NFPA Revision: VOTE NEGATIVE on Motions 72-8 and 72-9

Alarm industry participants from across the nation are encouraged to help defeat two items by voting NEGATIVE on motions 72-8 and 72-9 during the NFPA meeting in Chicago on June 25, 2015. To be an eligible voting member of NFPA, you must have been a member as of December 24, 2014. The meeting starts at 8:00 am. (June 16, 2016 update: this meeting has now passed.)

The defeat of these motions is necessary due to a cluster of fire-service personnel in the Chicagoland area who filed Certified Amending Motions to rescind newly proposed language written during this revision cycle for the 2016 Edition that would clearly ALLOW Listed Central Stations to provide Remote Station Service.

Specifically, within the proposed final edition – which the IESA supports – is a paragraph which reads “26.5.3.1.3 Alarm, supervisory and trouble signals SHALL be permitted to be received at a listed central supervising station.”

Opponents of this code progress would remove SHALL and keep the word MAY, thus allowing the exclusion of a central station from being recognized as a remote station. This is occurring in some Chicago suburbs in which fire departments operate their own alarm-monitoring centers. In those communities, the AHJ designates a single remote station, typically operated by the AHJ itself, as “approved” under the Code and then REJECTS all forms of private fire-alarm monitoring, including monitoring via a listed central station. This eliminates all private competition and leaves the AHJ as the sole provider of a service.

It is this sort of practice that has resulted in two federal lawsuits in the northern district of Illinois.

If you will be voting at the Chicago NFPA meeting in June, please contact Kevin Lehan, IESA Executive Director, at 773-632-3140 or ExecDirector@IESA.net.

VOTE NEGATIVE ON THESE MOTIONS

Motion Seq# 72-8

Certified Amending Motion: Accept Public Comment No. 140

Recommended Text if Motion Passes:

26.5.3.1.3 When permitted by the Authority Having Jurisdiction, alarm, supervisory, and trouble signals shall be permitted to be received at a listed central supervising station

Recommended Text if Motion Fails:

26.5.3.1.3 Alarm, supervisory, and trouble signals shall be permitted to be received at a listed central supervising station.

Motion Seq# 72-9

Certified Amending Motion: Accept Public Comment No. 192.

Recommended Text if Motion Passes:

The proposed new text (26.5.3.1.3) is not recommended for inclusion in the 2016 edition of NFPA 72.

Recommended Text if Motion Fails:

26.5.3.1.3 Alarm, supervisory, and trouble signals shall be permitted to be received at a listed central supervising station.