As California’s insurance commissioner, I am concerned that the East Contra Costa Fire Protection District is facing serious budget shortfalls that could significantly impact your homeowner’s insurance rates.
Measure S on the June 5 ballot will protect your current fire protection service. Most insurance companies use a Public Protection Classification program that evaluates key areas of fire protection, including emergency communications, water supply and the fire department (adequacy of equipment, sufficient staffing, evaluation of training, existence of automatic aid and geographic distribution of fire companies).
Without Measure S, 50 percent of firefighters will be laid off and three fire stations will be closed. That leaves only eight firefighters daily to service the 105,000 residents and approximately 6,000 service calls each year.
And if emergency response times go up, it could affect your Public Protection Class ratings and increase your homeowner’s insurance rates.
Measure S will give the fire district the funding it desperately needs to maintain critical fire protection. An annual parcel tax of $197 (just 50 cents a day) will ensure adequate fire and emergency response services, and stop your insurance premiums from skyrocketing. I urge you to vote Yes on Measure S.
Dave Jones
California Insurance Commissioner
Please listen to Mr. Consveer. It seems those threats have worked on you. You do not even know that the paramedics and ambulances are different from the fire district. If you vote yes, you will loose more medical response vehicles that you already pay for in another tax. What is crazy is for anyone to vote for this because they will get less service in the medical area to trade for firemen. I think I would play my cards on keeping more medical response vehicles than on more educated firemen on a fire engine. Your grandmother will be in more danger voting for the tax rather than against it. This is partly why I will not vote for it. I want to keep my medical response paramedics away from fires that will tie them up and delay responces to your grandmother and me.
The point is to do what we need to do right now (even if it's not what we WANT to do) to save the safety of the community. Everyone is saying that they can't afford to give out more money but it makes NO sense to vote this down because of a measly $16 a month (and ensure our emergency services) and then get slapped with inflatted insurance costs while having NO emergency services. To me, you have to be crazy to vote no. I pray that those of you who are not supporting this measure do not ruin it for the rest of us who are trying to keep our families safe. God forbid this measure fails and my grandmother has a heart attack while the few firemen who are still around are fighting a fire at the same time.
Not that I think it is going to change your opinion at all, but just to clarify, if your grandmother has a heart attack then she will receive nearly the same care as always if this measure fails (just that the BLS response may be a bit longer). The ambulance paramedics and first responder paramedics (QRV's) are in no way tied to this tax and they will remain if it fails. If it does pass then your grandmother may actually be worse off, as your dedicated-to-medical calls QRV first responder paramedic will go away and be replaced with one on a fire engine who may not be able to respond in the event they are busy on a fire call somewhere.
On a related note, if grandma is having the big one, one of the most severe types of heart attacks, known as a STEMI (ST-elevation myocardial infarction) then no amount of fire department paramedics will even be of benefit to her. These types of heart attacks require rapid transport to a cardiac catheterization facility, and fire engines don't transport people to the hospital, ambulances do.
With only 9 firefighters in this community I dont see how insurance rates possibly will not inflate tremendously. Even so, a measly $16 dollars a month is definately not worth the risk for me and my children.
You’re missing the real point. We already pay much more than that. The problem is that it will not stop there it will keep going up and up until the politicians fix the problem. The continued scare tactics to hold us hostage to keep giving more money has to stop. When you see people retiring at 50 years old with 200K annually on public tax dollars, you need to come to your senses and say no more. This is not about the quantity of firefighters nor quality, they are great and well appreciated, it’s about the over generous deficit spending. When that is corrected I would be more than happy to dig deep and contribute more. The Union and BOS needs to control that issue. They have had plenty of time and procrastinated for years hoping we will give in and just hand over more money. People just don't have more money today. Taxpayers especially do not have money lying around to give public employees who retire at 50 years old with double the average state personal income and full medical the rest of their lives. It's bankrupting not just this fire district but many others and the state.
No on S for those reasons.
God bless the firefighters, shame on the Union and BOS.
mikejohnsonpd, youre no better. the massive compounding over the years your warning about bring the measly 16 bucks all the way up to a measlky 21 bucks a month 10 years from now. and the paramedic part starts at 8 cents a month and explodes into 1.07 per month 10 years down the road.
you guys would rather shut down half your fire service than pay 8 cents per month to double the number of paramedics in the district. that's dumb no matter how many qrvs there are now
oh wait I'm wrong. since the qrvs are staying no matter what (for at least the next two years anyway) your 80 cents per month means we go from 3 to 9 paramedics..."
Wrong. QRV's will not remain if fire engine paramedics added. This has been discussed, clarified, fact checked, and confirmed repeatedly in the past.
The opening paragraph is much more telling:
"As California’s insurance commissioner, I am concerned that the East Contra Costa Fire Protection District is facing serious budget shortfalls that could significantly impact your homeowner’s insurance rates"
Well if he is such an expert why didn't he say it WILL impact your insurance rates and he could even give a range on what it would be; but he doesn't. Fact is nobody can say IF they will go up at all. Hell, my house was built with fire spinklers do I ever think I will ever need a fireman to put out a fire for me?