On Monday, the East Contra Costa Fire Protection District voted unanimously to permanently shutter two fire stations leaving just 3-stations covering 250-square miles and more than 100,000 people.
The move came a week after the 53.04% of the public rejected the idea of a Benefit Assessment to help supplement the District with $4.2 million for a period of 5-years to ensure a five-station model to serve the district. A majority of the public would have paid around $100 annually.
The District will close Station 54 in downtown Brentwood and Station 94 in Knigthsen on May 11 and 4-fireifghters will be laid off. Station 94 had been running the last month using overtime to ensure a 4-station model as long as possible.
Beginning Monday, Brentwood (Balfour), Discovery Bay (Bixler), and Oakley (O’Hara) will each have a station covering the District.
The Board also voted to reduce the types of calls the District responds to in order to preserve resources. Low priority calls such as medical, smoke investigations as well as water leaks may not be responded to in the future.
Firefighters will also be forced to go defensive on fires and protect surrounding properties instead of going offensive to protect a home.
On Monday, with a standing room audience only, the meeting went more than 3 ½ hours as Discovery Bay residents made the case to keep open their station. Meanwhile, Supervisor Mary Piepho and Brentwood Mayor Bob Taylor stated they were willing to come to the table to discuss emergency funding. Oakley made no such commitment during the meeting.
The public also focused on ISO ratings and how insurance rates may skyrocket if Discovery Bay’s station closed. ISO evaluates fire risk for the insurance companies with a rating of 10 meaning a home has no fire service. Most of ECCFPD is rated between a 4 or 9. Rural areas, unfortunately, are rated a 10 such as portions of Bethel Island, Morgan Territory, and Byron.
During the workshop, Chief Hugh Henderson prefaced the workshop with a warning that nobody is going to be happy with a 3-station model covering the District.
“There is something we are going to have in this workshop that will make everybody upset, there is something in this discussion that everybody will find something to hate,” said Henderson. “As we work through these different points, there are areas that you would not expect in 2015 that you would be looking at making these decisions, closures, and responses and these kind of cuts.”
Henderson noted this was the third time in 5-years where the Board has had to make a decision to shutter stations.
Chief Henderson stated the last time they closed stations he looked population areas, geographical balance and trying to keep initial response times fairly consistent across the populated areas. That resulted in Station 52, Station 59, and Station 93
“The disadvantage of the plan is that you cannot control the workload of all the stations,” said Henderson. “The busier stations are going to stay busier in the populated areas. Station 93 and Station 52 are going to have a higher call volume and continue to have a higher call volume versus the Discovery Bay Station for the first response.”
Battalion Chief Brian Helmick presented a preliminary study conducted last year by firefighters and the District as they analyzed work load–the report sat with the Chief for a year in which he did not go public with the report.
Helmick admitted the study still needed to be complete and it was considered a “working document”. The focus was call volume and workload to see which three stations may provide the district with the best coverage.
The report analyzed two time frames of calls for service which showed 82% of the service calls in the District came from Brentwood and Oakley. The report also highlighted that when the District was at a 3-stations previously, there was an uneven workload between engine companies as Engine 52 and Engine 93 were taking on much of the Districts workload.
The report aimed to determine if opening Station 54 would assist firefighters in providing better coverage and faster response times.
Between May 2013-April 2014 the District had 9,124 wheels turned from the station.
- E52 – 1,869 (20.48%)
- E 54 – 1,695 (18.87%) – Station to be closed
- E59 – 970 (10.63%)
- E93 – 2,009 (22.01%)
- E94 – 1,061 (11.61%) – Station to be closed
Note – the full report can be viewed by clicking here.
Director Greg Cooper stated that looking at the numbers, when you went to three stations, Station 52 increased 13% of the calls and handled 35% of the total calls of the District. Meanwhile, Station 93 increase 8% of the calls and handled 32% of calls of the district. He combined the two and said you have two stations covering 67% of the Districts calls.
Director Johansen asked the Chief if his three station model was based on data they saw tonight or any study along with criteria on providing the best coverage for the District as a whole.
Chief Henderson said he stood by his decision and recommendation.
“I stand by that three station model,” said Henderson. “Even though it provides an inequity of workload, it provides the best coverage for the district. When you look at a map, its covering most of the District in the five mile radius even though ISO is looking at a five-mile drive, it provides the best coverage for the first response. The plan does not work as well when you have multiple calls at the same time because now you have time and distance for your resources but if you look at using the downtown Brentwood area as an example on the map, you have most of the downtown Brentwood area being covered by all three circles. Even though the station is not there, resources can be moved from the outer edges into the center to cover the areas.”
Director Johansen asked a second time if the Chief had data to support that decision at that time.
“We based that on call volume and response times to try and keep the response times as close as to where we were during the five-station model,” explained Henderson. “It was preliminary data as you are seeing on this on trying to provide the response. If you look at the four-month window, District response times increase a little over a minute and a half.”
Director Johansen stated his confusion.
“Chief I am a little confused. I guess what I am looking at is when you look at Stations 52, 54 and 93 they have 82.82% of call volume during the 10-month study and I only saw a 2% increase in the call volume in Discovery Bay station,” said Johansen. “Yet you tell me there is an increase to a 7-minute response time between Discovery Bay and the downtown Brentwood Station. If I have 1,000 calls now, that are needed to be responded from the Discovery Bay station, that is adding 7-minutes more to their response time in that 1,000 calls if you move it out back to Discovery Bay. I hope you are following me on this. The concern I have here is that if it’s the Downtown Brentwood Station that is open and handling the 1,500-1,600 calls, there is only 700 calls that would have to go to the reverse (out to Discovery Bay) adding 7-minutes to those calls. I guess what I am saying is the math is not working for me.”
Chief Henderson explained the drive time highlighting that from Bixler to Brentwood Boulevard is about 8 minutes. He said that if the Board changed it, you are now looking at a 13-14 minute response.
Director Cooper asked since the report was completed last year, what has the District done with the report since its completion.
“Respectfully Director, we have been working on a Benefit Assessment for a year,” said Henderson.
Cooper replied, “I get that, but respectfully now that we are out this benefit assessment and this was a possibility and now that we are up here discussing what we are going to do, this is something we could have planned.”
Director Cooper was then cut off by Director Young and Board President Joel Bryant saying this was a discussion for Item D1 and not the work session.
Director Michaelson asked about ISO and under the Chiefs plan it would ensure the most ISO coverage to protect homeowners from increases.
Henderson replied that if Station 54 was re-opened it would leave all of Discovery Bay outside of the 5-mile radius except for the far west new developments.
Public Comment
Diane Stewart, a board member on the Byron Union School Board, noted that the numbers were fantastic, but they did not show that the number of calls may be lower, but they are higher in risk.
“We have a lot more cars turning over, we have boating accidents, last year I saw several fires on the hills on Vasco Road,” said Stewart. “Your mission statement says you want to give response to the unincorporated areas as well as the incorporated areas. If you close Discovery Bay, you will no longer be providing service of the unincorporated fire stations and its going to be detrimental.”
Mark McBride, a board member on the Byron Union School Board, pointed out the 1,600 children, 200 staff members at 3 schools, 2 preschools and 1 charter school.
“I think unfortunately if our station is closed, I know that the end of Discovery Bay it’s about a 22 minute drive from downtown Brentwood on Google Maps. It doesn’t work for us out there, we need to have a quick response time,” said McBride. “I think the model that the Chief commended actually would cover the eastern portion of Brentwood in a sufficient manner as well as what we have as well.”
Lisa McBride, a resident of Discovery Bay, apologized for not voting but explained that the way it was presented in a mailer made it look like junk mail. She provided the visual difference between a County Ballot and the Ballot the District sent out in the mail.
“I think this can all be turned around and we wouldn’t have to close any stations if the District gives it one more chance now that we all know and been given a shaken wake-up call,” said McBride. “If we are given it in a different envelope because between the bills, ads, propaganda, we are overwhelmed with this stuff. What comes in the mailbox all shoved together people do not have a chance.”
Gil Guerrero, vice president of Local 1230, said the District can reduce the calls they respond to but as firefighters, that is not going to happen because they want to save homes and peoples lives.
“You have no easy decision; there is not a right decision. We were accused of scare tactics and people will die. Well people have died,” said Guerrero, noting his engine company has been on two fatal calls recently. “There is no right way to make a decision here and I feel for the community and the Board. We have discussed we are going to change our tactics, but for the firefighters we deal with theory and reality. We go to class and are taught putting safety first. But when there is a fire we cannot move quick enough for the community. We size up, we do walk around, we pull hose, put ladders up and go to the roof to cut holes. We cannot do that fast enough. To say we are not going to do that or write off a house that is 25% involved, it’s not going to happen we are going to try and save your property.”
Guerrero stated the Board should know the mindset of a firefighter.
“If a lady has her husband and he has fallen and she can’t help him up. We don’t want to be in a fire station because we don’t run those calls anymore. We run those calls and we pick up those people and we do it in the middle of the night, middle of the day, whenever they need us. We need to run these calls. Smoke detector batteries go off in the middle of the night for some reason, not in the middle of the day, we need to be there to help the people. So cutting our calls will not help. We need to be there for the people whether it be with the three stations, the five stations or recommended 10 stations.”
Supervisor Mary Piepho stated her desire to keep the Discovery Bay Station open to ensure unincorporated has some representation for the District while sharing her desire to come to the table and discuss potential funding mechanisms.
“Your chief and firefighters have done such a good job that the communities have not felt significant degradation in service from budget cuts, but I am afraid those days are over. Once again you are faced with Solomon’s decision of how to split the baby,” said Piepho. “As you deliberate of where to place Stations, I ask you not ignore the needs of the unincorporated areas of the District. I ask you not to put the city’s residents ahead of those beyond your cities boundaries. Unincorporated area citizens are equally important as those in Brentwood and Oakley.”
Piepho explained how Station 59 provides coverage for the Southern portion of the District and is a flank that has no other protection unlike Brentwood and Oakley who have CONFIRE protection nearby.
“Taking away station 59 puts our children at greater risk than in Brentwood or Oakley and this is unfair,” stated Piepho. “I am concerned that if Station 59 closes response times will grow disproportionately. Calls may be equalized, but the threat will not. Don’t leave the unincorporated areas of the District unprotected. I ask you to consider a three station model with Brentwood, Oakley and Discovery Bay. Lastly, I stand with you to discuss other potential options for the District in this three station configuration.”
Piepho then stated should the cities want to discuss the idea of supplemental funding of the District she would engage he fellow Board of Supervisors while working with CONFIRE of how to assist the District going forward to protect the public.
Vince Wells, president of Local 1230, stated the discussion over a 3-station model sends the wrong message because it’s not an efficient model.
“As firefighters, we don’t think a three station model is efficient. There is absolutely no way a three station model can manage the calls within this fire district. We are re-arranging chairs on the Titanic when you decide which station you are going to keep open and which one you are going to close,” said Wells. “I can understand why people think that a fire station in their community makes them safe, but without proper staffing in the other stations they do not. We send 5-engines to a structure fire, you only have 3-engines.”
Wells hoped that District can discuss emergency funding and get off the idea of closing stations and where to put them as opposed to finding ways to re-open stations.
Meghan Bell, Oakley, stated there is no individual city firefighter, they are East Contra Costa firefighters not bound by border and stated the community needs to come together to face this this problem and solve this problem.
“I don’t want Discovery Bay without a station just as I don’t want downtown Brentwood without a station. There is no easy way. I want a fire station on Bethel Island. But the only way we are going to solve this is if we approach this as a group, as an entity together. Not as individual cities or any one unincorporated area,” said Bell. “We have to come together as the firefighters have to protect us all and best represent and support East Contra Costa County.”
Kevin Graves, Discovery Bay CSD, echoed sentiments against closing the Discovery Bay Station.
“One of the issues is we already have had two stations within a reasonable response time close down. At that time, there was no study done to see if that was the right decision to be made or not,” said Graves. “It’s interesting now at this point there is a study performed to try and do the right thing when that was no considered when our other stations closed.”
Graves also touched on Discovery Bay building two stations at no cost to the District one which is sitting empty. He also wanted to know about the Quick Response Vehicle (QRV) placed at Station 59 which would go away if the station closed—which would cause a longer delay for the geographical area.
“You are charged with covering a geographical area, not just a population area,” said Graves. “Fire coverage is like insurance, it’s not about how often you use it, it’s about whether or not it’s there when you need it. It’s important that we get representation out in Discovery Bay and it’s important to us that Station 59 remains open.”
Brentwood Mayor Bob Taylor stated the problem is serious the District is facing because all lives in every community matter. He questioned the Board on the emergency funds and if they were available.
“I hear the word emergency funds and my question to the Board is there such a deal. Is there any money in the coffers to work out a deal?” asked Taylor. “I am trying to figure out some type of resolve. The Board of Supervisors volunteered her District because we can’t forget the outlined districts. When do we run out of money? When do we have to go to the three stations? For us tonight, to say we are going to close a station, the three station method is going to be a best we have but we do not want this to go away…. This is a hell of a pickle, I am prepared for the city to sit down and see what we can do because we are all together. It’s not just Brentwood, Oakley, Discovery Bay, Bethel Island, Knightsen, Byron, we are all together out here.”
Taylor recommended the District set up a task force to work on a resolution to the district’s financial issues.
The Chief responded to the Mayor by saying District will end the year with $1.8 million in reserve. The District needs $4.4 million for the two stations–$2.2 million per station.
“We have lost 14 personal over the last 9-months because they were not sure the District was going to get the resources and funding,” said Henderson. “We are staffing the 4-station model with overtime so we have an impact with that because our employees are working 3-4 extra shifts a month on top of their normal duties. As far as emergency funding, because of the Boards decisions to go for the Assessment, there was a SAFER Grant Cycle, but we put our focus into the Benefit Assessment and did not work on grand funding for this fiscal year.”
He further noted its unusual for a District to get back-to-back grants while stating the District cannot plan on living year-to-year off grant funding to provide services. The District is looking into contract for service or finding ways to allocate additional services if a city wishing to pay for it.
Oakley Mayor Doug Hardcastle stated that the community needs to come together and change ones perspective to make it personal.
“I think you got let down by the electorate because not very many people voted. I mean how can you just sit back and not vote on something to do with your health and welfare of your own family,” said Hardcastle. “I think a lot of people do not take this on a personal note. They do not think my house is going to catch fire, my kid will be stuck in the back of that car where maybe it was 3-minutes and now its 8-minutes later. People have to take a look at this personally and put it in a personal note. We are all one community. We are still one community and have to look out for one another.”
Hardcastle noted that the community needs to take some responsibility after being warned stations would shut down.
Brentwood Mayor Bob Taylor reproached the Board during the work session asking how does the ECCFPD get more money out of LAFCO. Henderson explained to the mayor that LAFCO does the land use portion and they do not have the ability to increase the service area of the District based on previous findings as they have a zero influence.
“LAFCO authority would be if we were going to be bigger or smaller, we were either going to consolidate or dissolve the District, those would be more of LAFCO’s functions related to the District,” said Henderson.
Taylor asked what would happen if the District “dissolved itself”.
Henderson explained that to dissolve the district it would take a formal application to LAFCO and part of that would be how we would protect the areas we are splitting.
“For example, if both cities were going to take their responsibilities to provide fire service part of that application the cities would have to show how the unincorporated areas, which is what is left of the district, would receive fire services,” said Henderson.
Taylor then asked if Brentwood and Oakley got together to dissolve the Board and do a different District, how does the unincorporated fall back into the county?
Chief Henderson highlighted that under the Health and Safety Code, both cities are required to provide services to their cities whereas the county is not required to provide fire service for those jurisdiction. The County is responsible to provide emergency medical services under their charter.
“If a dissolution of the District was to happen, part of that dissolution plan would be how would the unincorporated areas were to be protected and how the unincorporated areas would be funded to protect them” explained Henderson.
Taylor then asked if a separate entity such as Brentwood or Oakley, Discovery Bay to perform our own assessment and if so would it go on property values. He then asked when do we hit a moratorium on building saying without insurance, builders do not want to build.
Henderson said the cities do have the ability to do an assessment of a special tax such as sales tax to earmark it to fire safety. He said the best example of that in the last year was the City of San Pablo which passed a sales tax to fund a 2-person medical squad to Contra Costa Fire to enhance their response within their city.
Lisa McBride then reproached the Board asking them if they could do a “re-vote” or a “do-over” and what it would take. The Chief replied the Board does have the ability to re-do the process but noted the cost is somewhere in the $75,000 to $80,000 mark.
Board Discussion:
Director Cooper stated his person struggle with the issues facing the District.
“Response times are critical, so when I look at the preliminary numbers, you look at a population, I do not care what part of the District has the population the reality of 81% of the population sit in Brentwood and Oakley with the call volume which is what the data shows us,” said Cooper. “I want to see complete data. There is the thought process of geographical location, but you have to keep in mind what the data shows us two with three station model prior you saw a 2% increase in calls to Discovery Bay so that means that there is a 38% increase in calls in the other direction. What about those people in the other direction? So this is a bad decision, so I apologize to everyone. No one wants to make this decision,” explained Cooper. “I empathize with everyone.”
Director Morgan spoke about the insurance issue which she says is one she is personally involved with.
“I spoke with a lot of insurance agents in the area and none of them would come out and speak on the issue about what would happen if we close our stations and go with this model. They didn’t come out at that point because it’s unclear what ISO would do,” said Morgan. “It’s now clear what ISO would do… you need to know that people who have 9 ISO rating, that there is a 10 which means you no longer get insurance which means if you have a mortgage, it can be instantly called on to be due. That is the reality that the people in Discovery Bay is facing.”
None of the insurance agents would come out and explain that or tell the community what was going to happen explained Morgan.
Director Johansen echoed the sentiment saying there were several meeting where ISO rating increases were explained to the public and what would happen in a three-station model.
“We didn’t need the ISO or insurance companies to come out and tell us; we already knew it would happen because the last time we were in a three-station model it already happened to several businesses where the insurance companies acted on an independent action to increase rates without an ISO rating change,” said Johansen. “We need the public to be engaged, I don’t know the answer but I know a three station model will not work and data shows that 16% of the calls are covered by other agencies with longer response times.”
Johansen said he feels for the entire board and the entire community but wanted to know about other special districts who could give up some of their money. Chief Henderson said that if that were to happen, it would be a special agreement by the two special districts.
“It would include anybody other than schools who could exchange property tax saying it could be the County, the city, sanitation or irrigation district,” said Henderson.
Johansen noted that the District is getting 7-cents on the dollar while other fire districts in the county are getting 13-14 cents on the dollar which was based on the time of the allotment of what type of fire service at the time.
“This area was mostly volunteer and rural area which was proud folks doing an excellent job for the price of 7 cents on the dollar,” said Henderson. “For most of East County, this was volunteer at the time of Prop 13.”
Johansen asked if the County was to step up and re-do the allocations after talking to other special districts, do you (Chief Henderson) think this is a pathway to resolve the Districts financial problems for the long term.
Director Smith interrupted the discussion saying the County has nothing to do with it.
“This was set by State Law permanently about a year after the passage of Prop 13 and frozen. There is nothing we can do locally, nothing the county can do. What the Chief is talking about is a voluntary exchange between Districts. Changing the allocations is strictly a matter for the State Legislator,” explained Smith. “There are 58 counties in California, 2900 special districts; Department of Education says there are more than a 1000 school Districts. This is what economist call a zero-sum game. For every winner there has to be a loser. If you think that anybody is going to be able to get anything through the State Legislator facing that kind of inertia with all these Districts already facing lack of funding, it’s a pipe dream.”
Smith said there was never any thought of what if the nature of a county or district changed and was frozen in time.
“People who think this can change are kidding themselves,” said Smith.
Director Johansen again asked on a voluntary basis of giving up funds, could it be a long-term solution.
“It’s a place to have a discussion, its one component to look at but I think it’s going to be a long slow process to work through that,” explained Henderson. “I think have people at the table and having a discussion compared to the past is an opening. It’s a great stepping stone moving forward, but the hard part tonight is we have to look at the very near future.”
Director Young stated he was willing to have discussions with the county and cities, but did not want to meet with them unless they bring money to the table with them.
“When this District was formed, LAFCO through their study identified this was underfunded, we have done extensive work to make it efficient as possible and it’s still underfunded. We have been to the public on several occasions and they have made the decision this is all the funding we are going to get,” said Young. “That funding decision may change in the future as we look at other options. There is solution to this problem that does not involve additional dollars. The District is operating on a shoe string budget and we cannot continue to operate that way.”
Young stated the real issue tonight is what does the District do based on information provided by Chief Henderson and Battalion Chief Helmick saying do we go with geography or the work load.
“You are talking about a 15-minute response to Discovery Bay with 15,000 people is an absolute ridiculous discussion,” said Young. “You have to go with the response that can get the first engine on scene as fast as possible to help the most people. To do that, you are going to have a Brentwood Station, an Oakley Station, and a Discovery Bay station.”
He said the District is not going to get another shot at another revenue enhancement for a couple of years that he recommended going with the Chiefs recommendation and the District do the best they can with the resources available.
Director Cooper says he agreed with most of what Young stated but responses times need to be looked at not just geographic. We need the data to be complete because they cannot make a decision because the decision will be un-intelligent.
“I can’t vote on this until we see the study is completed and see what the numbers are, where the calls are at and see the impact on response times,” said Cooper.
Director Young said a decision had to be made tonight.
“I understand you situation, but we do not have enough firefighters and staff right now. We can’t hire more firefighters because they look at the situation and see there is no money in it. In fact, we promised all of our firefighters through June this year as we worked through this process,” said Young. “We don’t have enough firefighters to keep 4-stations open so we are stuck with 3-stations. The decision has to be made tonight, 4-stations are not there, the decision has to be made tonight.”
Director Joel Bryant said they have no choice but to make the decision tonight.
“We have to come up with a working group going forward to involve the cities as well as the communities and Board of Supervisors. It’s going to take time. We have to have more complete and up to date numbers. Any decision tonight is immediate and implemented in a short-term,” said Bryant. “It doesn’t matter what part of the District you live in, you are in as much danger as I am and I am in as much danger as you are in a three station model because none of us can choose when a tragedy would happen.”
Bryant highlighted that it’s been said over and over tonight that three-stations are not safe, but the District was also not safe with five-stations saying it was recommended 10-years ago that we have 10-stations.
“We are in a dangerous predicament that we are not able to remove ourselves from anytime soon without a benevolent benefactor writing a check to the District for $10 million dollars,” said Bryant. “I am not being facetious, if you are out there, we will take the check and that will give us some breathing room which is exactly what the benefit assessment was for, it was never a long-term fix.”
Bryant further stated there is no other solution except money.
“There are no ideas that are off the table as far as I am concerned,” said Bryant. “if we have to get the cities involved, we will have the discussions.”
Item D1 – Regular Board Meeting
Chief Henderson stated his recommendation to the board on station closures.
“Effective Monday, May 11, the three station model would be Station 52 (Balfour, Brentwood), Station 59 (Bixler, Discovery Bay) and Station 93 (O’Hara, Oakley) and reducing responses to non-emergency responses in the District and continue to work on providing standard operating procedures to provide protection of our firefighters and strategies of both wildland and structure firefighting,” said Henderson. “I think we need to make this move immediately based on staffing and based on funding. This will allow us to prevent some of our firefighters from working 8-10 additional shifts each month.”
Henderson stated heard the District loud and clear about wanting additional information and gathering more facts. Henderson also noted that there is not a $4 million light at the end of the tunnel but the comments made by Supervisor Piepho and Mayor Taylor are encouraging because they had not heard those types of comments before.
“Far East County has struggled for 35-years and been far behind the fire service compared to other districts,” said Henderson. “The problems are all long term fixes and we have to look at the near future which is Monday.”
Johansen stated that the public needs to understand what a workload increase means to firefighters that it puts them in great physical and mental risk.
Director Cooper noted that in any job there is an in-equality of workload, but firefighting is not sitting behind the desk versus running 9-1-1 calls saying it’s a different scenario.
Public Comments
Robert Leete, Discovery Bay CSD, stated that he supported the staff recommendation where he hoped they would not end up in a position of paralysis through analysis—he hoped in the future some progress can be made to fix the long-term problem.
Mark Whitlock, Bethel Island resident, stated he would have liked to see the people fill the room over the last six months.
“Being a resident of Bethel Island, I completely understand the concerns of the people of Discovery Bay. Our response times are deplorable on a good day but we still have Station 93 when they are not out on another call,” said Whitlock. “You have a community of 13,000 who cannot be left out in the cold and you do not have a choice in the matter.”
He noted that a home in Bethel Island went from $800 insurance to $3,100 last week and this woman’s home was only $300,000 saying he could not image what it would cost on a $1 million home in Discovery Bay.
“They need to be covered and have their people to take care of them,” said Whitlock.
Supervisor Mary Piepho stated that she would be happy to be a participant at the table as long as the county and its resources are not the only item on the menu.
“I am in my 11th year with the Board of Supervisors and this has been one of the top issues I have worked on all of that time. It’s really sad to look at the situation today and see it as dismally as it is. Living in this District, I have been raising the alarm call and ringing the bell and trying to get folks at the table and some have sat at the table. One of the most consistent and diligent ones are in this room and those are the firefighters,” said Piepho. “There is no questions there are revenue issues and there has been significant revenue loss in this fire District from redevelopment from Oakley and Brentwood. If we need to look at revenue and switching things on the table, that is another avenue we need to look at. Revenue equality, per capita equality, I am happy to have those discussions but I really get frustrated when it’s only the county that is looked at it. Maybe that was not your intention to be the only one to show up with money in our pocket because quite frankly we are as limited with resources as other agencies are. Director Smith and Director Young, I appreciate your comments on Proposition 13 and the history but through LAFCO and all the other efforts put before this it’s really sad to the position that we are in today. I stand in misery with you it’s unfortunate, but maybe now as these communities feel this impact directly that the firefighters have hidden in their great excellent service that now we will be able to realize what this means not only on an economic basis, homeowners insurance, but from the impact of a loss of service. It’s really the lives that are going to hurt.”
Brentwood Mayor Bob Taylor called this a very serious problem.
“I am a little amazed we don’t have any Brentwood residents here because we probably should,” said Taylor. “I am trying to come to up with some sort of solution without pitting one community versus another or neighborhood versus another neighborhood which is never good because the life in Discovery Bay is as valuable as a life in Oakley or a life in Brentwood.”
Taylor asked the Board about the Emergency Funding and if there is such a deal or if there is any money in the coffers to even work out a deal.
“Do cities need to cough up money, I don’t know. I am sitting back there trying to listen but is there some type of resolve. The Board of Supervisors would be involved because we can’t forget the outlining Districts. When do we run out of money and when do we go to the 3-station. I agree with Vince Wells. Come on, 250-square miles and 3 fire stations? Come on,” said Taylor. “Are there funds or another way to do a count. These are really hard questions but for us tonight to say we are going to close a station the three station method is going to be the best we have but we need this not to go away… we are in a hell of a pickle, a hell of a mess. I don’t know what we can come up with but I am prepared for the City of Brentwood to sit down and see what we can do because we are all together in this.”
Mayor Taylor recommended that they put together some sort of task force to find a resolve going forward.
Kevin Graves, Discovery Bay CSD, stated that the only community impacted tonight will be Discovery Bay in terms of ISO if the Board takes away their station.
“What we are not saying here is that if Station 59 stays open that the response time to other areas of East County being Brentwood and Oakley do not significantly increase. Those ISO numbers does not affect Brentwood or Oakley, the only way those ISO numbers effect anybody in the county is going to be far east Contra Costa County but significantly Discovery Bay. It’s the only community that will be effected today with people losing their homes,” said Graves. “School districts blowing its budgets, a town that cannot afford to pay its insurance on the 38 properties it owns is if you close Station 59 not if you close Station 54. I would ask that you seriously consider what you are about to do to an entire community if you do in fact close Station 59. It’s going to be devastating, its going to devastate a complete economy. We are paying 20% of the cost and spending about 13% of the return, I am not big on the return to source argument, but its still a fact. You are now asking us to subsidize stations that put us out of reasonable response time and then ask us to pay an exorbitant insurance costs so that the rest of west county can be covered, that is just not a fair request. I do sympathize with how difficult the decision is, but from my eyes, it doesn’t seem like a very difficult decision at all.”
The Board then moved with no discussion to make a motion to accept the Chief recommendation of a three-station service model beginning May 11, 2015.
The Board voted 9-0 in favor of the staff’s recommendation to go with a 3-station model effective May 11, 2015 with stations 52, 59, 93.
82 comments
So Discovery Bay was kept open because CONFIRE will supplement the District by responding to calls in Brentwood & Oakley. Maybe CONFIRE should shutter some Antioch stations in response and re-open pittsburg and some of the other closed stations. Maybe ECCFPD will then change their way of thinking.
Supervisor Mary Piepho is now promising funding for ECCFPD, what about CONFIRE? She cannot have it both ways.
Brentwood will not give the ECCFPD money, they will work to create their own.
And Brentwood will run into the LAFCO wall for the 3rd time.
Einstein has a quote about doing the same thing over and over expecting a different outcome. Might be a good time for the City Council to look it up.
Clue,
That’s sounds like the tax thing three times too.
What a farce. The station with the lowest calls gets passed up for closer, yet the community that has the supervisor that is responsible for the downfall of fire lives their. I challenge her statement she has been working on it. What a crock. 11 years of what to show but lip service and threats. I guess her children are more important than others. Maybe she can appoint another firefighter on the commission its worked so well. Better yet her husband who has experience in government and fire should step in. I can’t wait to see her funding fix. The sooner the better 11 years has been long enough.
Common Sense, Jo Brentwood and Time to put the Boots on,
Are you guys just trying to be stupid or is it you just have nothing intellegent to contribute? This is a serious issue facing east county and the best you can muster is 2nd grade crap. No one is buying it and you have worn out your welcome. If you want to sling it, prepare to receive it right back.
Common Sense- did you even read the reporting by ECT? Did you attend the meeting? The obvious answer is no since you didn’t get past the first paragraph before running yourself into the weeds. Discovery Bay was not kept open for any other reason than it made sense and is the best model to cover the entire district. The decision had NOTHING to do with con fire covering in. In case you wondered, it was barely discussed. Furthermore county supervisor Mary Piepho never said anything close to “promising funds”. You might want to re-read the article so you don’t make yourself look any more foolish than you already have.
Jo Brentwood-as Buy a Clue said, good luck with that. LAFCO would never allow Brentwood and or Oakley to secede from the district. It goes against their charter, law and the rules which govern such matters. Perhaps you actually thought Brentwood Mayor Bob Taylor knew what he was talking about? He doesn’t. His comments were an embarrassing to his position. He should have known better, but then again, he is Mayor “Bob”. What a joke. I’m sorry if you fell for it.
Buy a Clue-your comments were spot on. You have been paying attention. You are correct, Brentwood has been told at least once already that neither city can pull from the district. It isn’t going to happen. Unfortunately the commenters here aren’t interested in reality. They are back on their horses trying their damnedest to confuse and mislead anyone they can. It’s an act of desperation.
Time to Put the Boots on- what can I say? Maybe it’s time you go back and complete the third grade? I’m sorry, meant to say the second grade. Your post was, well embarrassing for you. Your attempts to play the blame card fell flat. You have no one to blame at this point but yourself. Isn’t that right? You know very well that both the cities of Brentwood and Oakley were angling, pleading and threatening to have the fire district turned over to them (local control). This all began long before Piepho took office. Once elected, she had the skills to make it happen. Get over it. Stop trying to re write history, you suck at it. I do thank you for providing such an opportunity to remind people of what actually took place. It’s far different than your juvenile imagination makes it out to be.
Dude, you are embarrassing yourself with your petty jealousy. You couldn’t hold a candle to Piepho, don’t pretend to. You don’t have the chops. What you do have is one hell of a inferior complex going on. I suggest you leave these grown up matters to the adults in the room and stick to your coloring crayons & eating glue. It better suits you.
Many years ago a number of us served on (then Supervisor) Joe Cancimilla’s Far East County Fire Services Committee. We crunched the numbers and it was absolutely clear that available revenues could not support a full time fire district (the consolidation of Oakley, E. Diablo, Byron and Bethel Island fire districts.) The east county could fund a combination paid – on call model in order to keep Bethel Island, Knightsen, Byron and both Discovery Bay stations open. It should have been a no-brainer. But after Joe moved up to the State Legislature, our (then) Supes were fixated on the fiction that bigger had to be better and without Joe to block it, this present albatross was forced on the local citizens.
Isn’t it ironic that 15 years ago the downtown Oakley station could by itself field more personnel and units than the entire district will after May 11, and at lower costs even adjusted for inflation. Service has fallen dramatically. Insurance premiums are skyrocketing. (I can hardly wait until the next premium is due.) It’s unfortunate that the present Supes are faced with the mistakes of their predecessors, but so are the citizens. Station 51, closed. Station 53, closed. Station 54, closed. Station 57, closed. Station 58, closed. Station 94, closed. Station 95, closed. And the county’s position now is that the citizens shouldn’t be looking to the Board of Supes – the entity that actually created this mess – for help?
Too many of you old guys want to relive your glory days at the risk of the rest of us. Why screw around with just going back 20 years? Why not go back to horse drawn steam pumpers? Horse feed is cheaper than gas and maintenance on a fire engine, after all.
East County outgrew your combined District model. Simple fact. Some of you are having a really hard time accepting progress and evolution, apparently.
Volunteer simply does not work for this area anymore. You only want to paint a rosy picture claiming it worked great while leaving out a whole bunch of failures and details that don’t support your narrative.
It’s time to get with the 21st century. This desire of some of you to go back to 19th century service delivery methods isn’t going to help us out of this hole.
Buy a clue, I think you’re missing the point here and your steam pumper analogy is irrelevant. What is relevant is that this issue was studied and analyzed at great length. Nobody had a printing press to produce the money necessary to sustain any reasonable level of service from a full-career department. That model shouldn’t have seen the light of day because it wouldn’t (and clearly didn’t) work. Reality sucks, but it is what it is and it absolutely was predicted.
If your definition of progress is closing 70% of the stations, leaving whole communities virtually unprotected, skyrocketing insurance premiums, etc., then we definitely have different definitions of progress. Plus I’m not going to waste time arguing reality. We predicted it. It finally happened. It’s a gigantic mess.
15 years ago the Far East County originally wasn’t experiencing anything much different than at least a hundred other suburban communities undergoing growth. The difference here is that rather than engage in a calculated and sensible transition strategy, the Supes put all our (the taxpayers’) money on one high-risk roll of the dice, and “high risk” is an understatement. Then they shed responsibility for this mess by forming an independent district that they no longer had an obligation to support.
It’s virtually a guaranteed failure to impose a strategy that isn’t adequately funded based on the illusion that somehow revenues will magically appear when needed. I get it that the fire service models needed to adjust with the times. Since retiring, I consult on fire service models across the country so I understand this argument better than most people. Agencies serving growth and transitional areas have to evolve. But where the ECCFPD has gone down as one of the biggest boondoggles in years can be attributed to three things.
1. An assumption that the existing service models were outmoded and irrelevant in spite of hard data indicating the opposite.
2. A fixation on one unsustainable model, with that fixation ignoring revenue estimates, costs, impacts on service levels and impacts on ISO insurance ratings.
3. A total paradigm shift without regard to predictable disruptions to service delivery that even the experts from NFPA warned would likely occur.
The old three-district model was becoming obsolete however it was functional and had the then-Supes wanted it, that model could have been refocused toward an orderly transition to career-based services in the busier downtown areas with the historic on-call models still serving the less populated (and less revenue producing) communities of Byron, Bethel Island and Knightsen. That was the direction recommended by the Committee.
Using Bethel Island as the poster child of this failure, when they were their own fire district they had an ISO rating of 5. Now they are a 10. And soon the situation in both the rural and urban zones across ECCFPD will likely get exponentially worse.
There is no quick fix, no free lunch and it’s time to accept the fact that the Supes’ magic wand simply didn’t work.
I think what frustrates me most as a 40+ year fire service professional is that this “conversation” is still focused on butterflies, magic mushrooms and figuring out ways to extract more money from the taxpayers or from other tax-supported agencies. Unless the State Legislature decides to wade into the nightmare of reallocating property tax shares, which they are unlikely to do, then this fire district is going to have to live within its means. To do that everyone is going to have to drop this fixation about where more money could come from and address the more fundamental issue of service model corrections. I’m not saying that ECCFPD shouldn’t look for more revenue opportunities, but in reality the district has little influence over revenues. It has total influence over how what money they do get produces services.
It’s time to start looking at the addressable side of this problem. There are several functional options available. The district just has to start thinking outside it’s tunnel vision created box.
WHG, aka Mr. Lamm, you have a really odd and apparently poor understanding of the District. It doesn’t give me much comfort level that you also claim to hire yourself out as a consultant.
In 2015 you still don’t understand that it’s not the County’s responsibility to fund the fire department?
You claim no studies were done. FALSE
You claim that multiple fire houses were closed under the Supervisors: FALSE
You claim to understand the issue, but appear to be unaware that the District had 8 fire stations and a $6.5M reserve fund at the time it was handed over. But no mention of those facts in your rant?
In previous guest commentaries on this topic in The Press newspaper, you apparently couldn’t fathom why your California property taxes were 3x those of your Nevada properties.
So property VALUES on which those are calculated is that foreign a concept to you?
I’m sorry, but your analysis skills just based on the above tell me you’re not the guy this District needs mailing in suggestions on how to run the Department.
There was no “paradigm shift” as you claim. There was a transition in 2002 to a blended fire department, consisting of both professional and volunteer elements. Granted, if one is averse to change or just evolution as a concept, I can see how one would object to anything resembling change.
You left out any reference to any failures that the District was experiencing at the time under the all volunteer model. So you can’t claim you’re having an honest discussion on the merits, now can you?
You also left out the fact that significant cost SAVINGS were realized by the new aggregate District at the time of the consolidation. Why is that? Who in their right mind who claims to be an expert on the subject can’t grasp the administrative cost savings alone? Having 3 Chiefs was better than having 1? On what planet?
Revenue shortfalls were not ignored. Officials have been aware they existed going back two decades. How can you sit on a committee and be oblivious to that fact?
I could go on, but safe to say based on the above facts alone, you’re operating with an agenda. Either you are ignorant of some of the facts and the history or you are deliberately ignoring them. Which is it?
Lovely how some of you cherry pick, attempt to live in the past of 15 years ago and pretend like nothing has happened in that time which might have had significant material affect on the Department. That’s some cheap 20/20 hindsight you’re trying to sell there.
Wildhorseguy,
You wrote, “The difference here is that rather than engage in a calculated and sensible transition strategy, the Supes put all our (the taxpayers’) money on one high-risk roll of the dice, and “high risk” is an understatement. Then they shed responsibility for this mess by forming an independent district that they no longer had an obligation to support…There is no quick fix, no free lunch and it’s time to accept the fact that the Supes’ magic wand simply didn’t work.”
You failed to take into account:
1. The supervisors (county) has no and had no responsibility to run the district (California Gov. Code). Nor do they have any responsibility to run a fire department. This is a point which has been made here and at LAFCO.
2. The supervisors turned the district over to local control only after a consensus was reached that revenue could be better achieved through local control instead of moneys being collected from Martinez, (Board minutes).
3. District turned over, with all stations open and several million dollars in funding reserves. (County and district records).
4. District turned over to “local control” with stipulations (advised); Secure further revenue and move to an elected board. Contra Costa LAFCO
Which brings us to the following; The county and supervisors had no control over the new districts operations going forward as an independent district. The county had no control over how the new district spent down millions, and systematically shut down stations and it burned through the reserves the county had built up. There was no “shedding” of responsibility. You should know better. This is all public record.
There goes your “magic wand” theory (which was your “opinion” and not fact).
@ crazyhorseguy,
I was around back then, just like you. I reckon my memory is a bit better than yours appears to be.
Your story goes south because the logistics of east county have “evolved” since your ad hoc board has become nothing but a distant memory. Remember feller,all that occurred 20 years ago. Brentwood and Oakley and much of the unincorporated MAC’s moved on and pressed for local control. Did you forget about that cowboy? The local agencies haven’t, including LAFCO and the County who keep such records. Its all documented and all available for the askin’. If you doubt me call the executive officer of LAFCO or county supervisor Miss Mary Piepho, either one can explain it to you. Look around you. Brentwood ain’t what it used to be and neither is Oakley. They are all “growed up”.
Its been said several times but apparently your hearing is going: The county is not responsible for fire services. Never has been. Maybe when your on the tellyphone with LAFCO or the supervisor you can have that confirmed for yourself. Then and only then you may come upon the fact that it is the state proposition number 13 and a little thing called urban sprawl that puts us where we are today. That is, if you are lookin’ to play the blame game.
Get-a-long little doggie, this ain’t the 1980’s anymore.
Please stop wasting our time with ‘vollys. It ‘taint never gonna happen again.
“Station 51, closed. Station 53, closed. Station 54, closed. Station 57, closed. Station 58, closed. Station 94, closed. Station 95, closed. And the county’s position now is that the citizens shouldn’t be looking to the Board of Supes” – wildhorseguy
Hmmmm, haven’t all these stations closed while under the control of the new fire board? I’ve heard it on good authority that the county handed the district over in good health and with millions of $$$ in reserve funds. -me
I’m not the smartest guy in the room now that anon and buy a clue arrived. So anon and buy a clue, what your plan? How are you going to implement it? We see what you don’t like, and we see who you mock.
What’s your plan?
You’ve been right all along. You knew we would end up here, just as we have. You were right. Many times over, you were right and other people were wrong. So please tell us what your great idea is to move this forward. Something that is legally and politically possible. You have that idea, right?
When do you start the ball rolling on your idea? Or has it already begun? All the rest of us…we’re not as smart as you…so please let us know when your plan has fixed everything. And thanks! It couldn’t have happened without you!
And thank you for your service wildhorseguy. Anon and buy a clue will take it from here. They are the modern age wisdom guys who have the fix for our problems.
@…smartazz,
My plan? I don’t know about Buy a Clue but I never professed to have a working plan. I’m not sure there is a clear plan in anyone’s repertoire. Back to projecting are we? I’m not sure that us commoners get a vote in implementation (that would be the fire boards job), however we are entitled to pointing out inconsistencies false assumptions and inaccuracies. I believe you labeled it “mocking”. Maybe it is just that my patience has grown short with nameless individuals throwing up road blocks with worn out innuendos and previously dismissed recommendations. There is a common theme by those I “mock” and it is very transparent. I guess you haven’t figured out that my answers and comments are not meant or them, they are for everyone else who actually wants to separate the facts from the fiction. But there you go, overlooking the obvious.
We have been right on target for an array of reasons, however the primary reason is, we follow the issues and follow up on the details. You don’t. Have you checked with any of the agencies, county supervisors, or department heads? I’ll bet we all know the answers to that. The bigger question is WHY is it, that you don’t place those calls or make those contacts? Is it that you already know the answers to your questions-therefore you avoid it at all costs? You see, talk is cheap, especially on the internet. Unfortunately you waste our time by sitting behind a key board throwing up nonsensical scenarios that won’t fly. I choose to make better use of my time by going to the source(s), and actually finding out what we can and cannot do. My solution appears the same as your frustration. That works for me, does it work for you?
Another quick reply.
The original records from the committee are still safely stored so we don’t have to rely on memories. I’m a data guy. It’s all about facts and probabilities. Plus it’s intriguing to me how some people who weren’t in the room think they know more about what went on than the handful of us who actually sat down, crunched the numbers, and triple checked the results.
Not saying that the various views being expressed aren’t relevant. Just saying that the overall conversation regarding ECCFPD is greatly driven by tunnel vision. The full career model is clearly unsustainable. Conversely, a total on-call model would likely not have kept up with projected growth. What’s annoying here is that my argument is centered around the failure to engage in a calculated transition that statistically would have had a high chance of success. A couple of commenters want to twist that position into some sort of recommendation that the service should have been stuck in time. My point, proven by facts, is that when you’re going to change a model that is working but which you have reason to believe will become outmoded, you have to consider the data and make carefully calculated moves.
It’s nonsensical to argue about reality. This whole “my way is the only way even if it’s a complete failure” aspect goes nowhere. Successful transition is all about overall target planning while making constant adjustments as statistical data and finances dictate. That didn’t happen. The results are in.
Sorry the dream turned into a nightmare. We tried to shout out a warning, but the very same arguments I’m reading now (a la 19th century) illustrate the very mindset that precipitated this failure. People didn’t listen then and apparently some aren’t listening now.
Anon and BOC must be working for Sup Piepho damage control. Everything they say has been known yet they did nothing to stop it. They are a joke. What about when CDF was brought up and it would have saved the district 4 million? CDF would have kept 8 stations open and within budget. Those were full time firefighters. No said Piepho, her decision has put us here and that is fact. Give the district back to Piepho because she knows everything about running a fire district. Look at the enhanced service we have now.
You should change the alias from “very concerned” to “very clueless”.
The CDF citation was not apples to apples comparison. The RFP left out a crap ton of details. But that’s they way you clowns roll. Pitch an idea, but leave out the relevant stuff that doesn’t fit your BS.
If you think CDF can run this District with 8 stations on $11M you probably shouldn’t go outside without a helmet on. You’re clearly a hazard to yourself, if not others.
The District was handed to local control at the desire, if not insistence of local interests. It’s well documented. You should try re-reading the history rather than trying to rewrite it.
Hi, Very Concerned, At the risk of starting a whole new debate with some others, I’m in substantial agreement with your point of view. However this mess predates Sup. Piepho and Chief Henderson. It was precipitated by the likes of Donna Gerber, Federal Glover, Tom Powers and “We know what’s best for you” Gayle Uilkema. (I liked Sup. Uilkema but she drank the Kool Aid along with everyone else.) Follow a bad decision with politicians at various levels in this county who have an apparent reluctance to make difficult decisions and we see these kinds of results.
Here is where I’m going. Some folks are now saying that closing all but three fire stations was a difficult decision. It was not. It was a reaction to a situation that offered no immediate alternative. Those kinds of decisions are unpleasant but not all that difficult. Difficult is when the right decision for the citizens is not the popular one but you go ahead and do what is best anyway.
Sup. Piepho should take some heat over this business. I’m actually one of her supporters but nobody is perfect. This crash landing occurred in her back yard and somebody needs to stand up loud and clear and change the direction in which things are headed. Once again a few folks are stepping up and saying, “you can’t keep going this way” but the powers-at-be appear to want to continue pressing on into the abyss. And yes ultimately this is all the Fire Board’s responsibility, not Piepho’s, but someone needs to step up and take charge of this situation. Meanwhile the citizens get hosed with higher taxes or higher insurance premiums or both. Hey, what’s not to like here?
WHG, so you bought into Mark’s history rewrite? LOL. Did you guys collectively craft this in email?
Is there anything that has occurred in the last 15 years since your glory days that might have played a role in this crash?
Anything at all?
Your only solution appears to be expecting people to work for nothing, or at a minimum, very little. So far you have laid down a lot of verbage, with little indication that you understand CURRENT challenges of the District with respect to available manpower, infrastructure limitations for timely response, current training requirements or the costs of your proposed plan.
On the last point we really don’t have to speculate. There was cost savings realized with the consolidation. Logic would say going backwards reintroduces that added cost.
You feel free to produce any study or document which says otherwise. Opinions need not apply.
Your volunteer model isn’t going to work trying to answer 7k calls per year. Period. Don’t cite that NYFD nonsense you did 2 years ago, because that’s flat out disingenuous and leaves out massive context.
The “taking charge” portion here starts with engagement by the community. Getting them the full facts and the accurate history. Not just the cherry picked portions you’re citing to suit your agenda.
The residents need to decide if they want a fire district that responds with something approaching industry standards for response times.
-or-
Do they want to go down the path you are on and do it as cheaply as possible with service quality becoming a secondary consideration.
That question has not been clearly answered. The ballot measure went down due to apathy and a lack of information. One does not have to speculate on this fact. One needs only read the social media chatter of the last 2 weeks.
Progress is a forward looking. Understanding you can’t fund a modern fire district with a flawed, nearly 40 year old funding formula is not particularly difficult. But you seem to struggle with the concept.
@ Wildhorse,
I appreciate your perspective even though you have moved on (Nevada isn’t it?), but some views remain more relevant than others. Let’s not forget that while important, your meetings & your group were only a small part of a much bigger process. The fact remains a volunteer department no longer fits and hasn’t for quite some time. This district currently calls for 10 stations staffed with full time firefighters. Rest assured, all of the records and reports beyond your ad hoc group are also safely stored in the County and with Lafco. Based on your opening comments, you are in the dark over what has taken place and just how many people and agencies have been involved. This district has actually been analyzed through many in depth reports, however they all say the same thing. The district has a revenue problem, period. It’s less about “my way” and more about what is acceptable as it relates to current laws and standards. Think LAFCO and CAL OSHA.
@ Very concerned,
I don’t work for anyone but myself. On the other hand, every time you are boxed into a corner by the facts, you conveniently disconnect from the topic and attack supervisor Piepho or the county. Maybe you missed the memo but she and the county hasn’t had anything to do with the fire department for 10 years now. Even back then, she was the supervisor along with supervisor Glover that was finally able to hand over the district to local control. This was something we all had been asking for and Piepho and Glover were able to accomplish it. Somehow you are wrapped around the axle in blaming the only people that have moved the district along. It takes a special kind of stupid to turn a success into blame. The real joke is how you’ve ignored the 10 year’s worth of blunders which has been brought to us by “local control” of the district while focusing on your own fictitious scenarios. It has been explained to you why CDF was rejected, many times. Either you don’t want to accept it or you are playing ignorant. But there you are, still bringing it up. You also want to ignore the fact that CDF is not exactly an apples to apples comparison. They work on a differing schedule than municipal firefighters which has them working for peanuts. Never mind that your “plan” would violate existing contracts and displace the very firefighters that have been bending over backwards for east county. Not to mention it is illegal to try to bump them out of a job. I’ll wager legality, ethnics, data, government and reality are not your strong points. Where you have succeeded, is getting us all off point again. You are like a virtual circle jerk moving the topic back to the 3 or 4 issues that have long been dismissed and ending with an attack on the county supervisors. Let me demonstrate for those that don’t already know your end game: Volunteers, bad union, pension reform, overpaid firefighters, blame Mary Piepho/county….repeat.
Sorry, Mr. “Concerned” but that parlor trick has come to an end. Game over.
Anon, to be fair you raise a few valid points but IMO you miss the mark on context. What you describe is a revenue problem I describe as operating within one’s means. The reality is simple. It’s very difficult to change revenues. It is within the district’s ability to change operations, which it is currently doing in a bad way. Our original argument was to not start hiring people at near-poverty wages and lull the citizens into a false sense of security. The priority was to nail down the finances first, then start staffing up. It’s one thing for guys to turn out to calls on their time off from their regular jobs. Career personnel need respectable wages and to not have to work a half dozen overtime days to make ends meet. Everyone apparently got hurt in this deal.
And since you mentioned Nevada, yes most of my holdings are now in Nevada which is a natural segue to a model that works – Central Lyon County Fire District. It covers more territory than ECCFPD from 7 stations, serves a population of about half that of ECCFPD, and has about 1/3 the tax base in an area that is very similar to the far east county. Right after Y2K Lyon County was one of the top-ten counties in per capita growth. Then typical of the boom or bust cycle, during the economic collapse it became the 6th most financially stressed county in the country. Property values fell and so did tax revenues.
That fire district was based on a more dynamic structure than ECCFPD. They kept all stations open although the more rural stations were volunteer. They kept their ISO rating, maintained paramedic service, provided both BLS and ALS ambulance service, maintained a Type-1 Technical Rescue company, and they still provide free fuels management (weed abatement) service for seniors and disabled residents. Like everyone else they had a revenue problem but they didn’t spend beyond their means as their service model allowed them to adapt without causing significant disruptions to street-level services. Now that revenues are on an upswing, they are able to add additional career staff. Pretty stark comparison to ECCFPD.
One concern I have is that if ECCFPD sinks, then the line personnel may sink with it. The district could well reorganize and contract to CAL FIRE for service. It’s legal and it has happened in a number of other places. How would that change affect the remaining ECCFPD employees? Everyone really needs to quit arranging deck chairs and focus on righting the ship.
It all boils down to simple math involving facts and probabilities. You may call some of us out as old timers but those formulas never really change and we still use them all the time in agencies much more complex than ECCFPD.
Damn! Anon doesn’t have a plan! I guess it’s up to buyaclue to save us. Ok, what’s the plan buyaclue?
Just to clear things up. 5 different fire agencies including CALFire(no longer known as CDF) were asked if they would be interested in consolidation with ECCFPD. They all declined. So please let go of the consolidation fantasy. It is just not going to happen. No fire agency would take on that kind of financial liability.
David hit the nail right on the head. Financial liability. No responsible agency would assume the liability through a consolidation with ECCFPD. On the other hand the district could contract for services. That happens all the time. Not saying it should be done. Just saying it’s done. The city I grew up in fell on hard times and CAL FIRE now provides their municipal protection. Sometimes CAL FIRE makes an offer that a local agency can’t refuse.
So here are the elements in play. The California Government Code (Gov §§ 38600 – 38611) requires general law cities to provide a fire department although that responsibility can be delegated to a fire protection district, through a contract, etc. The CGC is pretty vague with respect to the level of service required and gives broad discretion to city councils.
Counties do not have to operate a fire department but they can form a county department, create dependent districts, create independent districts and they can enter into contracts. (The creation of districts also involves LAFCO but for brevity I’ll stick to basics.) The county has responsibility over dependent districts, but not over independent districts.
Also, as stated by multiple people, the apportionment of property taxes (which agencies got what parts of the pie) were frozen following Prop 13. There were winners and losers in the east county with the fire districts being the losers.
The cities opted to not operate their own fire departments which was allowable given that there were fire protection districts in place. The county shed its responsibilities by maneuvering the consolidation of the former dependent fire protection districts into a single independent district. In a sense the fire services in the far east county were set adrift with minimum financing and no serious commitment to a business plan or operational structure that was sustainable. I could go on for pages about how some people pulled strings and manipulated reality to produce this boondoggle but for the most part they’re long gone so the only lesson there is to avoid repeating history. (Also the LAFCO records contain just a fraction of the historical records and data. A lot of stuff not favorable to the timing and structure of the consolidation never made it to LAFCO. Big surprise there.)
We could beat history to death, so the question now becomes what happens next?
From a purely business standpoint, the argument comes down to what service model is the most cost-effective (status quo, restructuring, contracting for fire protection, etc.?) Then there’s the community relationship issue. The community and local fire personnel should have some kind of relationship that may not favor displacement of the members who have served them.
If the numbers were to work, Oakley’s location could facilitate its withdrawal from ECCFPD and joining up with Con Fire. If Oakley is going to be drawing on Battalion 8 resources they might as well be paying into Con Fire’s system. If that happened, Brentwood could apply to withdraw and operate its own fire department. By doing that the city would have some discretion as to how local tax revenues were spent. Given the current state of affairs, Brentwood might have a valid argument for such a move. These examples are all hypothetical of course, but there is the issue of defining acceptable risks and evaluating how various options might fit.
None of these observations are intended to suggest that the revenue side of this issue shouldn’t be addressed. But you don’t have much control over revenue. You have a lot of control over functional options.
WHG, that was a whole lotta deck chair rearranging on your part in that post.
You keep trying to escape the inescapable. You cannot serve up professional fire services in California for a suburban area in 2015 for, on average, 6.5 cents on the property tax dollar.
You can slice it and dice it and throw out more anecdotal comments without proper context. It isn’t going to change that fact one iota.
I don’t care if you’re talking ConFire, CalFire, or Billy Bob’s bucket brigade. You won’t get it done with 6.5 cents when all comparable Districts are doing it for 2x that amount and STILL have fiscal threats of their own. I speaking to both ConFire and CalFire, who have ongoing budget pressures and will have to fight off cuts into the foreseeable future.
In the late 1970s gasoline was around 30 cents a gallon. So in the interest of putting cost first, you must run around all day trolling gas stations still looking for that 30 cent gas, right? I mean since you can’t fathom that goods and service pricing models of the 70s still work for fire, you must apply that in your daily life to consumables too, right?
Well if you don’t, what the hell are you doing insisting government services are immune to market pressures and modified pricing models? It’s completely illogical.
In the rebuild process, we need to stop the stupid, repetitive, down the rabbit hole debates. The volunteer idea has been to death here. We are not going to revisit it every time someone who was been asleep or disengaged for 15 years or just didn’t like the answer waltzes into the room and throws it against the wall for the 50th time. You want the reasons why it doesn’t work in 2015 here, the answers are well documented. Look them up yourself rather than expecting others to spoon feed you.
Professional services at an acceptable level will not be served up for 6.5 cents on the dollar. Many, many, many people have looked at this for years. If you think you’re smarter than all of them, you better bring something better than some anecdote about how you saw a CalFire contract go down. That’s lame. That’s a complete waste of our time. It’s also disingenuous.
Applications to leave the District played out multiple times in the 13 years since the District was formed. All were rejected.
As for your deployment strategies, none of those adequately serve the residents and there is absolutely no mention of the unincorporated areas. Perhaps this was just your long winded lead in to promotinig a march backwards to volunteer.
It wasn’t working in 2002. It’s ludicrous to suggest it would work today with more residents, more calls and more congestion.
Oakley is not adequately served by just a single station. Brentwood is not adequately served with just 2. Discovery Bay is barely served by one and absolutely can’t deal with secondary or major incidents with just one. That’s all the money supports at this time. That is at ECCFPD rates. Not ConFire or CalFire contracted rates, both of which are much higher.
The first thing that needs to take place is to resolve once and for all the ideological problem. If you’re going to insist public agencies do it on the cheap, pay their people crap wages or lose their pensions because some rightwing tool can’t stand modern services cutting into his beer money, then we are not even having a serious discussion. Accept the crappy service levels, move on and shut up if the consequences turn around and bite you.
But if you want to live in a modern country, with modern levels of public safety response, you’re going to have to accept that it costs money. A broken 35 year old funding model isn’t going to get it done. You are going to have to come up with additional money. Either by taking from someone else who shares in those property tax dollars or by putting more into the revenue stream with a tax increase.
There’s your cold, hard A or B choice.
You were right with one thing. No free lunch. That includes the completely bogus suggestions of volunteers simply working for little or nothing. Modern training and liability issues won’t allow it. The sooner people become clear on that the sooner the discussion can move toward a solution.
If you’re going to continue this exchange then get a better grasp of the laws and the County’s actual responsibility and role, not your perceived version of it. We aren’t even having a serious discussion when you’re making it up as you go. Stick to the facts and what’s possible rather than wasting more time on outdated models which no longer fit the areas we’re trying to serve.
WHG,
Thank you for being sensible. You can tell by the comments who is pro union, who is pro political, and who is for just themselves. They have tried the same thing over and over with the same result. What everyone needs to realize is what makes the most logic. Who cares about the frigin union or the frigin supervisor. Obviously both are poison to this district. Time to try a whole new different approach. The district must do anything and everything to live within its means. There is no golden egg. The key factor is the district is working for the people within it borders. Not the union and not the politicians. The faster it realizes this the faster it can move forward. The people have said three times, live within your means or give it back to the county. Enough said.
Here we go again…
And once again the “distraction” circling is completed. Nice job people, I hope that little exercise in “what you think you know” felt good, because jaw jacking on the Internet is worthless. Think you can just say to hell with the union? Think you can just say to hell with the Supervisor. Think you can just say to hell with the District? Think you can say to hell with LAFCO? Think again.
Like it or not there are rules, and laws which govern how we operate in a civilized society-so while you are angry that this “process” is going over and over, it’s actually the comments that are repeating themselves.
The problem is many of the commenters think they know better. They don’t. Hell, most of them can’t (or won’t) even pick up a phone and contact the people who make the decisions; the district, the supervisors, LAFCO. No, they just cling to out dated philosophies, and trumped up personal ideas which have long been dismissed.
Thinking you can ignore the rules or the people that apply them is a foolish exercise.
WHG, Brentwood and Oakley can never split from the district-ever. It’s been explained many, many times. Don’t believe me? Call LAFCO and have them explain it to you. They have already explained it to Brentwood-twice. CalFire is not an option. Call CalFire and have them explain it to you. They already have-several times.
Get over it, the district is now living within its means. The question is, will the citizens of east county accept that as a level of service. The answer is no. The district is a ticking time bomb. The only solution is increased revenue through a permanent fee/fund/tax. One that sunsets will not fix this. A Benifit Assessment District will not fix this. Having 3 stations will not serve the people of this entire district no matter where they are placed. A real and honest Parcel tax is the fix, plain and simple. If you want throw in a legislative fix (possibly tied to the census) to adjust local apportionment discrepencies, but that should be a long term goal since the current legislators haven had enough pressure put on them to get off the dime. There is your solution. There is your golden egg.
What is interesting is the selective interpretation of the “rules” that keeps coming forward. There are procedures that must be followed but the argument that the district has little choice but hose the taxpayers is fantasy. One can simply look across the state at how other entities have adjusted to see that’s not true. All this bluster seems to be a smoke screen to distract from the fact that the current debacle originally started out as an overtime padding scheme. (If anyone wants to start down that road I’m ready to come out guns blazing.)
Moving away from history, the current apportionment of property taxes is certainly not fair. However fairness is a pipe dream. I wouldn’t lay odds for ECCFPD beating back the efforts by ALL the other agencies to prevent the fire district from getting its hands on some of their revenues. The citizens pressuring legislators to make the tax divisions more equitable to prop up the fire district would certainly have the moral high ground, but the probabilities suggest a near-sunami of agencies, unions and citizen-supporters of those other agencies coming out to protect their interests. It certainly is unfair to expect far east county citizens to pay more for less fire service than is enjoyed in other areas of the county, but as a former County Administrator once said, “These people live out in the frontier. They’re used to hardship.”
There definitely is financial inequity but fairness seldom carries the day. And the far east county isn’t the only area that has experienced such troubles.
Plus I have to ask those posting comments who seem to think they know it all, if you do know it all why do you stay stuck with the mind set that the only solution involves generating more money, especially given recent events where that “solution” has also been added to the string of failures. A change in direction is clearly warranted.
At 08:00 Hrs. this morning I listened to Station 94, and all of the resources available out of that station, report their going “out of service” to the communications center. Another one bites the dust. At some point the the engineers behind this mess need to be held to account.
WHG, in other words, you can’t address anyone else’s points and you will instead engage in an ad nauseum argument that is centered around union bashing and your desire for volunteer fire departments. The same concept that no volunteers stepped forward to support when applications were solicited last year.
So tell us, in your world is it still considered volunteer if you force people to sign up for something they show no interest in?
It’s time for you to post an example of a comparable fire District getting it done with $10M in revenue available to them. If you can’t, then you are simply wasting everyone’s time with another tired attempt of outdated idea rehashing.
Wildhorseguy,
“What is interesting is the selective interpretation of the “rules” that keeps coming forward.”
-Not selective interpretation, simple interpretation of the relevant real world facts. You can’t seem to get past that I guess. No matter, you don’t make decisions and those that do, know the rules.
“One can simply look across the state…”
-It’s been done, and the results confirm exactly what I have said. Where were you during the process?
“the current apportionment of property taxes is certainly not fair”
-Taxes were never meant to be “fair”. Look it up. If you can’t get past that, then you don’t really grasp how taxes work in the United States.
“Plus I have to ask those posting comments who seem to think they know it all, if you do know it all why do you stay stuck with the mind set that the only solution involves generating more money”
-Given the set of circumstances that we have to work with, it is the only solution. Period. Once voters are armed with all of the facts which has not happened yet, the decision is relatively simple. What we are dealing with is a circle of failed campaigns, special interest groups who purposely have circulated bad information and certain individuals that are stuck in the past, and wish to have services provided for free. They claim there is another model BUT fail to provide details that will work under the current laws and challenges that affect our fire department. Sound familiar? The change of direction that is needed is a better campaign to educates voters. From what I hear each and every day, they are ready and waiting for it. As soon as the first catastrophic incident occurs, they will demand it.
“At some point the the engineers behind this mess need to be held to account.”
-In the real world, that would be the voters and the district directors. Now, let’s move past the blame game, educate on real and current data and move forward to properly funding a base level of service.
WHG, I know exactly who you are, and I honestly believe you are somewhat educated about the situation, but you are missing key points. None of that matters. What does matter, is you are floating a pipe dream of how things should be, when in reality you are adding to the distraction by not accepting how things are. I believe your piecemeal knowledge is hindering your ability to process a bigger picture. If your goal is to distract, please know that it will not continue through me. If your goal is to help, you might wish to try a different angle. Even Orinda/Moraga has its share of unresolved problems.
BAC,
This is where you look like a story tellin liar. There were over sixty applicants in the real short application period. This was stopped by people like you. It is also Important and hushed that the district was sued for illegal employment practices to the existing volunteers that were fired. The fire district will pay them off because they are wrong just like you.the truth is hard for your lying lips Clue.
VC, that’s a lot to unpack there, Bud.
So you’re telling us on the day the District cut 25% of their stations due to a lack of money that former volunteers are suing them for the little money they have left?
That’s your idea of being team players? Are you going to force them to 2 stations because you want a handout?
How is that not as bad a lifting a dead guy’s wallet?
Very concerned,
So explain to show you “fire” a volunteer? Then for bonus points, how is that a compensable labor action? Then please let us know where you studied for the bar. Was it Devry?
A little thing called public record tells anyone with a lick of sense that you are a “story telling liar”.
Dear “Clueless,” Try reading. I already gave one working example that can be verified. Your assertion that I desire volunteer fire departments is as senseless as your side’s erroneous claims about LAFCO, contracts and other options. My argument is to simply advance a model that the statistics project will work, which is in fact a compromise between the two extremes. However here is another option that has been widely used. (Lifted from Santa Cruz County LAFCO, but the same references and statutes apply.)
3.1 State Contracting
The Public Resources Code (PRC) authorizes CAL FIRE to enter into cooperative fire protection agreements where there are economic and social benefits to the people of the state. This allows a local government to contract with CAL FIRE to provide year-round fire protection services. CAL FIRE may provide personnel for command, administration, training, fire prevention, or emergency command center services. Under an Amador Plan agreement (PRC §4144), existing CAL FIRE personnel provide contract off-season fire protection services within a local area from CAL FIRE facilities used to protect SRAs.
The local government bears the cost for extended staff availability beyond the fire season, unplanned overtime, operating expenses and an administrative charge. A major change that went into effect July 1, 2006 places rank-and-file fire protection personnel on year-round duty. The State will now cover the costs during the non-fire season of three permanent employees (Fire Captain or Fire Apparatus Engineer staff type) and the local government is required to provide two firefighters. This ensures a minimum two- person staffing on each engine in an Amador Plan agreement.
A local government may also contract with CAL FIRE to provide year-round structural fire protection and emergency response services through a Schedule A agreement (PRC §4142). The local government owns the facilities and equipment; the personnel are provided by CAL FIRE and are employees of the State. The agreement stipulates service levels and costs for personnel, equipment maintenance, utilities, and other operating costs.
Under both types of agreements, CAL FIRE provides the administration and supervision of all staff. Salaries and expense rates are established by the State and are not negotiable.
Moving on, if you think its in your interest to provoke me into “union bashing,” then push me on that subject and watch what comes next.
Willis give it a rest. You are clearly out of your league. Spreading outdated and incorrect informationd is creating an unnecessary side show. It’s partially what got us into this mess.
I thought you were smarter than that.
WHG, you have a major comprehension problem.
Nobody claimed that they couldn’t contract.
The point was to contract you have to be able to pay what CalFire requires. This District doesn’t have the money. The cost to operate a station under CalFire contract would be higher than it is now.
Talk about going down a dead end street……
You can bash the Union, the Girl Scouts or the Oakland Raiderettes for all I care. They have nothing to do with a broken funding model.
WHG, I am going to leave this link here. It is the NFPA 1500, 1720, 1851 implementation standards for fire service. These are standards for ALL firefighters volunteer included and 1720 specifically addresses volunteers. If you think that just having volunteers is as easy as people just signing up and then yeehaw they are running calls, then you are dead wrong. There is extensive initial training(academy) and recurring training that must occur to maintain the standard. The old days are long gone. These are the days of standards and OSHA compliance in regards to IDLH(look it up) atmospheres. You can’t just hand old equipment to volunteers, you have to have current equipment and make sure that it doesn’t time out. There is an enormous initial and ongoing expense, granted, cheaper than full time firefighters however there is no guarantee that these volunteers will even show up to calls or will keep up their training. Last time the district put out a request for volunteers they got very little interest. Maybe volunteers in a support role would work.
Yes, Money is the solution for the district. Did you have another magical solution because we are all waiting to here it.
http://www.nfpa.org/~/media/Files/Press%20Room/StandardsGuide150017201851.pdf
Buy A Clue,
I know WHG and he has more credentials in fire suppression in his baby toe than you will ever have in your lifetime. Don’t fool yourself with your own nonsense. This guy has experience and credentials. I am honored that he even spent time to parlay your idiocy.
Get over it,
I know both WHG and BAC, and let’s just say BAC knows more about this situation than WHG. It’s you that has no clue.
I’m not the smartest guy in the room, but lots of people have pointed out that the County is not responsible for our fire protection services. Why does anyone look to them to help with the costs of fire protection? That’s a waste of time.
And the 6.5 cents per tax dollar that is locked in for fire protection is low and should be adjusted, but for now that’s all there is.
Key point – 85% of the district’s operating budget, and a similar amount of pension liabilities, comes from EMS service provided by district resources. It is for that the county should be forced to pay because EMS is the county’s responsibility.
ECCFPD is a CCC Health Service provider that also, but rarely, engages in fire protection services. By all rights, it should be run and funded by the county and the county should bill the district (that account with our 6.5 cents on the dollar) either per call or some other reasonable value. There is plenty of tax money to fund fire service here, and we could even expand the services and bring the salaries up to par. We just don’t have enough to fund our fire protection responsibilities AND the county’s EMS.
smartest guy
you’re not
you need an intervention on the glue sniffing or whatever your substance abuse of choice is this week
Dear …smartest guy in the room…
We didn’t really need you to tell us your not the smartest guy in the room. Your problem is obvious.
Thanks for that.
I’m not going to get into a credentials contest other than to say that I don’t get to spend much time retired because I’m constantly being dragged back to consult and do reviews for large and small agencies across the country, develop response protocols, reorganize departments, conduct training, and I get pressed back into active service by the state for regional technical rescue responses and as a group supervisor for major fire incidents. I was THE fire service representative to the American Water Works Association and helped develop today’s hydrant standards. If you look, you’ll see a little of my work in some of the fire service training books and I’m one of the people that some of the NFPA drafts get sent to for comment before they get published. So I have a wee bit more than basic knowledge of this stuff. But let’s get back to the real issue here because this conversation may be finally getting focused.
An effective fire officer sizes up a situation, evaluates risks and probabilities, and picks a strategy that can produce the most desirable outcome (or the least undesirable outcome.) In an immediate need situation, you don’t waste time on elements where you have little or no impact. Observe – Think – Decide – Act – Evaluate.
In the ECCFPD situation the revenue stream (money) is a factor, but it is not an element that can be immediately addressed. So everyone can wring their hands and say how terrible things are or get their butts in gear and get to work on those elements that can be addressed.
In a “bare bones” service model two elements tend to drive decisions, medical responses and protecting insurance rates. Over 50% of a typical fire agency’s emergency responses are medical – rescue. Insurance rates are important because they impact the disposable incomes of the citizens (cumulatively strip a lot of money from the local economy) and people who are getting financially hammered left and right aren’t prone to voluntarily raise their taxes.
Medical – rescue is a no-brainer. Disburse as many small crews as you can across the territory to provide shorter arrival times and reduce the size of service gaps when companies become committed to incidents and are unavailable. Fire protection, at least addressing the insurance rates aspect, can work the same way.
Let’s look at the standards, again taken from a LAFCO report.
3.3 Insurance Service Office Protection Class Rating
The Insurance Service Office (ISO) rating determines risk based on a number of factors within a specified service area, including fire protection resources, infrastructure and service area characteristics. The ISO evaluates local fire protection capabilities in service areas and assigns a protection class rating from 1 to
10. Class 1 represents exemplary fire protection, and Class 10 indicates that the area’s fire-suppression program does not meet the ISO’s minimum criteria. Split ratings are common; the first class usually applies to properties within five road miles of a fire station and within 1,000 feet of a fire hydrant. The second class applies to properties beyond five road miles of a fire station with no fire hydrants.
The ISO requires that minimum facilities and standards be in place before an area is rated:
▪ The community must have a fire department, organized permanently under applicable state or local laws. The organization must include one person responsible for the operation of the department, usually with the title of “Chief.”
▪ The fire department must serve an area with definite boundaries. If a community does not have a fire department operated solely by or for the governing body of that community, the fire department providing such service must do so under legal contract or resolution. When a fire department’s service area involves more than one community, each of the communities served should have a contract.
▪ The department must have sufficient membership to assure the response of at least four members to fires in structures. The chief may be one of the responding members.
▪ The fire department must conduct training for active members, at least two hours every two months.
▪ Alarm facilities and arrangements must be such that there is no delay in the receipt of alarms and the dispatch of firefighters and apparatus.
▪ The department must have at least one piece of apparatus meeting the general criteria of National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) Standard 1901, Automotive Fire Apparatus.
▪ The department must house apparatus to provide protection from the weather.
Years ago Merced County took this concept to an extreme, placing on person in each of five stations and sending all five engines to calls. I’m not saying that this was a great service model, but it did address the ISO 5-mile distance issue, got more water to the scene in a rural area and amazingly it did work in that specific environment. Not saying that model should be applied in the east county. Just saying how some issues can be addressed when money gets tight. ECCFPD may very well be able to restructure its daily personnel deployment in order to more strategically maximize its ability to address both the medical-rescue element and the ISO standards. Why this hasn’t already been done is somewhat of a puzzle.
More contemporary models use career personnel backed up by on-call personnel. At yesterday’s Theresa fire (San Martin, Santa Clara County) career companies based as far away as San Jose responded with Type 1 and Type 3 engines for structure protection while the Incident Commander (CAL FIRE) ordered the county’s volunteer stations to be called up to supply water tenders and wildland engines. The depth of coverage available facilitated strategies and tactics that produced efficient control of the fire and no loss of structures.
I also intend to dispel another pernicious myth perpetrated by some of the career people relating to on-call / volunteer fire fighters. They can and do meet the standards all across the country. New York City has the largest fire department in the country. The FDNY system still has two volunteer companies in the less populated borough of Staten Island known as “Richmond” and “Oceanic.” As long as they perform effectively, the Fire Commissioner can concentrate his career personnel in the higher value districts.
Fallon, NV is the economic hub of Churchill County. The Fallon / Churchill County Volunteer Fire Department has a protection class rating of 1 – the best a fire department can get. According to the county their average response time is under 6 minutes. Given that the department serves the entire county with the exception of the Naval Air Station (over 5,000 square miles – over 6 times the size of all of Contra Costa County,) that’s a very good average response time.
There are lots of service models out there that adapt to local finances and conditions. still provide effective initial responses to the most prevalent incidents, and have enough depth to control significant threats. They just didn’t get caught up in tunnel vision.
Gotta get back to the analyses I’m actually getting paid to do.
Wildhorseguy,
Hope you didn’t spend much time on that.
No more than I have to Anon. (That’s not really true but it sounded good.)
So here’s the point in all of this. And yes, funding is an issue but it’s not something that’s likely to be immediately addressable.
Agencies sometimes make bad strategic decisions and get into trouble. It happens all the time. The ones that survive either adapt, get absorbed or go under. If an agency has enough tax revenue but has just been poorly managed, another agency may come along and absorb it (consolidation.) But few fire protection agencies nowadays have enough spare cash to take on others suffering negative cash flows so I don’t see Con Fire or Valley jumping at the chance to absorb ECCFPD. So that leaves adapt or go under.
Go under can take a couple of forms. Years ago in San Joaquin County a fire district went under. They still collected taxes (like the Los Medanos Hospital District did) but closed its doors. The district couldn’t dissolve because of retirement benefit obligations to the former employees. It had a little residual cash that it threw at Stockton to send an engine if there was a fire in the district.
ECCFPD is a little more complicated in that the Government Code requires the general law cities to provide a fire department (although it doesn’t really specify what the department has to do.) Therefore ECCFPD can’t just close down. Plus some entity has to remain active to protect the continuation of the fire tax allocation, as meager as it might be. So walking away from the problem isn’t a real option.
So the argument rolls back to how to approach the immediately addressable issues such as EMS-rescue and keeping the ISO protection class from hitting rock bottom. (Address these issues and you also patch up the fire response issue.) At this point there are two relevant choices, adapt or give up and let CAL FIRE take over under contract. To be realistic the numbers have to work in both instances. CAL FIRE typically acts as a labor contractor. The district still has to provide stations, apparatus, equipment and pay the operational bills. There have to be sufficient revenues after what CAL FIRE charges to cover these other expenses. In many jurisdictions the numbers do work and CAL FIRE provides the crews. In some others there wasn’t that much benefit, so CAL FIRE isn’t the fix-all that a few folks believe it to be. But it is a “fix some.”
So then we need to look at what ECCFPD could do itself. The classic model that serves hundreds of similar jurisdictions involves staffing all the stations that the agency can afford to staff with career personnel, then make up the difference with on-call personnel (volunteers, paid-on-call, whatever) to fill the gap between what the agency can provide and minimum necessary coverage.
Where the combination model becomes effective is when there are career crews stationed in critical locations to provide immediate responses to medical calls, rescues, initial fire responses, etc., and the on-call crews serve as force multipliers in situations where they roll out following the initial responders, and when they can keep rural stations active that don’t justify career staffing when there aren’t enough career personnel to go around. ISO standards state that the department has to field a minimum of four personnel, but it doesn’t say from where. So long as responses from the on-call stations are reasonably consistent, any shortfall in the “minimum count” would be made up by the career personnel who would be automatically dispatched anyway.
Other issues that have to be considered include return to service times, personnel fatigue and competitive wages and benefits. Yesterday Station 93’s crew (Oakley) was out of service for an extended period of time waiting for an ambulance because at the same time Con FIre had a major accident on Lone Tree Way that was sucking up ambulance resources. Then the Brentwood engine went out on a medical. Unless the district initiated call-back (an expensive proposition) that left only Station 59 covering the entire district unless 93s crew were to abandon its call. On-call personnel could have relieved 93’s crew so that they would be available to take higher priority calls, and if the career companies were likely to be tied up for an extended period of time, an on-call crew could be paged up to provide additional district coverage.
Career first responders need relief during long duration incidents, particularly in extreme weather. My expectation is that Con Fire isn’t going to happily send lots of resources to ECCFPD for long periods of time so either the on-duty personnel will be overworked (with the likelihood of higher injury and comp incidents) or there will be expensive call-back for overtime. The on-call responders should not displace bringing career personnel back during significant events, but they can fill a number of useful roles and do so cost-effectively.
As just a personal note, I’d rather see fewer appropriately paid and appropriately cared-for career fire personnel than a plethora of personnel who earn little more than poverty wages and need to spend their free time working second jobs instead of on career development and advancement. While some may argue that regional fire fighter salaries and benefits have gone a bit high, we are in a very competitive market and while ECCFPD may seem like it’s out in the sticks, without competitive wages and benefits it can operate more as a taxpayer funded fire training school than a career-long department. All of these issues have to be considered.
Especially when money gets tight, static models produce a number of shortcomings. Statistically dynamic service models are much more real-time adaptive, but everyone has to commit to making the model work in order to produce the highest level of service for the investment.
Aaaaaaaaaand we’re back.
To realizing the District has no money to fund anything beyond the 9 guys it puts on the street in a given shift. All that verbage and you couldn’t even do a rudimentary study of how you would pay those POCs?
Serious studies and proposals always including a funding or fiscal analysis. You missed.
WHG, in your own words, “So long as responses from the on-call stations are reasonably consistent,”. Which history has shown didn’t work. That was when it was tried on the small scale in Knightsen/Oakley and handfuls of calls went unanswered.
But you think taking the broken model and scaling it up to the whole District is the answer. So instead of a handful of calls going unanswered, we can have many more.
If that isn’t insanity I’ve never read it.
How about instead of wearing out the fingers in a hunt and peck typing exercise, you take the hundreds, if not thousands of man hours and educate the public. Well, not you, per se, because you don’t seem to have a very solid handle on revenue flows and legal responsibilities under existing law. But have someone who does get a campaign going. If you educate the voters with FACTS rather than opinions, you can turn some of the misinformed around and capture some in the middle who don’t know any better.
The ideologues on the fringe are lost cases. They say “No” to any new tax or fee, even to their detriment in Pavlovian fashion. They expect, if not demand the services, but don’t want to pay for them. Modern day welfare queens, basically.
One only has to read the comments in social media. People railing on Food Stamps, bullet trains and Section 8. If you abolished every one of those programs tomorrow it would not add a single dime to the fire service budget. But they vote against fire in what amounts to a temper tantrum because of their dislike for other areas of government.
Perhaps your efforts would gain more results if you drug those people, kicking and screaming if necessary, into a stage of enlightenment.
Wildhorse has basically explained in real words and terms what the model of this district was to be through LAFCO several years ago. Now that we have made full circle, wasted 12 years, and accrued a debt of 10 plus millions of dollars to unfunded liabilities and benefits. It is time to consider reality and stop this dance around that is putting real lives at real risk because the commission is allowing political pressure to make its decisions for them. Paid on Call can be a benefit as Wildhorse comments. It can also be a benefit to the career firefighters allowing for more revenue to be applied to the career firefighter salaries. The other alternative is a look at CDF again. I prefer to see the career firefighters whom most came from POC’s work with POC’s to supplement there burden and help keep the ISO ratings down. This is not rocket science.This attitude that career is better than non career is endangering not only the public but those career firefighters themselves through over work and fatigue. Time to get a combined team together for the purpose of saving lives and property. It worked well before, it works now in other areas, and it can work in this area. Stop risking lives and property when we all know the only solution is a combination district as was the original intent until permanent funds are secured. The ISO rating was 3 and 4 with both career and POC’s in East County. It can be again with some real teamwork.
Vince Wells, I challenge you to assist in making this happen. You are a smart person and know you have done the math making this the only real solution. You are a key player in this situation.
John, since you want to either forget history or try to rewrite it, let’s have a little refresher. From the last MSR report on fire for East County:
“Oakley FPD had relied on on-call firefighters rather than staffed
stations.167 During the five-year period when it was part of ConFire, the Oakley area was served by a
separate Oakley Reserve unit of ConFire. According to a 1998 report prepared by a fire review
committee appointed by former Supervisor Canciamilla, the reorganization was premature, lacked
the support of the local community, did not achieve service level improvements or economic
benefits, and had “resulted in a severe degradation of the morale of the paid, on-call firefighters
within the Oakley Reserve Division.” The County initiated detachment of Oakley and Hotchkiss
Tract from ConFire to “separate the dissimilar fire district operations (i.e., the fully staffed, fully paid
ConFire and the paid on-call Oakley Reserve Division).”168”
There’s that pesky report that WHG keeps referring to from Canciamilla. Funny thing is it doesn’t say what WHG claims it says.
Let’s also keep in mind this was right around the period you and your buddy WHG were involved with the District. So what you are actually advocating for is to return to a failed service model. The reasoning there isn’t particularly difficult to grasp. People having similar duties and skills but being compensated quite differently creates animosity.
That has nothing to do with the Union. It’s human nature that brings that in. You need to stop lying to the readers and blaming Vince Wells or 1230.
Another little factoid the two of you seem to be struggling with. The District is down to having money only to fund 9 full-time guys on duty at a time. There is no flush of extra cash sitting around to fund the POC deal you’re pimping. I’m presuming you still haven’t figured out how to grow money trees over there in “Knigthsin”(election jokes never get old). So at the end of the day you don’t really have a pot to piss in.
Finally, what about the call failures that were taking place during your tenure? I’m talking about the ones that went unanswered and you had to be bailed out by ConFire.
Why are you advocating we go back to a service model that is a “maybe” when someone is in need and dials 9-1-1?
The same questions have been asked of you guys for years. You never address them. You always just change the subject. That’s why no one takes you seriously.
Its simple. The ISO Rating with POC’s was 3 and 4. That is better than any non POC year up until even today with the ” enhanced service model” we have been served. The amount of stations open were 9 with combination POC and Career (including Marsh Creek Station CDF). The Budget with combination of both career and POC was within reason and there were no unfunded liabilities in the millions.
Today, we have more revenue by millions, less stations now 3, and the community owes over ten million dollars of debt with todays model. We are headed for a Doctors Hospital, Los Medanos Hospital debt. Anyone can spill out gibberish and criticize, but the facts are all there. You can’t squeeze 40 career firefighters in a bucket budget for 20. I’m just saying. The only other choice is merge with Con Fire. That would be a County Supervisors decision. It is election year. Perfect timing to get some county help.You can jump up and down and have a fit. You can bad mouth me. You can’t change the reality of the situation with pipe dreams. It takes leadership and tough decisions not just blog talk.
I totally agree with Willis (WHG). He has experience in both Career and POC’s. He makes sense. I trust him.
John, you’re stuck trying to relive yesterday. Sorry, buddy, but we’re not having do-overs.
You only get to contribute ideas to a fire department moving forward which has only enough revenue to field 9 full-time guys on a given shift.
You are not going to just stiff these people for pensions because you want to play weekend warrior fireman. You’ve never understood pensions. Today is no different. They are not fully funded decades in advance.
ConFire isn’t going to subsidize you. The County isn’t going to give you a handout either.
Sorry.
Willis is stuck on the same scratched record as you. That’s largely his problem. You both keep beating your heads against the with outdate ideas that have been addressed over and over. Yet you can’t figure out why you have a headache.
Answers for your frustration are right in front of you. You’re just not capable of listening.
John it’s been explained to you númerous times why this isn’t an option. I doubt if anyone will waste their time doing it again. It’s no great secret that you have worn out your welcome with all the elected officials in the county. Now you know why you get no where and are pleading with the union (whom you have spent 12 years bashing) to do your bidding.
WHG, if that’s what passes for a comp in your consulting, that’s pretty disturbing.
Fallon, Nevada is not all Class 1. It’s Class 1 within 1,000 ft of a hydrant. The rural areas outside of town are much higher. You worded your post to suggest the entire District enjoys that low rating, which it does not.
Fallon serves 8,000. ECCFPD serves 12 to 14 times as many people.
Fallon is 9 sq miles in size.
Oakley, by comparison, is over 16+ sq miles
Brentwood is 14+ sq miles
Discovery Bay/Bryon combined is over 14 sq miles.
Fallon has a sub 6 minute response within the city ONLY. Especially with a centrally located station, it doesn’t take long to cover that small an area. You again worded it to suggest their entire District enjoyed such service.
Fallon responds to 400 calls per year. ECCFPD, over 7,000.
Tunnel vision indeed. More like rigging the message to suit your agenda.
BOC, IDK, WHG et all – So I have been lurking and reading all of your comments for the last few years and it always feels like a re-hash of the same old problems and commentary.
WHG & John Gonzales and others are always deferring to the side that the district needs to fall back to volunteers, or consolidation with Con Fire, or absorption into Cal Fire. From what I understand, neither Con Fire nor Cal Fire want to take on a district that can’t support the current service model. And volunteers….just not a reasonable solution in East Contra Costa County for various reasons.
Then we have BOC, IDK and others (myself included) who were behind the property tax and then benefit assessment even though the current benefit assessment that failed was only a band aid measure and not the real measure of the dollars that were needed to bring the level of services as to what they should be to serve our current population and beyond. The first measure was too costly according to the public feedback, from what I understand.
Let’s get real, we are never going to have the support to change any of the requirements of Prop 13, it might happen when my kids have kids, but it won’t happen in time to help this district.
So putting all of those old problems and commentary aside (volunteer, consolidation, etc) What are the options?
1. Can the county change the allocation of the 1% so that ECCFPD gets a greater share instead of the $10 they get now? Is that attainable? Something under local control that we can put a working solution on? Con Fire seems to get a greater portion out of their 1%? Why can’t ECCFPD?
2. Can Brentwood or Oakley set aside funds to re-open stations? Why can’t local cities use budget reserves and/or sales tax monies to re-open stations. Maybe not a good strategy long term if it can’t be sustained, but if it can why can’t local cities put monies in to keep stations open?
3. Why doesn’t ECCFPD set up a pay for services program? Look, if you only collect $75k and the rest goes to the management agency, that’s $75k you never had. Have you seen the crazy fruit picking drivers on Vasco? If you aren’t from the county and you have an accident – then ECCFPD will charge you. I do understand there are issues with this program from other Northern California Fire Departments who had to close this program. But at this point, what the heck.
4. Red curb violation program – Seriously, any elementary or high school event is a red curb money maker.
I live in Brentwood, my kids go to school in Brentwood, I have a CPR certification, I have fire sprinklers but I am smart enough to know that I don’t have training for all situations nor do I have the foresight to know that in an emergency event that I will be awake, alert and conscious to protect myself and my family.
I do know that I want to help and that I am willing to put myself out there to be part of a solution. Seriously, a crab feed, a go fund me account, a Fireman’s Ball, bake sale, door to door mailers…
What is a viable solution?
I read that the Piephos of Discovery Bay voted against the Benefit Assessment District fire tax.
Curious, where did you read this and do you have a link. This is something we would like to cover considering the Station in Discovery Bay remained open.
I thought this vote was supposed to be public record. Shouldn’t there be a way to look it up in that case?
This is not a vote, it is public record of who is for or against forming an assessment district. Voters were not part of this. Only landowners.
Here is an idea. ECT you are the media guru and have intimate connections with the fire department. It’s public information. Just request it.
Here’s a better idea…….
Read the Constitution. The one that says “Voting shall be secret”.
Did the civics illiterate clown car just pull up and you all got out?
Public Records Request will not reveal how someone voted. By law you are not allowed to know how someone votes unless they volunteer that information. Furthermore, voting is considered “private” and not “public”.
Jana,
Thank you for following this issue. It is important to all of us. You are correct, it always turns into a “rehash” which has become problematic for the district. As you recognized, there are a few individuals who are stuck on outdated models and philosophies which are not acceptable by current California standards. Couple this with a few others who only recently became aware of the issue and promote what they believe to be new ideas (over and over) which have already been addressed. As a result you see fatigue, frustration and rehashing.
WHG and John Gonzales will always default to a volunteer based recommendation because that is their history. Others using multiple screen names default to blame because it is their nature. It is my understanding that it has been explained to them that a volunteer operation isn’t a solution nor a consideration given current demographics, lack volunteer interest & cost, increased call volumes. extreme time commitments and stringent training standards for starters. They always expect “others” to volunteer.
While consolidation makes sense at some point, up to now there has been very little interest since the larger district (Con Fire) would have to absorb the financial liabilities of east county. Hopefully you can see what so many people seem to struggle with. The common denominator is revenue. It’s a broken system, yet everyone wants to blame it on someone, create their own set of “facts” or believe they can simply ignore existing policies and standards. Because revenue is the nexus, things often get very ugly. I believe we are experiencing that now.
As we all see, this is an already complex issue which has become further complicated over time.
That being said, Here are my answers to your questions as you posted.
1. No, the county cannot change the allocations of the 1 percent. This requires State level legislation. Currently there is no political will to tamper with Prop 13 allocations. In the future that may change, but should be viewed as a long term solution. Allocations to the percentage of the 1% vary greatly throughout not only contra costa but east county as well. They are derived from a formula which is based on the services each area requires. They are known as TRA’s (tax rate areas) and are listed on your property tax bill via a unique number which will unlock your specific TRA. It’s important to know they are limited to city boundries and its common for cities to have over a dozen TRA’s within each city. Think of it as a pie made up of your tax dollar. It always equally 100 percent, so to change it, money has to come from one of the other needs (districts) such as library, schools, special districts, etc. No “entity” wants to give up a part of their share of the 1%.
2. Yes, cities can set aside additional money for enhanced fire service. The city of Brentwood (until recently) did exactly this. They had money that was set aside through funding to which they contributed to the district for staffing. I believe this ceased under the former city Manager (Donna Landeros). Both Oakley and Brentwood have redevelopment funds which they can and should put back towards the fire district. These redevelopment funds have historically had a negatively impact on fire districts by diverting money away from them. I believe this issue has been recently raised and should be considered. You raise a very good point.
3. I think you answered your own question regarding a pay for services program. They are highly unpopular and raise other issues when your department gives or receives aid from a neighboring district. Adding to this, billing and lack of collection can add more expenses and red tape. I have seen the crazy fruit picking drivers on Vasco, but in reality how many calls are they really generating. Remember most east county citizens also travel out of the district for work or pleasure to which we feel entitled to emergency services without being charged. Mutual and automatic aid is important to us and charging the citizens who already share resources could end badly for east county. As you surmised, trying to get “others” to subsidize our services is not a good solution.
4. While red curb violations continue to be a problem everywhere, the fines don’t find their way back to local fire departments. Just like traffic fines do not return to the enforcement agency. Citizens often have a false sense of where fines go after collected. For example CHP doesn’t see any money for writing speeding tickets.
It’s very noble that your heart is in this to be part of the solution. Unfortunately, bake sales, crab feeds and go fund me accounts are not the solution. They fall into the category of being more distraction to our problem. We are talking about a situation that needs a permanent fix which has been brought on by a shortfall of revenue. The shortfall is measured by millions of dollars each and every year.
The solution should be obvious at this point. To be part of the solution we need to come together, become educated and educate our neighbors. Then and only then we need to figure out an acceptable way to permanently fund the service we have come to rely on.
Thank you, I appreciate the reply. I am still very interested on getting a portion of the TRA’s re-evaluated. While that might not be able to happen in the short term, I think that it is a resolution that needs to be pushed on in the long term. It might be a political up hill battle, but one I think that still needs to be evaluated.
As for any assumptions that Con Fire or Cal Fire want to take our district on, I completely understand that isn’t a fiscally sound solution. I just don’t see it happening.
The current project I’m working on raised $500 million of the $1.6 billion needed to complete the project. Money and ideas are out there, I absolutely agree with your statement that we need to come together and educate everyone about the whys and hows of emergency response in our county. But I think that it will take people willing to get out there and be educators for it to happen.
Buy a Clue,
Please stop feeding the trolls (WHG and John Gonzales). They are both hell bent on getting a solution back off of topic and back into the 1980’s.
By now most of East County knows the solution and it doesn’t include volunteers. It’s never going to happen, we know that, the district knows that, LAFCO knows that and the county knows that. These two haven’t figured it out and are stuck in the same low information circle jerk that has been actually wasting time and confusing people. Their message is yesterdays news.
This is the only place left they try push their unicorn philosophy. Just ignore them. They are cheapskates who want something for nothing.
Get a clue, you are so clueless and so easy to correct.
“Fallon/Churchill Volunteer Fire Department. Fallon, Nevada. Formerly an ISO Class 5 city covering only 9 square miles and ISO Class 8/9/10 rural area. Currently a Class 1 city and a Class 3 district wide 400 square mile rural area without hydrants. Acquisitions: Four new CAFS trucks fully equipped and three fire stations. The nation’s first ISO Class 1 volunteer fire department. The largest drop to a Class 1 in ISO history at the time and second best all time. The best rural water supply grade in the U.S. for five years and tied for second today.”
The question was how service can be provided on meager budgets. Here’s one example. Facts are facts. I rest my case.
Buy a Clue, don’t bother responding. At this point Mr. Lamm (WHG) is just trying to convince himself. No one is reading or caring at this point.
He can’t stop himself.
The best thing to do at this point is stop feeding the trolls.
WHG, the best you can do is copy and paste headlines from their about page? Do you mail in all your consulting efforts with such lame research effort?
Let’s get the behind the scenes from the guy who helped Fallon get that ISO 1 rating, Larry Stevens.
http://isoslayer.com/uploads/Ask_ISO.doc
Where if you search for “Fallon” you will find this:
“One common question I’m often asked is, “Anyone can tell us what we should do, what about your own department, what kind of a grade do you have, advice is easy?” I like to answer that question by saying I live in the smallest town ever to earn a Class 1 and we did it with volunteers! And yes, I helped then attain it. My hometown Fallon, Nevada population in town 7,500 and in the 5,000 square mile county with 24,000 people . http://www.geocities.com/Baja/Trails/6658/ We were able to get authorization to replace all the fire trucks and the equipment they carried in just 72 hours with no prior notice from the time we presented the elected officials with our plan at an emergency city council meeting. That same week we got the county to buy in and carry half the load. We went from stone-age to star wars over night. Three new stations were built as well. Our city grade fell 5 classes and our rural grade 7, 8 and 9 classes. We currently sit at a Class 1 in town and Class 3 in our rural areas. Yes, a volunteer department can have the two best ISO™ ratings in the US. This consultant’s hometown followed his advice. In fact, I presented the data to ISO™ for the community just a few months after all the fire apparatus and equipment arrived. When I worked as Director of fire service training for the State Fire Marshal’s Office I put together a program to teach departments about insurance rating rules. That training allowed something no other state can say, we have 80% of the people in Nevada living in an ISO Class 1 protected area.”
So once again, you left out a few details.
If you are prepared to go to the ECCFPD Board and explain to them they need to replace a whole lot of equipment tomorrow, then we can start comparing apples to apples as to how to reduce an ISO rating.
I don’t think your “meager budget” line of crap actually holds water if part of the path to a solution includes spending several million on equipment upgrades.
Millions, btw, the District obviously doesn’t have.
Another little detail you leave out about Fallon is the massive amount of FEDERAL resources that exist on the air base, which play a role in analysis and ratings for the area. In a major incident those resources are available to the community or surrounding area. We have no comparable neighboring facility to lean on.
You just keep launching your crap, poorly researched garbage into the air and we’ll keep shooting them down with the facts.
Like they say Wildhorseguy, ” You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink it “. While a solution is in front of them they will watch everyone suffer to save their egos. So much for constructive ideas. Last comment for me because all the real smart people have it totally under control. I pray no one dies while this plays out.
Mr. Gonzales,
You said “Last comment for me…” Is that another one of your promises soon to be broken? Aren’t you the same guy that led a one man campaign to defeat the first effort to properly fund the fire district? The solution that you believe is in front of “them” is your personal solution which lacks merit. Based on all of your previous commentary, you expect “others” to pay for your emergency services through fees charged to “others” and fire service model that would rely on “others” to work for free. That’s your solution?
A “smart person” would realize, that idea is past its prime and is not getting traction. But that is not what you comprehend because you can’t get past the point that the decision makers don’t agree with you. But there you are banging your head against the same wall for over a decade now.
The only egos I see here is yours and your buddy who actually said, he didn’t want to get into a “credentials contest”, then immediately followed with a list of his credentials. I’m not sure anyone that knows the system was impressed. Certainly that exercise added to the ongoing distraction and once again got everyone off point.
In the meantime, I pray that you keep your word.
In Da, You are really showing your IQ here. Instead of putting everyone down here because of your lack of self esteem doesn’t help anything. Try to stay on subject and grow up.
Dear Buy a Clue, I think you really need to make more purchases. I feel like I’ve gone to a gunfight where the enemy is armed with soda straws.
To start with, I didn’t copy the Fallon information off their web site. It came from David Doudy’s ISO Slayer site. Maybe Fallon copied it and used it. I don’t know and I don’t really care because it doesn’t much matter. And yes, Larry Stevens (now deceased) was the wizard that reorganized the department. Makes me wonder what he could have done for ECCFPD.
Also I don’t have to “search” for Fallon since it’s down the highway from me.
I did get a chuckle over your describing the “massive amount of federal resources that exist on the air base.” The following resources are available, provided Fallon – Churchill county requests them. The information is copied from Churchill County’s Fire Plan and you can look it up yourself.
One Type I engine
One Type III engine (wildland unit)
One Type VI engine (pickup size wildland unit)
One Type I water tender.
Fallon-Churchill doesn’t have Con Fire next door. In fact they don’t have much of anyone next door, And if as you claim NAS Fallon is “massive,” Con Fire must be Battlestar Galactica. By your logic, with Con next door ECCFPD’s rating should be stellar. But wait. It really doesn’t work that way, does it?
And yes Fallon – Churchill upgraded their fleet at the cost of 3 cents per $100 assessed valuation (which is about equal to 1 cent in California since in Nevada only 35% of a property’s market value is assessed.) Their fleet is now almost as big as ECCFPD’s. Oh yeah, but they can actually put butts in the seats of their apparatus. Maybe that’s the difference.
The reality is that Fallon-Churchill protects an area over 20 times the size of ECCFPD and about one-quarter the population of ECCFPD at less than one-tenth the annual cost of ECCFPD (including the tax levy used to pay off the fire apparatus.) And the citizens get to enjoy the insurance premium savings of living in a Class 1 / 3 county.
So is Fallon-Churchill a model that fits the far east county? Of course not. But it is illustrative of what a fire district can accomplish with limited finances, in their case with just a tiny boost from the citizens. See, they went to the citizens with a plan that was clearly worth something to them and the citizens responded.
You constantly try to spin this argument back around to that it’s all about money. Money certainly is a causal factor but the problem is the service model. ECCFPD has the stations and the rolling stock. The district just hasn’t figured out how to put those assets to the best use, perhaps due to what appears to be limited vision.
But hey, it’s only the taxpayers who suffer.
All that verbage so that you can acknowledge I asked you for a comp and you gave me anything but a comp?
Really?
Pick whatever metric you want. But don’t give the readership a crap comparison.
45 volunteers, is it, to cover 8k residents of Fallon? Then there are another 45 full-time at the NAS.
So how many does that parlay to in ECCFPD? Can you do the math?
Where do you suggest we find those 900-1000 vollies in a bedroom community District to make it remotely similar for readiness?
You’re still sucking wind trying to come to grips with reality.
Very sad when people offer suggestions and show reasonable examples of other places being creative with resources and all that comes back the same old …’it won’t work here’ union talking points.
Why is that? In my opinion (in first place) it is the union’s fault. And when I say ‘union’ I’m not directly referring to the basic members, as I believe they too are victims. It is the people like VW (and his fan boys) who have been sucked up into union leadership [sic] and drive home the union manifesto (only full-timers, more NEW tax revenue, NO creativity, NO morphing into the future).
Coming in a close second you might think I would suggest the elected folks are to blame but I place them third. In second it is the enablers of the entrenched politico who they have allowed to do nothing on this issue but duck and hide. As an example….why won’t the owner of this blog strongly call out that woman running for state senate on her actual history and actual plans for going after a legitimate and fair allocation (rural vs. non-rural) of existing tax $$? Who cares if it is tough political battle? All the more reason to call her out on it and if she does not pass scrutiny on the issue then all concerned should seek to make sure her political career ends. But none of you all who have access to her and or are connected to her or her party would dare to do that….. so you are the problem.
Of course I hold the elected officials responsible for doing nothing, but my expectations are low regarding these people. This has gone on for so long and so many people have offered reasonable parts of a multi-part solution that at some point they will have to do something and no doubt take as much credit as they can suck up but in the mean time they continue to sit back and let the union do its thing and blame everyone but themselves.
As I skimmed through some of this chain and filtered out the personal attacks it is clear that a fundamental flow leading to a new direction definitely exists.
1, ECCFPD should not continue to exist.
2, FD’s are no longer FD’s they are First Responders who mostly do medical/rescue and seldom deal with fires.
3, In this set of circumstances more than just full timers are needed. The union and their fan boys will have to get over this issue.
4, Like the NV example many other examples exist of places that creatively do a lot more with less. I can tell you all about a 2 station model that has 10 people on duty all the time and serves less than 5,000 residents (about 200 sq. mi some of it difficult terrain…no industrial).
5, Wide spread deployment is important, when I came to this area there were two people on an engine; in some circumstances that needs to be revisited for better coverage and quicker response. That model exists in CA and other places. The union will fight this hard and spit out all their talking points from the old days but now we are in different circumstances and change is required. Not every patient that needs to be moved is super fat and most calls are not fires. If a two person crew responds to a fire, logic says there are important tasks that the first two who get there QUICKER can do until others arrive.
6, The county needs to inject additional $$ (towards medical) on the basis of the medical response to fire ratio.
7, The significant growth centers do need to step up and pay-in mitigation $$. Almost all of what is going on with this public safety issue was or should have been foreseen before the county, Oak and BW allowed the massive housing growth. They knew of the rural tax allocation and they knew very well they were creating a non-rural environment. They allowed the growth without the automatic mitigation in place so now they have to figure out (and feel the pain) of coming with the $$ to protect the people they allowed to come into their jurisdiction. Anything less should not be acceptable by the people who pay plenty of taxes into these communities. But once again….no body holds the politicos responsible.
There are lots of solutions to this situation but it does start, in my opinion, with the union getting out the way. I am not bashful about saying the local union bosses need to get down off their pedestal they work so hard to put themselves on and quit being the road block to stable jobs for their members and better public safety for the communities they are paid to serve.
Posting a comment I received from Dennis LeGear, with permission. I’m pleased to know Dennis as he is one of the leading professionals in the fire service, formerly from Oakland FD. I added a couple of duly disclosed clarifications.
“100,000 residents with 3 stations 9 on duty, ECFPD…., CCCFPD 32 stations 5 unstaffed. I believe around 80 on duty for 600,000 underprotection. For the 37th most populated county in the United States one of only 40 counties with over a million people in it, I wonder if this is more of priorities issue locally. So for about 700,000 people you have 90 firefighters on duty. Average protection would be a force of 700 divide between three shifts…. Citizens set the level of services, politicians should stop sugar coating reality, we have skeleton level of service. Without honesty you end up with the ECFPD current dire situation, where did it come from, a few decades of denial and poor communication. We need to think outside the box, a dual system in the only way I see out of this under current available funds.
“They need to put a hard floor on paid professional staff less say no lower then 300 with a goal of 400 and then a goal of another 400 or so paid call (edit: county-wide). Labor and the county board of supervisors need to get over themselves and the bad blood that exists, some of it from the strike in the 80s, the reserves should never have been used to fill stations (Edit: Reference to A.C. Cullin using the Con Fire reserves against the career personnel). That destroyed the program. 700,000 residents really deserve at least a 1 to 10000 ratio. Every engine could be running 4 to 5 with three paid and an additional few intern spots. If the counties around DC get it done we should be able, too. I know this would be very difficult to pull off, but what we have now is not working.”
WHG, I see you’re still heading down dead end streets.
Fiscal realities:.Neither District your buddy wants to comment on has the funds to even field his base level of professional staff. That’s before you even get to figuring out how to pay for training and compensation of POCs.
Last time I looked headcount in ConFire was 230ish(been a couple years) and they are running a $10M+ deficit this fiscal year.
Really easy to just throw out some of the numbers while ignoring the ones that don’t fit your narrative.
You guys appear to do a lot of your consulting in a fiscal information vacuum.
There is a lot of info to absorb here to weed out the garbage. Funny there is only two bloggers on here that have resorted to digs and cuts to others, In Da Know and Clue. For two people acting as if they know it all, a person wonders why they have to resort to digs and cuts unless they know there information is stretched at best. Can either of you just comment without acting like 5 year olds ? You sound like you do have a brain. Comment on the issue and reserve your attacks for the playground.The immature attack comments to others is quite juvenile and petty.
@Get over it,
Clowns defending clowns. That’s me calling you out on your game. Your posting under different pseudonyms in an attempt to defend yourself is very transparent. From what I know, you are supplying the garbage and have for quite some time.
Talk about a 5 year old mentality… you own it dude. If constantly correcting your purposeful attempts to confuse, mislead and take this off topic hurt your feelings then you need to grow up and “get over it”.
As you have correctly figured out we are tired of playing your reindeer games.
…and in case you are still scratching your head while licking your wounds, consider this;
My postings are for everyone BUT you. You simply provide the springboard to educate. Sorry if you get caught looking stupid in the process. You have my condolences.
Sorry I’ve missed out on the latest dialogue (not.) Been kind of busy assisting with NFPA 1670 exercises at the North Lyon County Fire District. NLCFD is a very well oiled and active combination department, running about 2700 calls per year with 11 career (48/96 schedule) fire fighters, 6 reserves (part timers) and 12 volunteers. Half the on-duty staff are paramedics. And they’re a full service fire department including truck service with their Pierce rear mount aerial.
But what’s really cool is the teamwork. It’s a community organization. The local judge (former CHP officer who quit to get a law degree) is even a volunteer. It doesn’t matter if you’re a volunteer, the Chief or the judge, everyone pitches in for even the grunt tasks, which since they can get dogpiled with calls, is a good thing.
It’s a service based mindset. The district lives within its means. The chief gets as much as he can in salaries and benefits for his career staff and he makes up the difference in response strength through his “force multipliers.” The department’s morale is extremely good. Instead of bitching all the time, these guys are actually fun to be around.
But that’s how things are when you look beyond Dante’s 9th Circle of Hell.
Willis, do you realize what a dumbass you come across as? Probably not.
Yeah we’ve all heard what an emerging suburbia North Lion county is. It’s next to Mayberry RFD right?
Sorry you feel the need to brag about your hayseed mentality in what you consider Dantes ninth circle of hell. Thanks for offering to save us, but I think we will be just fine.
Anon, you just got added to the list with Buy a Clue and In Da Know. Grow up. There are many good ideas for this district but it’s too late. Send her back to the county where she was born.
Get over it,
Yaaaaawwwnnn.
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