(Above) Danville Fire Chief Aaron Marcott (L), Danville Police Chief Christopher Yates (R)
It was Danville Fire Chief Aaron Marcott and Danville Police Chief Christopher Yates that did a lot of the talking during Tuesday (Jan 24th) night’s Danville City Council Public Services Committee meeting. Fire Chief Marcott presented the department’s annual report, which stated that 4,260 fire calls were made in 2022, which is the most ever for the department. In fact, fire calls for the Danville department have gone up 78% since 2015. But as Chief Marcott explained, the amount of the calls that are actually active fires is not what has risen so much. Instead, it’s a major increase in medical calls. A good part of that, Chief Marcott says, is certainly tied to the growing problem all over in opioid overdoses, such as heroin and fentanyl.
AUDIO: (That) certainly plays a part, yes. We’ve definitely seen those kinds of increases over the past few years. We have to get more into other things as well. A lot of diabetic calls; things like that are also increasing.
The chief says, that means more training of fire fighters in those areas. And, lots of collaboration with Danville Police, who also come across these medical calls.
AUDIO: We have a couple different programs we run in the fire department to try and get those folks help, so we don’t have to have repeat customers when it comes to those type of things. DPD has their program to sort of attack that approach from all angles, so.
Speaking of the Danville Police Department, Chief Christopher Yates presented a report following up from complaints from the last City Council meeting from a former alderman and a citizen claiming a high number of stops and over aggressive treatment from officers. Yates stated he looked into all records and videos he could find on file the next day, and saw nothing that officers did wrong. Chief Yates says he does not want anyone to be afraid to come to the mayor’s office with a problem with the police, because all allegations he is made aware of will be researched.
AUDIO: One important thing about maintaining a professional standard is that the police need to police the police. And if we don’t, someone else will. So if there’s a problem, obviously we need to know about it. But there’s proper channels where it can protect the person both making the complaint, as well as everybody involved in case it’s an unfounded complaint.
Also during the Public Services Committee meeting, an ordinance was passed on to the full City Council making it official that April 5th, the day after the April 4th Consolidated Election, will be the day that the City of Danville’s new alderman boundaries become official. This puts the city in agreement with the Danville Election Commission
