REYNOLDSBURG — State Fire Marshal Michael P. Bell, who took the oath of office in May, has found his first 8 1/2 months in office as Ohio’s 34th fire marshal rewarding and challenging. In an interview earlier this week, Bell addressed issues raised about the way the marshal’s office conducts and accounts for school fire inspections, and gave insight into what he hopes to accomplish during his time in office.
“There’s three parts of the mission for me,” Bell said of his approach to the office. “The first one, which is the biggest one in the fire service, is ‘Everybody goes home.’” Bell said the primary initiative is to work toward the point where every firefighter and every citizen survives every fire.
Bell said the second part of his mission as fire marshal is accountability.
“Be accountable. We work for you and everybody else in the state of Ohio,” he said.
Bell said the invitation issued to the News to meet with him and discuss accountability problems in his office regarding schools in Ohio that have not had state-mandated fire inspections, is a step toward accountability.
“So what we’re doing today, is part of that. You’ve got questions for us, and we’ve got to answer them,” he said. “Maybe they’ll sound right, maybe they won’t, but I’ll try to answer them the best that I can. And I’ve got experts here; if I can’t answer them, they should be able to.
“The third part is outreach,” Bell said.
Explaining that he has traveled 16,000 miles in his first 8 1/2 months as fire marshal, Bell said he is committed to communicating with the people he serves.
“I’m not sitting here ignoring the issues,” he said. “I’m actually going out and talking to people, trying to find what the middle ground is, how we can successfully remediate whatever issues people might have.
“We’ve got a lot of different things we need to still be able to do, and when they’re brought to my attention, and there’s a need to come up with a plan, we’ll sit down with all of the people involved and we’ll come up with a plan to deal with it. I believe that no one person has all the answers.”
After discrepancies were discovered last fall on the lists provided by the fire marshal’s office regarding which schools in the area had received state-mandated fire inspections by SFM inspectors or local fire departments, the fire marshal’s office promised to improve the accountability system.
“Myself along with my chief deputy, Don [Cooper], we’re trying to make a difference,” Bell said. “So when we see issues that we need to be able to address, that’s what we’re going to attempt to do.
“And we see there is a problem,” Bell said of the school inspection accountability issue. “We’re going to come back and at least try to address the problem.”
Part of the challenge facing the state fire marshal’s office in conducting inspections, is locating the schools in the first place. The SFM relies on the list of schools on record with the Ohio Department of Education.
However, according to ODE spokeswoman Karla Carruthers, not all schools are on record with that agency.
“Amish schools are primarily religious schools. They choose not to follow the operating procedures of the state, so they are not required to register,” Carruthers said.
Citing a U.S Supreme Court decision from 1972, Carruthers said “Amish parents have the right to choose their own education.” This decision does not address the right of states to keep a list of where Amish schools are located. Carruthers said that other non-chartered, non-tax-supported schools are registered by the ODE. But at least two private schools in Knox County that are not Amish, Temple Christian and Mount Vernon Academy, were also not on the fire marshal’s list.
“We may not be the agency that has to be able to say how many schools there are,” Bell said. “But we’re the agency that needs to be able to take the proactive approach to be able to deal with the safety issues. Meaning that there is a board of education, and there are people in the education system that can tell you where all the schools are.”
Bell suggested that better networking between the SFM, the ODE and other agencies may be the answer.
“People have to normally report it into us for us to know where we need to be able to go, and that usually goes through the Board of Building Standards and everything else, for new buildings that are built. They come up on a screen, and then we know where they’re at,” Bell said. “But if something is built and we don’t know about it, there’s no way you can actually go out and inspect it because you don’t even know it exists.”
Bell said the point that currently, no agency has compiled a list of all schools, is well raised.
“Outside of somebody telling us, how would we know?” Bell asked. “I mean, how would we know as a state agency if nobody tells us?”
When asked whose job it is to notify the SFM, Bell did not offer a definitive answer.
“Now that could be a gray area for a lot of different parts of state government,” he said.
Bell said compiling a comprehensive list of all schools to be inspected is a new task to the SFM.
“This is probably the first portion, first time it’s really been pushed,” he said, explaining that Ohio’s is the oldest state fire marshal’s office in the country. “So if nobody’s pushed that, it probably hasn’t been a prevalent issue for awhile. I’m not saying that it shouldn’t be an issue, but it hasn’t. So what you’re asking us to do is something totally new. Totally new. Obviously, if it wasn’t, wouldn’t there be a guide for that right now?”
Asked why if it’s a totally new issue, the mandate for annual inspections of all schools with 20 or more students by the Division of State Fire Marshal or its designee, is in the Ohio Revised Code, Bell said he couldn’t answer for past administrations, only his own.
“Now mind you, I’ve been here nine months. Now you tell me why it hasn’t been done,” he said.
Bell also said that no matter how long the situation had been unaddressed in past administrations, his staff is up to the challenge.
“If it’s that big of an issue, it wasn’t just created in the last nine months. But what I’m telling you is I’m prepared to deal with it,” he said.
Bell said that while he couldn’t answer immediately where the responsibility for locating schools to be inspected lies among different agencies, he would be able to provide that answer in about a week.
“Some of the things you’re telling me, is actually new information for me, very new,” he said. “And so we need to figure out how to address that issue, and I have no problem with that.”
In a letter sent to every fire department in Ohio in October, the SFM’s code enforcement bureau requested information about the schools that each local department has inspected this year. Of the 1,400 letters sent, 315 have been returned, according to Assistant Code Enforcement Chief Denny McCann.
“We didn’t anticipate receiving any back,” McCann said. “We didn’t rely on that information. This was just a request for information.”
The letters that have been returned do not necessarily address the issue that many schools, including many Amish schools, are unknown, even to local fire departments.
“Trying to find these schools and identify them, this was the first shot,” said Bell. “If that doesn’t work, we can check with the board of education. There’s got to be an agency that understands, and if there isn’t, then that’s a fault in the system, and we need to figure out how to fix it.”
Bell said that involving the Amish community in the process is key to compiling an accurate list. Two local fire departments have met with Amish school board members, offering to make themselves available to the Amish for fire prevention instruction, as well as working to locate all Amish schools within their districts. The fire marshal said proactive outreach on the behalf of fire departments makes the job of his office easier.
Bell met with members of the Amish community in Holmes County at a recent safety fair, and said he plans to travel back to the community often. He said it might be beneficial to have the inspector who works with and understands the Amish community, work with the chiefs who are now inspecting Amish schools.
Bell said dealing with code enforcement in Amish schools is another challenge, and said the Amish community has to be included in the process.
“How do you adjust fire safety to a culture that by design doesn’t want to move up?” he asked. “They have to be a part of the conversation.”
He believes explaining the reasons behind the code requirements will bring the Amish community to a desire to comply.
State Rep. Larry Flowers (R-19), a retired fire chief, said he is not sure what, if any, exemptions are made for the Amish regarding the Ohio Fire Code, and what code requirements are enforceable. He and Thom Collier (R-90) have both promised to look into the issue of school inspections in Amish communities, as well as what agency is responsible for maintaining a comprehensive list of Ohio schools.
“I think that what you have to do is give us time to be able to figure out our way to identify the schools,” said Bell. “We’re going to create something new. Because if it was here already, we would have done it. So we have to go back and we have to create something new. What would help me on this is you actually have some information that I have never heard. And so if we had some of that information, that would probably lead us in the right direction to who we need to start talking to.
“I’m prepared to help out with this issue; it’s not falling on deaf ears,” he continued. “You can hold me accountable for it. If I say I’m going to do something, I’m going to do it. We just need to figure out how to do it.”
“I’m a public servant,” he added. “So if we can figure out a way to do this, we’ll get it done. We’re not trying to avoid the issue, definitely not.”
Bell said the inspection system is one that requires more than a simple fix.
“Twelve months from now we’ll be farther down the road than we are definitely today. But this is something that didn’t happen overnight. It’s going to take a little time to fix. But as long as I’m here, I’m committed to it,” he said.
Hopeful about future improvements at the code enforcement bureau, Bell promised continued communication with area Knox County fire officials and the citizens of the county.
“What I am is a bridge builder. I will reach out and I will develop the relationships necessary to get the task done,” he said.
HOMER — State Fire Marshal Michael Bell and officials from the Division of State Fire Marshal Code Enforcement Bureau traveled to Homer Elementary on Jan. 4, meeting with Northridge School Superintendent John Shepard and Homer Principal Penny Ziegler. Fire officials also met with several Homer students.
A Dec. 12 SFM inspection at Homer Elementary resulted in a complaint to the fire marshal’s office by Northridge staff about the actions of SFM Inspector Richard Vance.
Calling the meeting an “impromptu visit,” Shepard said he thought the communication between Northridge staff and Bell went very well. The superintendent said the meeting lasted about 2 1/2 hours.
“I appreciate him making the effort to come out to local schools,” Shepard said. “We traded good ideas that will help future school inspections.”
Bell said he was also encouraged by the meeting, and his discussion with Northridge officials.
“That was important,” Bell said. “Those are the types of things that you need to do.”
The fire marshal pointed out that outreach is part of the mission of his job, and said he particularly enjoyed meeting with the students.
Shepard said the SFM’s response to the district’s complaint satisfied him.
“His follow-through in addressing the problem,” Shepard said, “we all can learn from that. When the fire marshal himself makes a visit, the matter has been more than addressed, at least from the standpoint of the district.”
REYNOLDSBURG — Bell said after receiving an invitation from Knox County fire chiefs, he will travel to Mount Vernon on Tuesday for a meeting with fire officials from around the county. It will be his first visit to Knox County as fire marshal. Bell said speaking with local chiefs is a step toward addressing the issues that have recently been raised with his office.
Also at the meeting will be new Code Enforcement Bureau Chief, Patrick Wambo. Wambo, a retired 31-year veteran of the Maumee Fire Department, took over as code enforcement chief Jan. 1.