Brentwood City Council Receives 9212 Report in Response to Citizens Initiative for “Emergency Services”

On Tuesday, the Brentwood City Council received its 9212 report in response to the proposed “An Initiative to Add a New Chapter to the City of Brentwood Municipal Code Requiring the City of Brentwood to Annually Spend Additional Specified Funds for Designated Emergency Services”.

The report came at a cost of $45k as the council wished to have a consultant study the item and provide facts on what it could mean to the future of Brentwood from a fiscal and service model while consider any unintended consequences.

According to the Initiative brought forward by citizens, it says:

“The Brentwood Emergency Response for All Act would require the City of Brentwood to spend an additional $4.765,000 of future growth in property and sales tax revenue for additional fire protection, emergency medical, ambulance and hazardous materials response services to Benefit Brentwood residents.”

The initiative lists the following emergency services as permitted expenditures: fire protection, rescue, emergency medical, hazardous material, emergency response, ambulance, and others related to the protection of the lives and property of the residents of Brentwood (Collectively, Emergency services).  The initiative would require the City to spend specified amounts of additional money each year on Emergency services that are not already being funded when the initiative is enacted.

The council spent more than two-hours going over the 9212 report.

According to the consultant, Andy Belknap of Management Partners, they confirmed that the focus is improving fire protection and emergency medical services, but it does provide the city with discretion regarding the specific activities to fund. But noted the funds are not required to go to ECCFPD, but that seemed to the intent but was not the language.

“Just to be clear, this 2.5% growth is a trigger so if you either meet the trigger or you don’t. If you meet the trigger you fund the initiative, if you don’t meet the trigger, you don’t have to fund it,” said  Belknap but cautioned in one year you could have a 10% drop,  but the next year you have a 3% growth, you would then need to fund it. “Eventually, you get to the $4.8 million and that is an additional requirement for the city’s general fund every year.”

Belknap noted that the ECCFPD would hate to build service on a revenue source that is not predictable but cautioned that once you start providing services its hard to turn it off.

Another question answered in the 9212 Report was could Brentwood have a city-run EMS program where Belknap said its legally possible, but not practical and was politically challenging saying at the end of the day it would be a regional decision.

He also said the initiative may not improve services other than adding $4.8 million into the system.

The report concluded:

The initiative analyzed in this report is both simple and complex. It is simple in the sense that it is a direct response to an obvious and real fire protection and emergency medical service level capacity and response issue as a result of the inadequate level of funding available to ECCFPD.

It is complex because instead of taking the direct approach and increasing funding to the ECCFPD, the existing service provider, the initiative compels the City of Brentwood to fund services for which it is not currently responsible, and is written in such a way as to be subject to multiple interpretations. Thus, it creates the risk of duplication and inefficiency, as well as a host of other unintended consequences including not meeting its intended objective. Opinions will vary on whether this is a good way to address a very real problem.

Mayor Bob Taylor called up East Contra Costa Fire Protection District Chief Brian Helmick to go over his thoughts on the report and share information with the council and answer any questions.

Helmick told the City Council that the fire district protects more than just Brentwood as they cover 250 square miles with more than 8,000 service calls a year to Brentwood and City of Oakley, Town of Discovery Bay and other areas so it was important to look at a regional approach when it comes to solutions.

He explained that as part of a statewide aid system, its important they receive additional resources while being able to provide them when called upon.

“For the past three years, they have been trying to correct as the report very clearly states decades of, respectfully, lack of due diligence and negligence on behalf of the Fire District,” stated Helmick who said they adopted problems decades ago.  “I do agree that the funding mechanism is dysfunctional. I do agree, and its great to see, that not only the report continues to support, but we also have a community that is accepting the fact that we have a  true revenue issue not a spending issue, but a revenue issue directly impacting the service levels of our district.”

Helmick further highlighted that right now the community has just three fire stations and are short three fire stations because they should have no less than six. In the next 20-years, they need to grow from three stations to nine stations which would address future growth.

Helmick also explained they are working on draft Impact Fees which will head to the cities and counties in the next few months that will address long-term capital needs. The fire district is also developing district wide Community Facility Districts that will be assessed on all new properties that will sustain and operation three new stations as revenues come in over the next 20-years

“What brought us here is going to be corrected, but that addressee’s growth, not our existing issue,” stated Helmick, which is revenue.

“For challenge number 1, the District only has two options. We can do an assessment or a tax. Legally and legislatively those are the two options the District can get guaranteed sustainable revenue to address our existing revenues,” stated Helmick. “The District is pursuing those options right now and I do anticipate within the next couple of months if they are going to move forward with the initiative or not but we are in some very trying times and we’re very sensitive to that.”

Helmick continued by explaining that any revenue that comes into the District has to be sustainable to implement and increase service levels to the community.

“If it is not sustainable, the people that we hire are hired temporarily. When the funding dries up the service levels dry up and we lose people,” said Helmick noting when he came in, they had a five-year period where they lost 40-firefighters. “To put that in perspective, I have 37 firefighters today… we were a revolving door with temporary firefighters and revolving services.”

Helmick told the council that they needed money that was “guaranteed and is dedicated” while warning the council that anytime money that is coming from another agency that could be influenced or changed by policy and/or resolution by change of leadership and or politics, it’s difficult for an agency to develop long-term sustainable service levels on non-guaranteed money.

He also explained that if the District is receiving funds, it needed to be the right amount to increase service levels while lastly warning that any initiative that competes against partnering agencies or those that they rely on operational is a “non-discussion starter”.

“If any initiative makes us whole, but compromises Contra Costa County Fire, any fire agency in our county, it compromises law enforcement, and ambulance providers, we are just transferring the problem” stated Helmick. “Here in Brentwood, you have a first-class police department, we rely on them operational daily to respond to traffic accidents, medical aid, secure scenes, structure fires, we rely on them. If we are going to compromise one service to increase another, it’s very detrimental to our operations and we can’t support that.”

Helmick noted that based on the report, they had some concerns but urged more discussion to continue to find sustainable and reliable funding for the District to increase service level.

Taylor posed a question to Helmick saying if this initiative passed and they received the $4 million, could you guarantee him that it would stay in Brentwood.

“I can guarantee you that it wont stay in Brentwood,” stated Helmick who explained the resources could be stationed in Brentwood, but the District covers 250-sq miles and beyond and that resources could go anywhere needed calling it a “global perspective” including sending resources into other fire districts and even into other counties.

Councilwoman Karen Rarey asked Helmick if he would hire staff under this initiative which he replied “it depends” noting they had to be strategic based on environment and forecasting. He cautioned Rarey by noting that dollars do not equal services right off the bat.

Helmick further explained to Rarey that the ECCFPD Priority is getting Station 51 (a second station in Brentwood) up and running as a top priority. However, because its not yet built, Station 55 (in Oakley) would staff any new firefighters until Station 51 is built and then they would transfer over.

The priority of the District is Station 51, Station 55, and Station 54 (downtown Brentwood)—this is because 85% of the District calls are in Brentwood or Oakley.

Taylor then called up Lewis Broschard, Fire Chief of Contra Costa Fire Protection District to answer questions and speak on the ambulance service.

Broschard spoke about EMS/Ambulance Service and what services are provided by Contra Costa County as the ambulance provider. Currently, the staffing for ambulances during peak times are 37 deployed throughout the county. He called the system “dynamic” and they move across the county moving from post to post based on where coverage level is dictated.

“This is a team sport, the fire service, you have a chief who has been overly dedicated to trying to solve the issues of the past and I think he is doing an incredible job. I applaud the community for coming up with alternatives for funding and I would echo what the chief said,” said Broschard but noted the fire district should be the first priority, not ambulance services.

Rarey asked Helmick to come back up and if the city put this on the ballot, would the fire district support it, Helmick said it would be inappropriate for him to respond as he works for his board and he would have to ask his board saying if this concept became a reality, he would communicate back but tonight it would be premature to answer the question but said they would be “very guarded” because it was not sustainable funding.

During public comments, Bryan Scott, a Brentwood resident and proponent of this initiative, stated he spoke with the consultant two-times for about an hour and a vast majority of the report was accurate.

“For the most part, this appears to be a case of intelligent minds disagreeing on the interpretation of facts,” stated Scott. “The report reflects the bias of the authors. The two consultants are experienced municipal managers with over 50 years of experience in the industry and have served as city managers of at least three cities. The bias this report reflects is commonly called the status quo bias. The report authors have taken our unique situation and applied common average experience to it. No where else in California has a region experienced 1500 percent population growth with no change in emergency services funding method.”

Scott urged the council to put the initiative on the ballot.

Ryan Raimondi, an announced candidate for Mayor, said he came to the meeting to speak on behalf of Mr. Scott while he urged the council to give voters the chance to vote on this issue noting it’s the failures of the past that drive “innovative solutions” like Mr. Scotts initiative.

During council discussion, Vice Mayor Joel Bryant shared how he understood the passion behind the initiative and even desperation of trying to make it broad enough to use how it needs to be used.

“It’s a complex problem that many people have tried desperately for many years to fix and like the chief said, there is no one magic answer, its going to be a combination of processes that is going to address this,” stated Bryant. “There were some assumptions, although no one would love it to be true of no new taxes would be accompanied by this more than I, it simply is not a reality.”

Bryant said the revenue that Brentwood would send to the fire district missing from the budget would ultimately have to be replaced by more taxes to residents to supplement the budget.

“One of the things I am most concerned with this is the threshold of the 2.5% because until we reach that, there is zero money going to a very real problem and I don’t believe we have time enough to wait for things to change enough to start addressing this very real problem” said Bryant.

He highlighted the idea may be great but knowing how it works, the City should provide a more reality based financially feasible way to accomplish this.

“This as presented is the only thing they can vote on,” stated Bryant. “As presented, it does not accomplish what the authors intended for it to do for various reasons and I have concerns with that,” stated Bryant.

Councilwoman Karen Rarey brought up in the past they investigated creating a “Brentwood only” fire department with costs of up to $17 million for 3-fire stations.

“What we figured is to fund that, we would have to cut back on services, police, parks, streets, etc… and or go to the taxpayers to see if they would help fund that initiative or fund a Brentwood only fire station. It was just too much money for us to consider,” stated Rarey.

Rarey they stated that with the help of the finance department, they determined they could fund $2.1 million for three-years and then the $1.3 for the next 7-years but would run out of money in 10-years.

“This is $4.8 million instead of the $2.1 million we could afford without increasing taxes or going out to the public so it’s a significant amount more,” stated Rarey. “I have some concerns because we already looked at the finances and couldn’t afford the $1.3 million.”

Council Member Claudette Staton called this a big issue and something has to be done but had concerns over the initiative because the money isn’t there and are already $4 million under and have to make it up somewhere.

Taylor explained that the city is already $4 million behind and if the initiative went forward, they would be another $4.8 million behind putting them more than $8 million behind and each year after even more behind and at some point you go broke.

“I will go to my grave fighting to keep this city alive and doing well so my idea at this point in time is I could not support contributing my one vote to watching the demise of the City of Brentwood,” said Taylor. “I’d like to see what the fire district comes up with in their initiative because we do not know what they come up with.”

The council unanimously voted to accept and file the report.

To view the report, click here