As the former Fire Chief in Loudoun County, and still having children living in Virginia, I remainy concerned with the process being used by DHCD to rewrite the SFPC.  No one disagrees with the removal of "unenforceable" sections of the SFPC.  However, the language of the Code of Virginia directing a "joint" process with VFSB in the development of the SFPC was ignored; the Virginia Fire Service was informed of the process and "invited" to participate.  Still today there is no written statement of the problem. 

Full time staff at DHCD staff had already written their changes when the Fire Service was engaged. I and others intervened with the Secretary of Commerce and Trade to buy more time to work on the drafts, but there was not time to complete the work when the BHCD voted last fall.  The BHCD should in good conscience provide more time for the work groups to complete the task or move the process to the 2018 Code cycle.  

I do support the VFCA proposal as it does cover 17 changes to mitigate certain problems with the BHCD apporved draft.  However, we should not be here in this situation, and it does not reflect well upon the code development process that is supposed to be the among the best in the country.