Explanation
BACKGROUND: This legislation authorizes the Finance and Management Director to modify and extend a contract with S. A. Comunale for annual smoke and fire alarm testing, inspection and repair and sprinkler inspections, fire pump testing, and fire suppression testing for the City-owned facilities under the purview of the Facilities Management Division. The contract was initially bid to provide service for a year with up to four one-year renewal options.
When bid five years ago, the Facilities Management Division did not have a single contractor for annual fire alarm inspections, sprinkler/standpipe inspections, fire pump testing, kitchen hood suppression testing or service calls with a contractor who was capable of addressing the various needs of the Division. Systems were not as integrated and up to date as our operations demanded. Since then Facilities Management Division and S.A. Comunale have made substantial improvements in the various buildings and we are now fully code compliant with our life safety systems, and are able to better respond to every day service calls. All of our systems are now fully updated and up to code.
One ongoing and critical project is under way with significant involvement of S.A. Comunale, and involves the Department of Public Safety, Office of Support Services. Under this project the automatic dialers of each building fire alarm panel to the 911 Center can no longer be supported because the underlying infrastructure is older and out of date. A new system to establish these automatic safety connections into a central monitoring system will be located within our Security Offices so that the City would no longer need either outside monitoring companies or the 911 center to monitor our building fire safety systems. If there is a problem then the Security Office notifies the Division of Fire.
It is cost effective and will enable a more seamless transition for the City to maintain service with S.A. Comunale to complete the c...
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