I hadn’t gotten around to writing in more detail about the ECCFPD agenda item at the last Oakley City Council meeting, but Samie Hartley of the Brentwood Press did a nice recap of the meeting.
The most important part of the discussion came from Councilwoman Pat Anderson who basically told it like it was.
“I’m rather disappointed in Brentwood,” Anderson said. “I think we (the council) did what we (the board members) all sat down at the fire board meeting and agreed to do. Brentwood certainly is allowed to choose its own process, but I thought we were all on the same page. Obviously, we are on two different pages.”
Kudos to Ms. Anderson!
Essentially Brentwood went rogue after the decision had been made at the Fireboard meeting to move to an appointed Board. Brentwood essentially changed the play at the goal-line for their own benefit while still leaving it an open-ended process of whether they will appoint two or three replacements with Steve Barr likely staying on the Board. They are basing this decision off the number of applicants and did not give an official number of what the trigger is to bump it up to three appointments. This delays seating their representatives until February.
I wrote about this in great detail after their July 24 meeting. You can read the article here:
The only thing I’d add to Ms. hartley’s article was that Councilman Jim Frazier made a request that during the application process, they make a tweak to remove the “at the will of the council” to ensure the Council stays out of ECCFPD decisions.
Meanwhile Councilman Randy Pope tried to get Kevin Romick and the Council to agree for him to stay on until next November so the appointments can be staggered evenly every other year. The end result was this request was rejected as Romick explained even if we agreed to that he was going to come off the board in April and an appointment would have to be made at that time.
Background and Analysis
At the July 10, 2012 meeting the City Council discussed the appointment process to the East Contra Costa Fire Protection District Board (ECCFPD) and adopted Resolution 69- 12, that is attached along with the July 10th Staff Report. In summary, the process that was approved calls for applications to be submitted prior to August 24, 2012, with review and interviews completed in September. Appointments would be made to fill two of Oakley’s seats to take office in October and a third appointment would be made to fill the third Oakley seat in April of 2013.
At a recent Council Meeting, the City Council of the City of Brentwood also discussed a process they will use to appoint representatives to the ECCFPD Board. Brentwood’s approach to filling its four seats will be to appoint at least two and a maximum of three residents to replace councilmembers who currently serve on the Board, but will wait until after the November elections to do so. It is likely these new appointees would not take office until February.
Fiscal Impact
The solicitation of applications is already underway and publication costs and Staff time for the process will likely cost $500- $1,000.
It is important to remember that the local governance does not change the funding structure of the District. The District will continue to receive approximately 6% of the 1% property tax levy on all Oakley property within the District. The City does not assume any financial or legal obligations of the locally-governed District Board. The Board members are NOT compensated for their service.
2 comments
Brentwood really is a bunch of turds aren’t they. Way to go Pat!!!!!!!!
Another selfish act by Brentwood’s officials? Say it aint so!
Pat Anderson simply stated what we all were thinking.
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