Home CONFIRE Vince Wells: Times Wrong About Contra Costa Fire Proposal

Vince Wells: Times Wrong About Contra Costa Fire Proposal

by ECT

Vince Well put out a nice rebuttal in response to an editorial by the Contra Costa Times which opposed the $75 parcel tax. Mr. Wells laid out a nice argument about why voters should support the revenue enhancing measure so that stations can stay open and firefighters can continue to protect Contra Costa County.

Times wrong about Contra Costa fire tax proposal

By Vince Wells

As voters consider a tax to fully fund fire and emergency response services in the Contra Costa Fire Protection District, we trust they understand this is about keeping firehouses open.

That it is about ensuring that firefighters and firefighter paramedics are on the job and can get to a burning building or to a sick, injured or life-threatened resident of Lafayette, Walnut Creek, Pleasant Hill, Concord, Clayton, Martinez, El Sobrante, San Pablo, Pittsburg, Antioch, Bay Point, Pacheco or Rossmoor community before it is too late.

It is a shame the Contra Costa Times editorial board and its editorial recommending voters reject this measure failed to grasp that fact.

Essentially, your position boils down to: Hold hostage new funding to save vital public protection, rescue and emergency medical services unless and until something is done about the rising cost of district retirement benefits, despite that changes to retirement benefits have been made and with more efforts still in progress. And, even when they do, they won’t fix the current funding problem. Talk about irresponsible.

This district has stretched a declining budget as far as it can go, shrinking our workforce, deferring repairs and reducing salaries and benefits for firefighters.

This parcel tax has a seven-year sunset provision so that the fire district has time to continue working to reduce overhead costs and implement reforms.

In the meantime, it asks homeowners to pay just $75 annually — or 21 cents a day. It is a wise investment in personal and community safety.

Before 2010, the district staffed 30 companies to serve more than 600,000 residents. By next year, if this measure fails, it could be down to 18 companies, with just 55 firefighters on duty a day to answer more than 41,000 calls a year over 304 square miles.

The fire district has put forward a fiscally responsible plan vetted through a series of public meetings.

National standards call for one firefighter for every 1,000 residents and for emergency calls to be answered within six minutes. Without this funding, we will have one firefighter for every 3,600 residents — more than three times the national standard — and response times could climb to 10 minutes, even 20 minutes in certain scenarios.

While property owners might save a few dollars a week in property taxes, they would risk paying much, much more for homeowners insurance, as insurers jack up premiums covering neighborhoods with substandard fire protection services.

And, of course, there could be even steeper prices to be paid for delayed responses to calls for fire rescue and emergency medical care.

So, by all means, we must find solutions to the strain rising pension costs are putting on budgets, whether they be government, employer or household.

But let’s not put Contra Costa County lives, livelihoods and property in danger unnecessarily along the way.

Vince Wells is a fire captain and president of the United Professional Firefighters of Contra Costa County.

Kudos goes out to Mr. Wells, for some background, I went through the Times Editorial and dissected why it was wrong and full of misinformation while ignoring facts provided to them.

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5 comments

BenSmith Aug 21, 2012 - 7:42 am

Why Vince bothers is beyond me. I am suprised he is not blue in the face for as much correcting he does with that rag of a paper.

JimSimmons42 Aug 21, 2012 - 12:04 pm

All Vince can do is state the obvious and what he has continued to state for over the last year. His story never changes, why has the Times and CoCo Tax continued to change their story?

Jill_Thompson55 Aug 21, 2012 - 12:07 pm

We have heard this talk before Vince, please move on to another idea that does not involve taxpayers paying more money to fund your union.

Julio-Antioch Aug 21, 2012 - 6:57 pm

No matter what side you are reading it just keeps getting twisted around to what they want you to hear. ALL parties are guilty including Vince and Louder. Vote is No in our house.

Vince Wells Educates Times Readers on Irresponsibility | East County Today Aug 31, 2012 - 6:54 am

[…] educational on the background as to why the Times was irresponsible by ignoring facts. Thanks for reading my commentary. Allow me to explain what I meant by irresponsible. The Times newspaper is a great way to reach […]

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