interesting.  Right. And firefight, explain, you know, what's the role of firefighters there? Yeah, Air Force bases are towns. They have police departments and fire departments and commissaries, you know, grocery stores and gymnasiums and movie theaters and they have to be staffed. A lot of times they're staffed by civilians, but also they're staffed by GIs. So again, they, I was assigned as a firefighter. I went to the Fire Academy in 1984, the Air Force Fire Academy. That was in Illinois. I was then actually, which was kind of a sign to the, that base and I stayed there for three years and it was a great experience. And then I did my last year in Korea, which was, which was spectacular. You know, I, Is that right? Yeah. Well, I, you know, I joined the Air Force to travel. I wanted to see the world and not that it was not just Illinois, not corn fields. You know, not that again, I had a great experience out there and I still have my friends that I talked to and I, and I see. But I wanted to see the world. So when I got my orders to Korea, that was, that was a good time. So I went over there. I was 21, 22 years old, you know, still a kid. I had a great experience over there. And what it and, and was the work basically the same? You were basically, you had transferred from Illinois to a base in Korea, but it operates the same way with all the same components. You had the same kind of job. Yeah. A little, little more pressure over in Korea.  But ironically, we always joke about that here. I was at an Air Force base that didn't have planes. It was a, they call it, the, the, the airport had been shut down there. It was just the training base. So for my first three years in the Air Force, I didn't see any planes. So yeah, that was funny. And then I did my year in Korea. So when I got to Korea, there was, you know, it was a totally different ballgame there. There's, there's fighter jets and, and cargo planes and nuclear weapons and all sorts of different things we had to deal with as a fire department. So it was new and exciting. And so the combination of just that being at an Air Force base with planes, it sounds silly, but, and then just being in a foreign country and having that experience, I was there just before I'd missed the Olympics by this, this was 1988. I missed the Olympics by four months, but I did get to go up to the Olympic village and watch it being built and see some things. So it was just a wonderful experience. I wouldn't trade in for anything. And it really, it was one of those moments that set the course for my life. That's why I'm here today in front of you. So yeah, let me just ask you very briefly, like, did you get much of an opportunity to get out into the area? Again, you were in a foreign country. Did you get to see it? You get off the base much? Did you travel much in Southeast Asia? Well, no, I, I, I, all my traveling was in country. But I certainly did take advantage of being in Korea. We went up to Seoul, went up to the DMZ, visited some Buddhist temples and things like that. So it was, it was a quick year. You know, you're only there 12 months. Probably should have did more, but I was, you know, 21, 22, just, you know, a young kid. And is that, is that how it goes? I mean, you said, did my year in Korea, is that generally like for somebody's going to have four year career in the, in the military, you'll have three years and then maybe a posting somewhere? Yeah, Korea is what they call a remote tour. And every, if you do four years active duty, just one tour and get out, you could avoid that. You might not get a remote, but anyone who does a career in the military is going to do at least one or two, what they call remote tour.  But, you know, some of the remotes are truly remote. This one wasn't like, you know, I was in Korea. Now I saw men and women there that were married, who had families, and it was a different experience, you know, they missed home. For me, I was a single young airman, and, and it's what I wanted. You know, I wanted to see the world. So I was happy to be there. And it was a great experience. And you said that that kind of set the course for the rest of your life.  Yeah, so I really enjoyed it. And I came home and immediately took to civil service or civil service department. And I certainly answer questions about that if you want to. But I came back and I took the exam. I wasn't sure if I was going to and I was in my father's past away, but one piece of advice he gave me and it really was very important in my life was I wasn't sure if I was gonna be a firefighter. I really enjoyed it, but I thought I was gonna move on. And he's like, just take the test. He goes, you know, and put yourself in the position to say no. You know, don't burn that bridge. And it was I thank him for that piece of advice. It was a really good piece of advice. And I when people, young guys talked gals talk to me now about being a firefighter. And I don't know. I just take the test and put yourself in the position. Right. You hear yourself echo my father's word. Yeah. And I'm glad I followed his advice. Yeah. So anyway, so I took the test. And now it's a waiting game. We're actually in the process. Now we're gonna be doing some hiring, but it's a long process. And and it takes a little bit of luck. So you don't know if you're gonna get hired. There's other people going for it. So what I did was I went back to work. I got a 40 hour week job and started going to college. I went to middle sex free year just to see if I could handle it. And that was no problem. So then I transferred to UMass Lowell and graduated in four years. It took me four years and I got my bachelor's degree in computers, IT. Still hadn't heard from the fire department. So I just kept pressing after that long after that long. And I just kept pressing forward. I actually thought it was kind of a loss. Yeah. And I was working for a computer company that Bill Ricker was started my career and I got a card in the mail saying we're hiring. Are you interested? So I signed the card and and when when was that? How long have you been in a firefighter? Well, I got hired in 1994. My 27th anniversary is coming up in a couple of weeks. I've been here 27 years, but yeah, the process probably took and ironically, and I also tell people is I didn't get hired the first time I went through the hiring process and didn't get selected. Made it all the way to the town manager had an interview, but I didn't get picked. But I came back, you know, the next year they hired again and I was fortunate enough to get picked at that time. So that's great. Yeah, it was great. And when you say you've been here for 27 years, do you mean here in Arlington? Oh, it's a firefighter for 20. Yeah, I made 20. Right away. You were you were assigned here or how does that work? Okay, that's a good question. So you applied literally for the job here. Yes. And you don't you can only get hired here. She only there's residency requirements, those kind of things. And yeah, so I got hired in May 29 1994 for the Arlington Fire Department. And there's no I mean, I shouldn't say no, you can transfer to laterals to other departments. That's very rare. You normally just spend your whole career in the town you got hired. Okay, so and you said that there are residency requirements. Can we assume then that that most of the folks who work in the station live here in town? Well, okay, it's not no not live in Arlington, but so you to get the residency privilege, you know, you have to have it to get on. You had to have lived in Arlington one year up to the day you took the test. So for example, when I got hired, I actually was living in Belmont. But when I took the test, I was an Arlington resident. So I got the residency preference. And then there's also a military is allowed when they come back. So you can be from Chelmsford, you come back and say, I want to be an active firefighter. They allow someone returning from the military one shot to pick a town as their preference. And then they have to establish residency, but then they can get hired here. And we have a couple of those. We have a couple of people have taken advantage of that. So so yeah, I now feel even worse saying that I was introducing you to Arlington, it a sense because of course, this has been your workplace for 27 years or close to. Yeah. And how just very quickly, like, what was that trajectory like? Getting hired? No, from the time that you were hired, you came in as you know, the rookie. Yeah, so it's hard to remember back then. Yeah, it seems like yesterday, it's really not that hard.  But so I was hired in 1994. And like, I just kind of the processes, I had to go to the fire Academy. So I completed the fire Academy out in Stowe. That's about 11 weeks. It's tough, but doable, right? And most of us make it through. You know, do you we supposed to do? And then I had to become an EMT. All all firefighters and I can have to be I'm still an EMT. Now I required to if they don't have it already, have to get it and maintain it. You'll be determined that you have to have it. So I completed EMT school. And then just started, you know, you're right, the rookie just back step. I did get promoted quickly in less than three years. I made a lieutenant. I was a lieutenant. I'm, I don't know, for six or seven years. And then I took the captain's exam and made captain and was put in the office. So we have two kind of sides of the departments. There's the line, the people that go on the trucks and answer the calls. And then there's the staff positions, which is the training officer, the fire, who does training. There's a fire prevention officer who's a deputy chief who does all the inspections and permitting. And we have an EMS coordinator who's a captain and he does all the EMS training, those kind of things. So I became the training officer when I made captain and did that for a while. And then through promotions, came back to the line, rode the ladder truck for a few years and then made deputy chief. At that point, that was only about three or four years ago. And then I went back into staff and was the fire prevention officer, did that for a couple years. And then chief Jefferson retired and I went for the big job and was fortunate enough. Yeah, very fortunate to get. We have an embarrassment of riches of very qualified people here that could have been the chiefs. I was very fortunate to get it. And if it wasn't me, I would have been happy to work for any of the other people who got it. You know what I mean? Well, very good people. You know, we're getting some insight into your leadership style just in terms of the generosity of spirit that you're demonstrating. So that's great. Several questions that I have coming from what you were just saying.  Is that typical for a chief to have done so many different of the other roles? Yeah, it is. But you know, yeah, I, you know, except for the EMS position, I think I feel just about every position in the department, which is great, right? It helps me understand what other folks are going through when they're doing the jobs and which has been helpful for me. But we've had some like Chief Jefferson before me, who chief for 12 years, probably the best chief this department's had. No disrespect to the other chiefs, but just longevity and SARS through the building of the three stations, all those kinds of things. So just did a great job. He had never been the fire prevention officer. He just, his trajectory, just he got lucky. A lot of people don't like to go into the staff positions. They like riding the trucks. And he, when he got made deputy, there was a deputy chief in that position who wanted to stay. So he didn't have to do that. Didn't stop him from being a good chief. But he just did that. So there's certainly more than one career path. But I was fortunate to have done a lot of the roles. I think it's just been helpful for me. So yeah, yeah, in the ways that you say, in terms of just understanding what somebody else is dealing with from your own personal experience, which is great.  And so backstep. And then later on in your narrative, you said, Oh, I wanted to get, you know, I rose, I got promoted again, and I went back to the line and back on the truck. So two questions. One is, can you tell us what that means? Okay. Backstep thing. Okay. Number one. And number two, I get this sense then that the makeup of a fire engine and the people who are in, in and on it as it's heading out is from all different ranks and different levels of experience, et cetera. So just tell us, like, what is that backstep position number one? And then what are the other positions on the fire truck and who, who, who are those? Okay, certainly. So, you know, you can really talk about a fire engine on a lot of truck, you know, the same as far as positions go. So the back steps, usually the, the person who sits in the back. Yeah. Right. Not like not always the junior firefighter, because we have certainly plenty of great firefighters who do a 30 year career who stay as firefighters. They don't want to promote. It's fine. You know, we need them. They're talented and it's, and it's great. We, I joked, you know, we don't have the rank of sergeant, but we have sergeants, which are very important. No senior guys, those and gals that have that leadership quality that's not given by stripes, just by experience and people listen to. And, and if you are a good officer, you make sure that you have a good right-hand person to help you with that. But so that's the back step. You know, they're a firefighter. They're going to be on the nozzle. They're going to be pulling the hose. They're going to be doing the hot work. Right. And they're going to be very publicly visible. Absolutely.  Absolutely. That's a firefighter. That's your firefighter. Exactly right. And then the other two, usually on the rig, are the officer. Well, I'll go move up. So the next person is the driver. Normally senior to the back step person, but not always. Sometimes those trade. Some people are more comfortable driving than others, right? We all can drive. It's just, you know, they just. Right. I assume driving is part of the training, but absolutely. Everybody loves, you know. Well, the driving is the easy. It's the, you got to operate the pump. So you're outside.   You're in the fire. That's nerve-racking, certainly is. But how about the responsibility being an outside, getting that water and making sure everything's working right? Because if you don't do your job, someone can get hurt. A lot of pressure. Absolutely. So that's, that's a firefighter. Not an officer. They'll be the driver operated. And then the third seat's taken by the officer. It can be a lieutenant or a captain. And they're in charge of that group of people, right? Right. Right. They make all the calls. Yep. Day to day. Just most of that leadership takes place here in the building. Right? It's just the day to day training and housework and then we, and I'll get into a day to day with you if you want. But, um, and then there's the scenes. They're the officers in charge of um, certainly line officers, the ones around the truck. They're pulling hose. They're fighting fire. They're doing those things. But they also have other responsibilities. They go on medical calls with the, with the rescue crews and, uh, they're responsible for things like scene safety. So they'll usually take a step back and let the, the firefighters that are on the ambulance, the back step, do patient care. The officer will be just kind of overall seen. Do we ever get, you know, force it? What's next? Do we need to get furniture out of the way to move this patient? Do we need to call an emetic? They're kind of thinking big picture while everyone else is doing the hand, hands-on work. Right. So those are the roles. Like good leaders do. Yeah, right. Yeah. It's hard to do. One thing that's hard to learn about when you start to move up is to delegate. Because it really is a hands-on type of job.  So, um, I'll just keep going is we have four groups in Allington, group one, group two, group three, group four. They work a 24 hour shift and then they're off for three days. So there's your four, right? So they each come in. Each group has a deputy chief who is the shift commander. He's in charge of that group. Work assignments that day, at a fire. Anything that needs to be done that day. If I need something done, I go to the deputy chief and let them know what needs to be done. So that transition is difficult.  Right.  And I assume nobody, you know, nobody signs up or takes the civil service exam with that in mind. The delegating part of that's right. No, they're, they're, they want to be in the action. That's right. But it, you know, it's the natural progression in. It's a young person's job. Yeah, I'm speaking just for myself.  If I wanted to go for the chief position, no one, it's an administrative position. Really, that's what it is. But, you know, we have capable, it's time to move on, right? It's a natural, you know, it's interesting. You, you say that it's an administrative position. And that's exactly what I would think in terms of the chief. But you, the, when we spoke to you last week or a couple of weeks ago, it was because of the recent fire at Taimun. And you, you told me, yeah, I had it over there.  And then it looked like, it sounded like there was a role for you or you. Yeah, I took command. But is that, is that, uh, is that your choice or is that just what anybody would do in your position or? We talk about, like I talked with the deputy chief is, is I assume command when we get there. Don't have to. But even if I don't, I'm still the chief and I'm there. So I'm in, you know, and I'm still ultimately responsible for what happens. So, but it's a team effort. You know, we use the incident command system and all fighter pilots use the incident command system. It's kind of a, it's a structure that helps you command and keep track of resources, human resources, right? And other things. But, so I assume command when I get there, but immediately let the deputy chief know you're in charge of the fighter seat. You're still operating those crews and assigning them. I'm just going to be another set of eyes and ears here that's stepping back big picture long term. Do we need to get the Red Cross in here? What about it filling it? You know, things that all the big decisions. Well, I mean, he's making the deputy's making the like life decisions, right? Like life decisions, but it's just, he's focused on that and that, you know, you can get some tunnel vision. He's really, it's kind of just thinking of long term. Do we need to get other crews in here for relief? Those kind of things. So it really is a team effort, right? And you're right. I shouldn't have said big decisions. They're more big, bigger pictures, the ones that you can see from having a little bit of distance, whereas he's, he or she's right in it. Let me just ask you as an aside. I found myself when I was going to ask you a question earlier. I almost said fireman, you know, or firemen, right? And I think, you know, as I grew up, all the, all the books and et cetera, it was all, look at the firemen, look at the firemen.  Yeah. We have one, we have one female firefighter. Now, it's not from a lack of trying. We've had several and, and they've come and gone for different reasons, you know, but, but yeah, we have one firefighter right now. Yeah, I've actually caught myself a couple of times in this who might be a generational thing, right? It's just, it's just that normally they're saying firefighter now you might, I might correct myself again later, just to remind myself to say firefighter not fireman or the guys, you know, try to say guys and go, it's just, it's just, I think it's generational. It's not meant to be disrespectful. Right. No, I certainly have no, and I know you weren't coming across that way. You know, females certainly have a place in this, this perfect, absolutely. Can we talk about that a little bit more, which is, I mean, one, as you said, and, and she's not the only one who's ever been here, but right now, currently, there's one, and that's one out of how many? We have 71. Right. So that's, right, right. Tiny, tiny, tiny. And personally, in my, you know, 60 plus years of living on the planet, I haven't seen, I don't remember seeing a woman firefighter. Like, I just don't remember. What is it? About this profession that is particular, that might be particularly, you know, challenging for, for a woman, because I'm sure you, I know Arlington well enough to know that, from the top down, in a place like this, there's going to be an openness, a receptivity, a willingness and an interest in making that work. Right. Right. And supporting your female firefighters in whatever way they need to in the same way as you do others. Like any firefighter. Correct. Exactly. So, but, you know, do you have any, like you've been at this for 27 years here in Arlington, any, any theories, any speculation, why is it that there are so few women in the, in the force? I wish I had a good answer for you. I don't know if it's just cultural that, that's, maybe the images we've been seeing on TV for the i-generation and, and still maybe. But, but, but if you watch, like I, I watch a show, you know, look at the shows on TV, I'm realistic, right? We all know that, but, but you see a lot more diversity in those, right? If you think about Johnny Gage and Roy DeSoto, when we were kids, Squad 15, right? That was all men, probably all white, right? And now you watch the, which I don't particularly watch, to be honest with you, not just, I don't, but, but I see them, they're a very diverse mix and that'll probably, I assume, be one of the first steps of what they see on TV, right? Right, right. But we're certainly, you know, we're certainly an inclusive community. We'd, I don't think there are any hurdles in anyone's way. I think it's probably just education, you know, job fairs at the high school to, you know, standing there to let the young women there know, hey, this is a career field that's open to you too. But I don't, I don't know. And is there any, anything at all that you can imagine in the work itself, either just, you know, in any aspect of the work itself that just can be harder for, for a woman to have to deal with? No, I think, there you go. No, I don't think there is. I think it's, you know, there's, there's good male firefighters and bad male firefighters. And there'll be good female firefighters and bad female firefighters. It really doesn't matter about the gender, it just matters about the person and the effort they're willing to put into the job and how respectful and how seriously they take it. And anyone can succeed in this career, man or woman. I don't think there's any hurdles, you know. Well, you heard it here first. You're right. If there are happened to be any young women out there in the audience tuning into this interview, just pay heed to what the chief is saying here. Well, and I'd like to add, and like I said to you when we first, well, and like I say to anyone in this department, it's, it's an open door policy here and that extends to anybody, male or female, but that wants to know what it takes and what's the path I'd, you know, just call me and I'd be happy to let you know, you know, so. That's great. You know, you mentioned a little earlier in the conversation, the difference between medical calls and fire. How, and I was noting with you when we talked about Tai Moon, that it seemed to me that that, you know, a two alarm fire as such as that was where you had some support from neighboring towns, et cetera, seemed to me like an unusual occurrence here in town. What is the proportion generally of calls that you're responding to that are of the sort that you would call medical calls versus fire? Yeah. So we average, you know, around 5,200 calls a year, some years a little slower, some, I think a high is probably all 5,400. A low is about 4,800. So right in there somewhere, 50 to 60% of medical, the rest are non-medical. So the non-medical calls or anywhere, we go, we like a term is from smells to bells. We're really, you know, we're a fire department, but we're really all hazards to, you know, from cats and trees to, you know, people go into the fall through the ice in the water to or something smells. I smell an odor of gas, a false alarms, those kind of things. So multitude of, multitude of calls. I've been on so many different kinds, which is what makes the job great. To be honest with you, you come in every day and you never know what's going to happen. So that's what's fun about it. But so that's kind of the non-medicals. And then again, the medicals make up about 50 to 60% of our calls. So at least half or more than half. Yeah, definitely more than half. That's what I say. It's 50 to 60. So, you know, I had said to you that, that I was probably going to ask you some pretty basic questions and I already have. That's okay. But one, another one that, that I've always been interested in and I can't imagine that our audience isn't, is the inherent dynamic in being a firefighter that is fundamentally different from almost any other profession that we can imagine is this idea that you have, it's quiet. It's quiet and there are long hours and there's not much to do and there's no calls coming in and then boom. Right. You got to be ready and on it and truly ready to face something that you may never have seen before, etc. Just talk as somebody who has been living with that as both the person who is lawling about perhaps and then needs to get going and now as the leader, just tell us a little bit about that dynamic. I mean, is it a certain kind of person who responds well to that? Is that something that you train people for? Yeah, we have all sorts of personalities here. Yeah, it's just, yes, we have quiet people. We have people that won't stop talking and I'm one of them. I'm guilty of that. But we have people that are hunters and fishermen and we've got people that are computer nerds. You know, just that there is no, I can't. Right, there's no fire fighter for a fire. You know, there really isn't. And then I think what helps with what's great about, I think any fire department is that blend of new person and then the experienced person. That's what, you know, I remember the first, I'll use myself as an example. You say, how do you get through it? Experience really helps. It's after a while, it's really, you know, when you walk into someone's house and they're in trouble, that snaps you out of any kind of boredom you were in earlier. You're ready to go. That's not a problem. But my first code, do you know what a code, that's when someone's not breathing. They're basically, they're dead. And when you're going to do CPR on them, I froze. Now, probably for three seconds, to me it felt like an attorney, but I remember just standing there. I was fresh out of the academy and EMT school, but I was with an eight-year veteran. Him and I were on the ambulance together and he just jolted me. Just, I don't know if he's, just, he just said, hey, get the oxygen. And once he said that, I just, you know, did it and everything went fine. And it was just, I think, and you said, how do you handle it?  You don't know which direction to go. There's the, just helping the people and then it's that dynamic with the other firefighters. You want to fit in. You want to be, you know, have them respect you. So how do you handle all that? What you do is you identify the people that you see other people respect and you model them, of course, right? And then just over time, you just, things slow down. Just like a, Tom Brady. Right, just like a professional athlete. Just like a professional athlete. Has some sort of, huh? Things slow down. You stay calm when other people aren't. And I'm not trying to be dramatic. It's just, you really do, you learn that, that you have time, you can make decisions, everything doesn't have to happen. Take those few extra seconds to think and you just learn that, you know. And again, I think that's what's great about having the mentor system here where you constantly have new people coming, people retiring. It's just a constant change and that experience, those experienced people, just the two to you and mentor you. So really, that really helps. I've got a, this is a really kind of very silly and trivial question. Sorry. It's okay. But I and the people that I know have often noted that when there is a call, there seems to be a number of fire engines responding to what looks like, you know, not much going on. What is the protocol for that kind of thing? How is it that that is such a common seeming occurring? So we get that all the time. People say, why do you send so many apparatus or so many? And really what we need there is manpower. Okay. So for example, we have a medical call back when I first came on which sent just the ambulance and that would put that crew in a tough spot because sometimes they'd be kind of hammering it hard. Should I call for help? And I don't want to bother the folks back at the station. It's one in the morning, right? And you don't want that. They're not good if these are young people. Right. So I'm a junior person on the job and I got some 25-year vet yelling at me, what are you doing? And back in my day, I used to carry myself. So, a long time ago, and I think it was the right decision we decided, for example, on a medical we're always going to send an engine or the ladder with the ambulance crew just to have the bodies there to help. We don't need a lot of the material off it, but you know, that's how we get them to bring the truck with us. And I'll use a code, like a code, for example, someone's stop breathing and their house not beating. The two folks in the ambulance, they're working that person. They can't lift them. They can't carry them. They can't get other equipment. They can't move clear with the way if the person happens to be heavy carrying by themselves. So, we just want those people there to help. And that's why. And again, what determines that the nature of the call. So, we have SOGs for different kinds of calls and I'll use the gas example. If there's an odor of gas out on the street, we'll send one engine to investigate. It's out in the street. It's safe. It's dissipating into the air. Fine. If it's an odor of gas in someone's home, we send the latter truck, the engine in, the shift commander is that's much more serious. So, the simple answer is the type of call, the nature of the call will be determined. But not by the shift commander. They're SOGs, the standard operating guidelines. Dispatch, it dispatches us out. Now, certainly there's been times when C2 will be listening. That's the shift commander will be listening to the call on the radio and say, won't you stop the latter also? They hear something that triggers something in them. They certainly, in any moment, they have that authority and we want them to have it to make some decisions that are, you know, we're not, though, like I said, it's good to have standard operating procedures because that helps to do things the same way all the time. But we also have to be flexible. Right. So, and give that kind of discretion and confidence to your, to the command, to the shift commander. Absolutely. You know, so it sounds, I'm not trying to be glib but it sounds like, to some degree, people should understand that when they see multiple fire engines heading somewhere, it's really, they're very large, very visible, very loud taxis. Well, sometimes, and I had someone ask me on the call one day, said, did you have to bring the fire engine? And I said, well, how else will we have gotten here? You know, just to say that, that's how we travel. And when we clear that call and we'll come back to quarters, we can get another call. Right. That could be, so we need to be always ready to go. So I was surprised by something that you said earlier when you were describing the crew on the truck, on the trucks and you described three positions. So is it basically a three-person crew on each truck? Yeah. And why, for whatever reason, I've always thought, maybe it's TV and children's books or something that made me think that there were more. They usually, yeah, well, that's a funding issue. However, so, you know what, there might be a good place. Let me, I'll describe our department, like how many stations, how many people, and that kind of ties into that. So we have three fire stations in town. We have, we're in fire headquarters, which is down in the center. It's the octagon shape one with the big tower. We have Highland Station, which is up on Mass Ave, right between Stop and Shop and Jimmy's. Right. And then we have the Park Circle Station, which is up by the water tower. So every day, we have a minimum manning of 15 that includes a shift commander. That doesn't include the staff. That's people that are on the line. Line is the people that respond to the fires. So we have 15. So we have three engines. Those are the engines carry the water. They carry the fire hose. And they all have three people on them. And then we have the ladder truck. That's the big ladder truck that carries three people. So that gets us to what, 12? 12. We have the ambulance. So our ambulance is an ambulance. We're all EMTs, but they're also firefighters. So they perform both roles. So that gets us the 14 and the shift commander makes 15. Certainly, you know, four would be better, right? More people are better, but there's also, there's budget considerations and staffing considerations. But we're fortunate. We have, we're part of the metro fire group, which is all the, not all, but most of the departments within the 128 belt, including Boston and Cambridge. And we have what's called mutual aid agreements and they're invaluable. That's, you saw it happen the other day at 663 Mass Ave. Once we get to the point where we think we need help, we call and they come, free of charge. And we do the same for them. So that, that really is an underestimate, underestimated value to that. It allows departments not to go bankrupt. You know what I mean? To have to, you know, we have our insurance policy here in case you need us, we can get going, we can get started and most of the time we can put the fire at ourselves. But if it's something that extends or gets to be a little undaunting, we just fire alarm calls and they come in to help and we do the same for them. So. Yeah, you know, it's, that's interesting to hear because in various ACMI programs and interviews I've had over the years, the issues of sharing resources with surrounding towns, whether it's, you know, police and animal control and, or in this case fire, you know, that seems like fiscally a good idea when, if and when you can do it. It doesn't happen nearly as seamlessly as it appears to in your context. It is seamless in the, we've been, since I've been on and I think forever. Like there's been mutual aid. We've always come to help each other. You really need to.  Right. It would be impossible. Right. That's a very bloated, you know, kind of department for sure. Just a couple more questions, Chief. One is you had referred earlier in the interview to this being a civil service. Okay. You know, situation here. And of course, I know that what that means, among other things, as you've told from your own story, you take a civil service exam. Right.  Are there any, we have spoken in recent times, and again, with the police department here in town, there have been some issues around the fact that it's a civil service set up in terms of the discretion that the, you know, Chief has to make certain kinds of decisions around personnel and all that stuff. That's how it's come up before. Right. I'm wondering what, you know, how, how either common or uncommon is that for fire departments in towns and cities and, you know, what are the issues that can arise for you from, you know, just from it being a civil service, well, we follow, yeah, we we, we fall under the same rules as the police department does with, fire, civil service goes, you know, my hands are tied. I think what you're referring to, I think, you know, as far as the hiring process goes and the day to day, there's some pros and cons of civil service. There's certainly a, right? But I have heard the manager, when he speaks about it, it seems to more where he fails the civil services can be hentaiing is the disciplinary, the discipline. Yeah, I mean, I think that's how it's come up by the last couple years. But we haven't had that issue in the fire department. So, but I'm just curious. I mean, you mentioned that there were pros and cons. And again, we don't need to spend a lot of time on this, but I'm curious about what for your, you know, for the operation, again, of a department where you haven't had to worry about, like the, the, the, you know, some of the more extreme situations or something. Right. Well, you know, and it depends, it's funny, it depends who you ask, right? Now, I think this is a pro, but some people think it's a con. We talked about residency. What I like about civil service and some, what some people don't like is that residents do get preference. And it creates a certain, as far as I'm concerned, a spree to core. We all come, we have a common bond, like, you know, I'm now working with people like graduated high schools kids. And they, I know them and they know me and we might not even know each other, but we had similar experiences and, and, but we also have examples of, I told you the military folks that we have a few here that decided they wanted to get on Allington when they got out of the service. They weren't from Allington and they've been valuable. They've been great, great employees. I'm not saying that they muddy the water at all. So, so your hands are tied, right? So, but it hasn't, I haven't seen the problem in our department with that. I actually think it's a positive. Okay. So, promotion wise, you know, we take tests. We, you know, we usually pick the person who got the highest score and it's worked out fine. But your hands can be tied with that sometimes.  So, but that can also be good because, you know, one of the things civil service did was to get rid of nepotism, right? It, so if you've got the top score, you can't just be skipped because the chief's kid, my kid is in third place and I want to make them. So, you know what I mean?  I think civil service has worked for us, but I understand that, you know, you have to look at some of the things. It's a really good, I mean, that's a good response as far as I'm concerned because it reminds me that it's very similar to, but the pros and cons of standardized testing where, you know, at least you have the same way to compare everybody and it, at least is theoretically, right? And you know, there's a lot of talk about diversity now, right? And it's always, but really it's been in the last year. You know, civil service because of residency and let's face it, Allington's a predominantly white community, not all white, we certainly have a minority population why they're not taking the test when you ask me, I don't know, you know, I don't know why. I mean, it's open to anybody. Maybe we need to do a better job of reaching out, you know, going to, you know, to the schools, those kind of things. But, but what civil service, we have to Hispanic employees, they were veterans who picked Allington to come to, and now they're on our department. So it actually brought, civil service brought diversity to the department. So, you know, it's a balancing act. It really is. It's interesting because, you know, you were mentioning that it's come up, the whole question of civil service and its effect on the fire and police, it's really come up more around disciplinary options or not recently. Right. But before that, I remember talking to Chief Ryan about this for years from the police department, that the hiring, you know, having your hands tied for hiring, makes it a little bit difficult to, you know, achieve the goals that you might otherwise have. But it really isn't as difficult to bypass hire. Like civil service will give you the benefit of the doubt more than when you're trying to terminate. Right. That's when you turn to terminate, usually the employee gets the benefit of the doubt and there's many stories of that. Oh, interesting. Right. Because at that point, they've got some tenure there. Right. So they want to make sure they're protected. So look at this hurdles. I don't care what system we use, even if we got to civil service, there would be hurdles. Right. Right. So you just got to navigate through them and hopefully you just get the best candidate you can get and then see what happens. All right. Well, you know, I appreciate how much time you spent with us. I have one more question for you. Go ahead.  You spoke very laudably about your predecessor, you know, calling him just the best chief so far, etc. What is your vision for the department?  Certainly. Keep things at the same. I'm not ashamed to admit, like I just, you know, when I took over the ship, it was pointed in a great direction and I just want to keep it steered that way, you know. This town, I'd like to say, first of all, I'm very fortunate to work, you know, because I hear other chiefs and, you know, where you hear it goes in other communities. I really have a two-headed monster. I have the employees that I have to work with and every day. And then I have the town hall, you know, the town hall. And I couldn't have two better groups of people, you know. We would look at, is every day perfect? No. But I have the support of the union and they have mine. And I have the support of Town Hall and Adam Chapterland and Sandy and Karen Malloy. And they know that they have mine too. You know what I mean? And so that's been great. My goal is just to make sure one that the men and women of this department have everything they need to, one, do their jobs effectively and safely and continue that and two, to make sure that we're giving the best support and protection and, you know, whatever the citizens of the town need. And it's not just fires. We go into the schools and talk to the kids. We're out doing inspections. We serve a lot of roles. COVID, you know, we didn't even really talk about COVID, but that's been a unique experience, right? So I'm very proud of our membership and how they, you know, stood up when that happened because it was a lot of unknowns. We're certainly in a better place now. But when it first happened, you know, we didn't know how it was going to affect us and personally, and if we're bringing it home and those kind of things. And everyone just did their jobs to the best they could and then beyond. And I couldn't be more proud of this department, really. You know, I appreciate the fact that you just brought up COVID because it's, you know, some people might think it's really a glaring gap in our conversation. And I'm sure that there were so many ways in which your own job as well as all of our lives were kind of up, was upended. And perhaps we can return for a future conversation and talk about that more intensively. But I felt like I feel like it's a little bit of a relief to have such a nice and extended conversation covering a lot of, for me at least, very interesting, interesting just information that you shared with us without acknowledging the specter of COVID who has been so, you know, impossible to escape. So guess what? We just had a COVID-free 45-minute conversation. And again, we may return for, we will certainly return for other visits for other reasons. And what I would recommend and if it's not already played is the real heroes, the real, it was the Health and Human Services Department, Christine Buongiorno and Natasha Wadden. They, we had our role and we certainly, we had a direct role going into people's homes and dealing with sick people and those kind of things. But the day-to-day, just the broad spectrum from just, what do you call it, tracing people. I'm enjoying them. Right, contact tracing. Contact tracing. And then did you get a chance to go to the clinic? Yeah. Yeah, just an amazing job and the town and it should be very grateful that I have people like that working over there. And I feel very fortunate. 100% agreed. 100% absolutely. We are really, really lucky. And boy, have we leaned on them and boy, did they deserve a nice long vacation. They certainly did. Are you listening at them? So again, Chief, just thanks for welcoming us so warmly here for arranging for no emergency calls during our conversation as well. And really for sharing both the aspects of your own life and trajectory here, but also of the way that firefighting gets done, giving us a glimpse behind these lovely big doors here and just giving us a sense of what the men and women who work with you and for you are doing. Well, thank you. And I think the last thing I'd like to say to the people of Allington is just feel safe that you have a real good group of professional firefighters here that are willing to do anything they need to help you. All right. Well, we look forward to more conversations with you in the future. We welcome you to the position of Chief. We appreciate you being here and being with us. And we really do look forward to next time. Thank you. My pleasure. Thank you. This has been Talk of the Town. I've been talking to our fire chief, Kevin Kelly. And I'm James Milan. We appreciate his time and we appreciate yours as well. Thanks for joining us and we'll see you next time.


Nick Rick myself thing. I was told that means may the force be with you. That's probably you probably just cursed at them So obviously it's a very exciting day Because after kind of freaking out two years. Yeah, I'm kind of they've just released well, hopefully The title and the trailer or teaser whatever it is for yeah The next Star Wars episode not 10 more 118 703 sex 789 no Yeah, this is nine five six nine. Yeah, sorry nine of Star Wars This is the next one after the last Jedi some people were very disappointed. I Like it. I did too wasn't it wasn't nearly as good. Love it. There's parts of it. I hated yeah, but I'm looking forward to this trailer because it's freaking Star Wars. Come on. It's Star Wars So let's just get into it 1000 generations living, you know, this is your friend right on JJ. Wow, so good I don't know that I can handle this year. I know they say Avengers is ending Thrones is ending Star Wars is ending Yeah, it's Killing me Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter and that's the same time. I know this is just awful It was good. That was great Obviously, they didn't almost get anything away But it was great that they had Princess Leia in there because what he said was they've used footage from episode Seven yeah unused fun used footage that they worked around it to put into this film So they are because I didn't want to give a Computer-generated or anything like that and so they they worked around her unused footage But then having friggin old Lando back And this is how this is how freaking good JJ is The angle I promise you right down to the millimeter The angle in which he revealed Lando. Oh, yeah, is the exact same angle in which Lando Screams his yeah when they go to help them when they're destroying the second death star Yeah, it was the same angle on Lando's face Yeah, that was genius I just and the starting with the desert like he did with episode seven when we saw Finn With the very opening and the desert pops up when he's breathing heavy. Yeah, just JJ is just always starts off with the Breathing in the infer. Yes, and the desert new ones. Yes. I'm just so happy JJ is helming We saw a new baby droid. Yes, they gave you the name in the in the in the celebration Yeah, they called him but Dio Dio or something like that. Yeah, but Dio droids are always awesome Yes, they are new droid in the BB8 and R2. So I think the person laughing was The ember was not I think it was Luke laughing because they said nobody's really ever gone It sounded like Palpatine. It's over the emperor. I thought it's not like Mark Hamill's voice because it has the Joker kind of sounded like his almost Joker laugh. Yeah, but Spoiler alert for those of you who haven't seen the other Star Wars stop watching now Well, we're gonna talk about stuff in episode seven and eight. So you've been Warren. Well, yeah, he looks gone That's what they said. That's why they were alluding to it in the trailer people who are gone are never really gone When Ben was gone Ben wasn't gone. Yeah, but that's why he started laughing, but that's not a Luke laugh That's a Palpatine laugh. No that Why would that guy be back? He's dead. He says it's another it's a Sith Lord We still haven't we still haven't eradicated the Sith. Yeah, but they can't why would they say those people are gone? That that was clearly Luke. I don't think so that evil laugh at the end. It wasn't evil It was just Luke. Mark Hamill is a little warped in the brain. That's what it was You can tell me I'm right in the comments. I know I I know his laugh very well Well, if it is when he finished what he did he left He entered the dark side when he did his thing and fell down on the rock. Oh god. He's just warped He's eating blue milk. He's he's high on something