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Joyce Clark Unfiltered

For "the rest of the story"

Disclaimer: The comments in this blog are my personal opinion and may or may not reflect an adopted position of the city of Glendale and its city council.

The Glendale Fire Department has issued its 2016 Performance Report. Here is the link to the report: https://www.glendaleaz.com/fire/documents/2016AnnualReport.pdf . Glendale has 9 fire stations. Two of them are now quite old – Station 152 located at 6850 W. Bethany Home Road was built in 1979 and Station 153 at 14061 N. 59th Avenue was built in 1974. Over the years these stations have received remedial patches but at some point, they will have to be replaced.

The services offered by the department fall into 5 major categories: Fire Suppression, Emergency Medical Service (EMS), Special Operations and Technical Rescue; Special Operations and Hazmat and Crisis Response. In their list of 5 major categories there is no mention of the categories of Fire Prevention or Public Education. Yet Glendale’s Fire Marshall’s Office performed a total of 4,216 inspections last year and fire department staff and volunteers offered 543 educational presentations and events.

I found the report lacking in the kind of information I, as a councilmember, and you, a resident of Glendale, would have found useful. I have asked the department for further information just recently and I am sure they will provide responses shortly.

Since approximately 90% of fire department responses are EMS (35,247), where are the stats on the number of Advanced Life Support (ALS) calls and the number of Basic Life Support (BLS) calls? The remaining 10% (3,447) are fire calls. What is the department’s current response time? I assume it is still within national fire standards but there is no information provided.

As I and many Glendale residents have stated over the years, sending a huge fire truck to answer medical calls is a waste of resources. I am pleased to see that the department now has two “Low Acuity Units” to respond to BLS calls. These are smaller vehicles with appropriate personnel that respond to non-life threatening medical calls. It was a pilot project that immediately proved its value as has been demonstrated by Mesa who has used this system for years. I am disappointed that the implementation of more Low Acuity Units has not been accelerated. There should be one of these units at every fire station in Glendale, not just at two of them. This program deserves to be a priority of the department. Now it is time to implement a sister program that addresses ALS calls. When this system of medical response is fully implemented the department will become more flexible and agile while delivering the best service possible at the least cost to Glendale taxpayers.

I also noted that, “fifty-three fire personnel were deployed to 32 separate wildfires across the nation.” What was the total cost to our taxpayers to do so? Including transportation, meals, lodging and any special or overtime pay?

No information is provided on the effects of Automatic Aid to our City. Why were no numbers provided on the number of calls the City responds to outside of our City? What cities? And the total number of calls outside the City provided to each jurisdiction? Why were no numbers provided on the number of calls provided by outside agencies to our City? Which cities? And in what numbers?

I suspect that as in previous years there is still an imbalance between the number of times the city’s department answers calls outside of Glendale and the number of times other cities respond to calls within Glendale. Historically Glendale answers far more calls outside of its city limits than others cities’ responses within Glendale. It costs the taxpayer to subsidize services to other cities.

I still believe that while the concept of Automatic Aid is sound, the lack of equitable implementation remains unfair to the participants. Glendale and other cities that answer far more calls outside their city limits should be reimbursed by those cities receiving the additional aid. There is a regional Automatic Aid Agreement that is reviewed and approved every year. All Fire Chiefs have an opportunity to review and amend. I know there are fire chiefs that are familiar with this issue but to date they have been reluctant to address it.

There is good news within this year’s report. One of those is the Crisis Response Unit. It has 3 paid staff but it is primarily a volunteer unit with volunteers donating over 13,000 hours while responding to 1,156 calls for service. Volunteers are also the backbone of the department’s public education program donating 787 volunteer hours. Another good news item is the full implementation of the Electronic Patient Care Reporting (ePCR) system. It is a tablet based patient charting system that replaces paper reports. It saves time and money and now the records can follow a patient electronically.

The report was good but it could have been better if it included some of the items discussed above. In order to be fully transparent the current department response time and effects of Automatic Aid should have been included. In addition, some information about the department’s plans for the two 40 year old fire stations would have been helpful.

The men and women of the Glendale Fire Department give their all to serve us in our hour of greatest need. I appreciate their commitment to our community. However, senior management has the responsibility to provide us a full and complete picture of their operations, including the good, the bad and the ugly.

© Joyce Clark, 2017               

FAIR USE NOTICE

This site contains copyrighted material the use of which is in accordance with Title 17 U.S. C., Section 107. The ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Section 107 of the US Copyright Law and who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democratic, scientific and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such material. For more information go to http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use,’ you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

If you are a Glendale resident who follows my blog and if you have family members, friends, acquaintances or neighbors who would benefit from knowing what is happening in our community please take a moment to send them a link to my site: https://joyceclarkunfiltered.com . Thank you.

The concept of automatic aid was discussed in Part 1 of this blog. In Part 2, reform issues related to automatic aid were identified. In this part, Part 3, we’ll look at the issue of ambulance service and the demands on public safety of further future annexations by Glendale.

Ambulance service is currently provided in Glendale by Southwest Ambulance (SW), a subsidiary of Rural Metro Corporation, a national company. Sterling Fluharty of the June 2, 2015 edition of the Glendale Star has a good explanation of the relationship between the city and SW Ambulance. Here is the link: http://www.glendalestar.com/news/article_2edd3a9e-098a-11e5-9695-a7b1941abca4.html . It’s a “he said, she said” kind of fight between the city and SW. Each claims the other owes it money. However, one has every right to wonder if the city is dragging its feet in the negotiation of a new contract with SW while it is at the same time securing its own Certificate of Necessity (CON) with the Arizona Health Department. A CON allows an entity to provide ambulance and associated medical services subject to the requirements imposed by the Arizona Health Department. There is another provider available, American Medical Response (AMR), who has just been awarded a Certificate of Necessity (CON) for all of Maricopa County by the Arizona Health Department.

Glendale Fire Chief Mark Burdick in a February 3, 2015 presentation to city council said, “In 2011, AMR proposed replacing the fire department as a primary emergency medical service provider in Dallas, Cincinnati, and Los Angeles, which forced city councils to choose between the fire department and AMR. Their proposal included removing paramedics from fire trucks while utilizing the fire department units to respond and deliver primary service including patient extrication, treatment, and packaging, while the ambulance would only transport and collect all revenue. This proposal places a majority of the cost on the local government, while allowing the ambulance company to collect all profit.” Since he made those remarks Dallas and Los Angeles have contracted with AMR and Cincinnati has not.

City council would be well served to start over and reissue a Request for Service for ambulance service provision.  It is expected that the city would receive bids from Southwest Ambulance, Rural Metro, Phoenix Medical Transport and American Medical Response. After the bids are received staff should present to council the cost implications of all bids to provide ambulance service as well as the investment and on-going costs associated with the city establishing its own ambulance service. The estimated initial start up costs for the city fire department to provide ambulance service would be approximately $1.6 million dollars to cover the purchase of 4 new ambulances at $210,000 each and $760,000 in personnel costs…and that’s just the first year. If staff claims that the cost of city provided ambulance service will pay for itself – council beware. If I had a dollar for every time I heard that claim from staff I would be very rich indeed. Council should then make the decision based upon what provider is both cost effective and efficient for the residents of Glendale. At least ambulance service is not covered by automatic aid so Glendale will not be sending its ambulance service out of town.

Annexation of land to the west of the Loop 101 presents another set of issues for the city regarding public safety. The city’s current annexation policy requires that the entity seeking annexation secure its own water and sewer service from local providers other than the city. The city does not have the necessary water and sewer infrastructure to accommodate new annexations. While that is an excellent solution for the utility issue provision, police and fire provision will be an issue – a costly issue.

There are 3 possible options for police service: 1. Traditional service which would include the capital cost of building a Westside substation; 2. Contract with the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office which does not require any capital construction costs or 3. Contract with an alternative service provider which also does not require any capital construction costs.

There are 3 options for fire service as well: 1. Create a county island fire district; 2. Traditional service which would include the capital cost of building an additional fire station; or 3. Contract with an alternative service provider such as Rural Metro which does not require any capital construction costs. Perhaps, just perhaps, some of the inequity in fire emergency response (not ambulance service) would be mitigated if other, closer jurisdictions ended up responding to newly annexed areas. City council must consider the cost implications of annexing more land into Glendale until such time as Glendale’s finances can accommodate the additional costs.

The bottom line is these issues impact the public’s health and safety. Council is mandated to look at this issue very carefully while considering the cost to taxpayers. Sometimes we want a Cadillac when a Ford will do.

© Joyce Clark, 2015

FAIR USE NOTICE

This site contains copyrighted material the use of which is in accordance with Title 17 U.S. C., Section 107. The material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democratic, scientific and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Section 107 of the US Copyright Law and who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use,’ you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

If you are a Glendale resident who follows my blog and if you have family members, friends, acquaintances or neighbors who would benefit from knowing what is happening in our community please take a moment to send them a link to my site: http://joyceclarkunfiltered.com . Thank you.

The first part of this series on automatic aid explained the concept and how it is set up. This part will look at those components of the system in need of reform: reimbursement and staffing levels.

Section 9.L. of the automatic aid agreement states, “Participants agree that automatic aid is reciprocal. While automatic aid does not ensure that a community will receive the exact same amount of assistance as it gives, it does mean that all participants will provide assistance outside its jurisdictional boundaries and that the level of service delivered within the Automatic Aid System will be comparable.”

Section 11 says, “Except as specifically agreed to by both parties for a particular incident, neither party shall be reimbursed by the other party for any costs incurred pursuant to this agreement. In the event of Declared Disasters, participants may apply for reimbursements from County, State and Federal agencies.”

This agreement acknowledges that some governmental agencies will send more aid than will be received and mandates that the level of service provided will be comparable. There is no acknowledgement of reimbursement in the amount of service provided by one agency to another. It goes on to specifically mandate that there will be no reimbursement from one agency to another.

Here is the problem with those concepts. In information provided by Glendale Fire Department’s Assistant Chief DeChant (now Acting Chief) in 2014 for Fiscal Year 2012-13 Glendale provided automatic aid outside of Glendale for 5,583 calls. It received automatic aid within Glendale from other jurisdictions for 3,361 calls. Glendale answered 2,222 more calls for service outside of its city limits in FY 2012-13 than it received from other jurisdictions. Glendale per the automatic aid agreement was not reimbursed for any of those 2,222 calls representing an imbalance in reciprocity. According to a recent Arizona Republic story that number rose in FY 2014-15 to a disparity of 3,800 calls, unreciprocated, made by Glendale outside of its boundaries.

It is impossible to accurately determine the cost of sending a large engine or ladder truck to an emergency call. Internet researched numbers vary from a low of $400 to a high of $1200 per call. For purposes of this discussion I chose a number in the middle – $800 per call. This number would reflect the salaries and benefits of personnel, the use of a ladder truck or engine answering calls 90% of which are medical, the fuel cost and the maintenance cost of the vehicle.  If you multiply the excess number of calls made outside of its boundaries in FY 2012-13 which is 2,222 by $800 per call the total is $1,777,600 dollars. $1.7M is a fair estimate of the expense to Glendale taxpayers in FY 2012-13 to answer more calls outside of Glendale than are received inside of Glendale due to automatic aid. Does that seem equitable to you?

Apparently in 2013 when the Sun City West Fire District was attempting land annexation within the City of Peoria, Peoria’s Fire Chief Bobby Ruiz raised the very issue of equitable automatic aid service. A Peoria Times story in June, 2013, reported, “Peoria Fire Chief Bobby Ruiz was on the ground floor in the 1980s, when the fire departments of Glendale, Phoenix and Tempe came together to form the automatic aid system with Phoenix being central dispatch. Under that system, whichever fire engine or paramedic truck was closest to an incident, it would automatically respond first.”

“Then, it would eliminate building duplicate fire stations across the street from each other,” Ruiz said. “It’s always been the intent of cities to provide fire, life safety, and medical services within their own jurisdiction. So, being comparable, it would be equitable.”

“In Sun City West Fire District, in the last calendar year, we responded 62 times, they responded 32 times” to parcels in the SCWFD covered district, Ruiz said. “It’s still understood one jurisdiction should not benefit from another district.” Sun City West Fire District Assistant Fire Chief Mary Dalton responded to Ruiz by pointing out, “In 2012 alone, Peoria residents were the beneficiaries of more than 4,500 calls for 9-1-1 service answered by neighboring fire departments. However, Peoria emergency units only assisted their neighboring jurisdictions roughly 2,700 times.”

Here’s something else to think about. Automatic aid may be putting pressure on the response times of all jurisdictions. Let’s imagine that you live down the street from a fire station. It’s very comforting to think that should you need emergency medical service the response would be very fast, maybe 2 or 3 minutes from time of dispatch to your home. Not so fast. What if that station is answering another call…in Peoria or Phoenix? The next closest unit would be dispatched and it is possible that it would take the unit more time to arrive at your home. It’s an issue to think about if you are the one with the medical emergency.

In Section 3 of the automatic aid agreement it states, “It is agreed that the scope of this agreement includes automatic assistance in responding to fires, medical emergencies, hazardous materials incidents, rescue and extrication situations and other types of emergency incidents that are within the standard scope of services provided by fire departments in the Automatic Aid System.” What type of vehicular equipment does the Glendale fire department utilize to answer medical emergencies? It uses large engine or ladder trucks with 4 personnel on board.

Section 9. I. of the agreement states, “System participants recognize the importance of service delivery and personnel safety issues. The minimum daily staffing level for engines and ladders shall be four members. Henceforth this will be referred to as full staffing. Engine and ladder staffing may be reduced to three trained personnel for short periods of time as established by the Life Safety Council throughout a 24 hour shift. Departments that enter the system with a staffing level of three members on each engine and/or ladder shall have an active plan to accomplish full staffing within one year of entry.”

Section 9. P. says, “System participants agree that full staffing as described in NFPA 1710 on engines and ladders provides the most efficient and effective personnel safety and service delivery to the public. Staffing engines and ladders with less than full staffing has financial implications to neighboring jurisdictions, the system as a whole, and the public. Before June 30, 2016, participants that reduce staffing below full staffing shall be subject to financial considerations intended to make the system whole. After June 30, 2016, participants that reduce staffing below full staffing shall no longer be members of the automatic aid system.”

The issue is not the use of a large truck with 4 personnel when responding to a fire. Even as a non fire call expert one recognizes the need and necessity for large equipment to respond to fires. No, the issue with automatic aid is the tremendous number of emergency medical calls.

An estimated 90% of all calls to which Glendale fire responds are medical emergencies. The following information was provided by Acting Chief Chris DeChant in 2014 (then Assistant Chief) in my request for information after attending the first public session of the department’s Customer Based Strategic Planning exercise: “In FY 2012-13 the total number of medical calls in Glendale was 23,824 and the total fire calls were 2,222.” Why is it necessary to send a large engine or ladder truck with 4 personnel to over 23,000 medical calls?

Just think of the costs involved. If I remember correctly these large vehicles get about 4 or 5 miles to the gallon. Think of the wear and tear sending these vehicles to thousands of medical emergencies annually and the maintenance costs associated along with the salaries and benefits paid for 4 personnel. Typically one or two personnel on these vehicles have either Advanced Life Support (ALS) or Basic Life Support (BLS) certification and the other two personnel do not.

How much money could a municipality save in using smaller vehicles with just 2 ALS or BLS paramedic personnel on board? Mesa is attempting to find out despite the threat of a hammer in Section 9.P of the automatic aid agreement. At the 2013 California Fire Chiefs Association Annual Conference Mesa Fire Chief Harry Beck and Mesa Medical Director Doctor Gary Smith presented The Horizon of Fire-Based EMS. Here is the link to their presentation: Mesa EMS costs .  It is interesting and well worth reading. In it Mesa outlines the current pressures on traditional fire-based medical service call delivery. Mesa is using 4 Transitional Response Vehicles (TRV) staffed with an EMT Captain and an Advanced Life Support (ALS) firefighter. It is a concept whose time has come and makes a great deal of sense in terms of cost savings to the community as well as providing efficient medical service delivery. Mesa’s concept flies in the face of the currently mandated stipulations within the automatic aid agreement that acknowledges the use of fire engines and ladders to respond to all calls, including medical calls. If you reread sections 9.I. and 9.P. cited above it appears to be a preemptive strike to prevent Mesa from moving forward with the concept.

After the council’s vacation this July Glendale staff will make a presentation on public safety needs. It would be wise if this council requested to hear a presentation from the Mesa Fire Department and its use of Transitional Response Vehicles (TRV) in responding to medical emergencies. If it has proven itself in Mesa perhaps it is time for Glendale to adopt Mesa’s model. Perhaps the $3M+ the Glendale Fire Department is seeking would be better spent in the development of an alternative medical emergency response approach. After its initial investment it would create cost savings for Glendale’s taxpayers with more effective service.

Then there is the question of lack of a reimbursement scheme within the current automatic aid agreement. It is not equitable that some jurisdictions, such as Glendale, require their taxpayers to subsidize thousands of emergency medical responses to its neighboring jurisdictions. The imbalance has become far too great and far too costly in a time when dollars are so important to every governmental agency. Council should direct staff to begin this conversation of reimbursement with other participating automatic aid agencies. It is an issue whose time has come.

Automatic aid is an essential component of fire delivery service in the Valley. It should not be scrapped but it can be made better. Participating jurisdictions have got to look at the imbalances and inequities within the system and address a means of restoring equity between agencies. They also must recognize that using large trucks with 4 personnel for a majority of calls that are medical is not cost efficient or effective and develop a new model to respond to those types of calls. A system created 40 years ago can certainly use some reform.

In Part 3, automatic aid gives rise to the questions surrounding ambulance service and annexation issues – related issues for your consideration.

© Joyce Clark, 2015

FAIR USE NOTICE

This site contains copyrighted material the use of which is in accordance with Title 17 U.S. C., Section 107. The material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democratic, scientific and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Section 107 of the US Copyright Law and who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use,’ you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

If you are a Glendale resident who follows my blog and if you have family members, friends, acquaintances or neighbors who would benefit from knowing what is happening in our community please take a moment to send them a link to my site: http://joyceclarkunfiltered.com . Thank you.

Before I launch into telling you more than you probably want to know about Automatic Aid and its use in the Phoenix Metropolitan area there are some facts to be shared about the Glendale Fire Department’s response times.

Fact #1: In a recent news article Glendale Fire Chief Mark Burdick was asked about the response time of the department and he answered with the response time of the department for the last 5 years. The times you see below are either the average or median of all times. Not every call is answered in 8 minutes. Some are far less and some are far more. One would assume that multiple EMS calls coming into the dispatch center are prioritized by severity of the medical status. Burdick stated the Glendale Fire Department response times for 90 percent of calls by year:

  • 2010 8 minutes 11 seconds
  • 2011 8 minutes 10 seconds
  • 2012 8 minutes 6 seconds
  • 2013 8 minutes 12 seconds
  • 2014 8 minutes 12 seconds

Fact #2: Glendale is one of ten cities in the state accredited by the non-profit organization, The Center for Public Safety Excellence. This agency is responsible for accrediting individuals and agencies internationally. It is a much coveted accreditation and the men and women of the Glendale Fire Department are proud to have earned it. The agency recognized that the Glendale Fire Department meets its requirements in terms of response times.

Fact #3: A legal definition is “Automatic aid means contractual agreement between two agencies, communities or fire districts to assist the nearest available resource to the incident by disregarding the jurisdictional boundaries. It is usually established on a mutual use basis. It is dispatched without a formal request. It is usually the first type of mutual aid to arrive at an incident scene.” (http://definitions.uslegal.com/a/automatic-aid/).

Here is an example. An emergency call is received at a residence on the south side of Camelback Road (Glendale’s southern boundary) and 75th Avenue in Phoenix. The Phoenix fire station that typically would respond is out on another call. The next nearest fire station that can respond is in Glendale. The Glendale unit would be dispatched to the call. Or there is an emergency call at a Glendale residence at 59th Avenue and Northern Avenue. The nearest Glendale unit is in service. The nearest unit not in service is in Phoenix and would be dispatched to answer the Glendale call. In essence, when there is a call for service automatic aid allows the closest available fire unit to respond to the call ignoring municipal boundaries. It’s a great system because it insures that a person in distress will receive the quickest care available. So what’s the problem?

Automatic Aid began its use in the 1976 and was originally created between Phoenix, Glendale and Tempe. Today 23 Valley governmental agencies are participants in the Valley’s automatic aid system. They are: * Chandler Fire DepartmentDaisy Mountain Fire DepartmentGlendale Fire DepartmentMesa Fire DepartmentPhoenix Fire DepartmentScottsdale Fire DepartmentTempe Fire DepartmentAvondale Fire-RescueGilbert Fire DepartmentGuadalupe Fire DepartmentPeoria Fire DepartmentTolleson Fire DepartmentEl Mirage Fire DepartmentGoodyear Fire DepartmentQueen Creek Fire DepartmentSun City Fire DistrictApache Junction Fire DistrictBuckeye Fire DepartmentBuckeye Valley Fire DistrictMaricopa Fire DepartmentSun City West Fire DistrictSun Lakes Fire DistrictSurprise Fire Department.

Here is the document signed by the 23 participating agencies: AZ Automatic aid . I am not presenting the entire document within the body of this blog as it is 11 pages. Please go to the link I have provided to read the document. Its basic components include:

  • The closest, most appropriate, unit to an emergency responds regardless of the political jurisdiction of the incident or the responders.
  • All of the fire departments within automatic aid act as one large system. The system is seamless. There are no requirements for formally requesting aid.
  • The incident commander on the scene of the emergency calls for resources in a standard way and they are immediately dispatched.
  • Fire departments use the same dispatching, command, and tactical procedures. The dispatch system is capable of accommodating the needs of individual jurisdictions.
  • Automatic aid is a two-way street. Aid is given and received without a regular accounting of who goes where. Joint long-term planning solves coverage issues at borders.
  • Ambulance response is governed by the Certificate of Need issued by the State of Arizona.
  • No reimbursement for expenses incurred during a response except where agreed to by the parties. Specific disaster reimbursements are permitted.

Requirements of all participating agencies include:

  • Membership by the department’s fire chief or principle assistant in the Central Arizona Life Safety Response System Council.
  • All fire departments utilize the same tactical and command procedures. All battalion chiefs must attend a minimum of 9 monthly training sessions.
  • Radio coverage must be provided that allows portable radios to be heard by the dispatch center, including in-building coverage.
  • Fire companies, engines and ladders, must be staffed with a minimum of four firefighters on-duty.
  • Compatible equipment inventories and company functions. Apparatus numbering according to Valley-wide plan.
  • Mobile computers and automatic vehicle location equipment.
  • Standard dispatch assignments with the ability to tailor response to specific areas.

There is no doubt that automatic aid is a wonderful system and certainly is critical, very critical, to the Valley’s fire service delivery system. Although it may have been updated over the 40 years of its existence I could find nothing to substantiate it. Whether it has been updated previously or not it is time to not only update the agreement but to reform it. In Part 2 of this blog we will look at specific provisions of the agreement in need of reform that would be of benefit to the participating agencies and their taxpayers.

© Joyce Clark, 2015

FAIR USE NOTICE

This site contains copyrighted material the use of which is in accordance with Title 17 U.S. C., Section 107. The material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democratic, scientific and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Section 107 of the US Copyright Law and who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use,’ you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.