On June 29, the ECCFPD board will meet and likely pass a budget that will close two local fire stations – an action which will haphazardly decrease the safety of citizens everywhere in this district (especially the outlying, unincorporated areas). Regardless of cuts to our vital public services, this move will almost certainly still result in the eventual bankruptcy of a district whose survival is balancing on the edge of a knife, or rather, fire axe.
Fortunately, the decision isn’t yet final – we have one last opportunity to make our voices heard and try to change the direction in which this board is headed. It is crucial that all concerned East County residents attend the June 29 budget meeting at 6:30 p.m. at the Oakley City Council chambers.
We are all aware of the downturn in the economy, and we know a lot of public agencies are struggling. The ECCFPD is no exception, but what you may not know is that this district has been dealing with money issues for the past several years. Unfortunately, when our local economy was bustling and home prices were soaring, nothing was done in preparation for lean times – like those we’re now facing.
This newly-formed board (the directors were seated in February of 2010) has had far from enough time to properly research all of the avenues available to the district and is now tasked with the immense responsibility of immediately deciding the fate of our fire stations, firemen and women, and other vital staff, not to mention the safety of citizens in the affected areas.
Under the board’s direction, Interim Chief Hugh Henderson and district staff prepared five budget scenarios to immediately cut spending. Those scenarios offered options for having eight, seven, six or five stations (currently there are eight stations plus a CalFire contract that staffs the Sunshine Station in the Marsh Creek/Morgan Territory area).
The scenarios proposed staffing the stations with a total of 48, 45 or 42 fire-suppression personnel depending on the specific scenario presented, and included an option to cancel the reserve program. It should be noted that with the exception of the most dire scenario (five stations, 42 personnel), all of these scenarios will still result in bankruptcy in 2012-13 unless the board is able to achieve a revenue enhancement and/or if even more significant cuts are made.
On May 7, all of these budget scenarios were presented to the board in front of over 100 members of the public, who unanimously urged the board to come up with options that did not include closing stations. Despite the numerous comments made by members of the public expressing fear and concern, the board voted, and seven of the nine directors (all Brentwood and Oakley elected officials) agreed that the staff should explore just one of these scenarios: a six-station, 48-personnel model, in preparation for the June 29 special meeting.
The directors representing the unincorporated areas (Chris Finetti of Discovery Bay and Robert Kenny of Bethel Island) both voted against the motion. Director Finetti and Director Kenny urged the board to hold off on trying to pass a budget at this time, and to instead explore every other possible avenue available to the district – in particular, an attempt to get voters to pass a revenue enhancement.
As a citizen I cannot even begin to express my deep concerns regarding the survival of the district if the board passes this budget scenario. Roughly speaking, the six-station scenario does the following:
• Ends the CalFire contract and closes the Marsh Creek station during the “wet” season.
• Closes two stations in the unincorporated areas (Station 58 in Discovery Bay, Station 57 in Byron and/or Station 59 in Bethel Island.
• Increases staffing at all stations in Brentwood and Oakley to 3-0 status, and likely increases Station 59 in Discovery Bay to 3-0 status as well. The other remaining stations in the unincorporated areas would still be staffed 2-0.
• Response times would significantly change in the unincorporated areas:
• Marsh Creek/Morgan Territory: Response time would be 15 to 20 minutes vs. the current 10 minutes.
• Byron: Response time would be 12 to 14 minutes vs. the current 7.5 minutes.
• Bethel Island: Response time would be 12 to 18 minutes vs. the current 7.1 minutes.
• Discovery Bay: Response time would be 9 to 11 minutes vs. the current 6.5 minutes.
• The safety of all residents of East County will be at risk due to the reduced coverage in the unincorporated areas due to the way the stations work to cover for each other when engines are out on calls. Even more alarming, however, is that the Byron station is a first responder for Vasco Road incidents, and the Discovery Bay 58 station is a first responder for incidents on the Delta in the Discovery Bay area.
• Residents living near closed stations may have their fire (homeowner’s) insurance rates increased due to the closure, and in the event that residents live more than 5 miles from a station, it is possible that these residents may have difficulty retaining fire insurance at all.
• This six-station option saves only $70,000 more than the eight-station model that has all stations staffed 2-0. The eight-station, 2-0 model worked well for East County for many years. In fact, it was only recently that one Brentwood and one Oakley station transitioned to 3-0 coverage.
• The ECCFPD would still face bankruptcy in 2012-13.
• It is inevitable that closing two stations will result in greater injury, greater property loss and potentially loss of life due to the significant increase in response times.
It is critical that all concerned members of our community attend the ECCFPD special meeting June 29 at 6:30 p.m. in the Oakley City Council chambers to hear about the board’s plan for cuts to our public services, and to voice your opinion on the issue. No matter where you live in East County, this dire situation does impact you and your neighbors. I urge you to attend, and I hope you’ll tell your friends and neighbors how important it is that we show up and stand up for the safety of our families, neighbors, homes and businesses.
If you cannot attend the meeting on the 29th, contact board representatives via phone and e-mail and ask them to support a short-term budget that balances the power and the pressure throughout the district (eight-station, 2-0 model) so we can properly focus on a long-term goal that sees the district thrive.
Brian Dawson is the treasurer for the Town of Discovery Bay.
As far as different perspectives go Bob is absolutely right. We all have our own impressions based on our own experiences. Coverage is very important, but from my perspective and what I have experienced we run short in a lot of areas in order to staff a company/companies that really don't get utilized. So from my standpoint I would like to have that third guy with me and put him to work in order to use the resource effectively and to get our moneys worth. Honestly as things go in the fire service we only have 3 or 4 stations that are busy enough to justify themselves. I think that we can do it with 6 and the reality will be that every engine is going to be busy, the company officers and BCs are going to have to be very dynamic, and the reserves will be playing a big part. Whether or not the reserves continue to get paid or go purely volunteer will be up to the Board and the admin but I think the majority of them would still participate. If we do see a reduction down to 6 staffed companies we will definitely see the reserves being utilized more often to back-fill, mop up, and do fire watch in order to pick up the slack. We would be a better return on our investment in that case because as it is with 8 staffed companies there really isn't a whole lot for those guys to do besides busy work unless we have some major incident that spans more than one operational period.
But I think we are having a good dialogue. Hopefully this can help shed some light on certain factors and help people to be informed.
Jeff, don’t go punching my ticket for the crazy train. We agree with the desire for an 8 station model and not much else.
If your buddies from other departments told you to take that accusation of negligence tack, it doesn’t speak too well for them. But probably not fair to make that assumption since you typically march to your own drummer. It’s interesting, but not out of character that your first point is to look for someone to blame to be followed immediately by the equivalent of a public hanging. Historically, you like to skip the part about being fact-based or even making sense. Just shoot someone that you view as a political enemy and be done with it. Nice.
So I’ll ask you the same question I asked Johnny. Cat seems to have his tongue. What exactly were the Supes supposed to do to fix this prior to the handoff? Be specific as opposed to the complete innuendo approach you usually run with.
It will be obvious to most, but just in case: bankruptcy in the context you use it means union busting. Since the single largest liability the district faces is salaries and benefits, which are already below scale, and they have no long term debt. How about you stop jerking them around and just cut to the chase. Would you prefer your first responders be making minimum wage and skip that whole retirement benefits thing? I find it pretty hard to believe your buddies encouraged you to go after their brothers in the profession with that one.
The comments about going after the district with endless public records if not given your demands and veiled threats of litigation are borderline extortion and the tactics of a senile old man. Unfortunately not the first time you’ve tried that and you are a known commodity within the county now. Translation: your threats receive the mental shredder and are not taken seriously. Don’t be an arm waver.
Your use of the word “negligence” is brash, but again not out of character. To me the word implies failure within a legal contract or requirement of the law, yet none exists here. Neither the Supervisors nor the Board set the funding models, which are the root problem. But again, you’re all about the public hanging and your rope is getting tired of waiting.
You saw a fire boat and assumed it's on overtime. Do we skip the perfectly normal cross training with neighboring agencies factor?.....and doing it during fire season! How reckless.
I’d conclude that from your list, there is far more we disagree on and not the other way round.
FD9500, I think you may have misread humblpeasant’s post. The annual op cost of a 2 man station is somewhere between $1.3 and $1.4M. The figures I have are from the MSR which is a couple of years old now. It may be even a bit higher now.
Bob, I hope you aren't faulting me for wanting to establish a higher standard of safety for the line personnel. People seem to forget that despite the politics and everything else that goes on the line personnel are the ones who make it happen when those tones go out. Working for peanuts, with engine companies that are staffed at half of what the industry recommends. Please forgive me, my job is to do everything humanly possible to protect life environment and property, not die for it unconditionally. However tragic as that may sound my first obligation is to my family and then the family of my engine company, to go home at the end of the shift. I have served this community for the last 12 years, and I can tell you that it has been nothing short of a miracle that we have never had a line of duty death. For people who don't know the difference, a 3 person company is not 1/3 better than a 2 person, it is exponentially more efficient and definitely more safe as it allows the company officer to focus on his responsibilities as a company officer not be the engineeer, the captain and firefighter etc.. It's the basic functional unit of the fire service. Don't try to make me feel bad for wanting that, the job is dangerous enough without slanting the odds even further against me making it home alive. From the line firefighters point of view it's more capable of serving the community and delivering that service efficiently and effectively while at the same time being safer.
I forget who mentioned it but establishing some volunteer corp of responders for the boat isn't that bad of an idea. Kind of small potatoes right now as we are talking about closing stations but worth talking about seriously.
protection in East County. Closing stations will not improve it. Yourhumblepeasant stated that Bethel Island was using $700,000 from other areas to operate station 95. According to the fire district Bethel Island generated $794,798 and
the current service level costs $710,000.
RE: Negligence or Insanity…,.which is worse?
Erick,
I have thought a lot about what was said and most importantly what was not said at your June 7 meeting. Upon that reflection and with the aid of some addition observations I have reached a crystal clear conclusion and I’m guessing that by now you and some of your cohorts may have reached the same conclusion. That is, the ECCFDB could easily be deemed negligent for closing two stations (25% of the district’s rolling capacity) while maintaining 3-person crews at four stations, when the savings in doing so is negligible compared to running all eight stations with two-person crews. Sure, having an extra person on the crew at certain stations seems attractive but is it really when the cost for doing so is the complete loss of two stations/25% of your rolling capacity? What really bothered me and what absolutely cemented my opinion of negligence was the stunning lack of discussion, deliberation or interest on the part of the seven board members from BW and Oakley in considering alternate scenarios or the overall ramifications of multiple station closures. It was as if you all had already had the meeting and what happened on the 7th was just a formality for show.
I know you fully recognize that it really has only been a matter of months that ANY of the stations in this district have consistently run with 3-person crews and how many times does it have to be said/acknowledged that overall this fire district is deficient in so many ways. Sure, the goal of 3-person crews needs to exist but to implement now (or to maintain that “luxury”) at the expense of losing 25% of your response time capacity seems ridiculous, i.e. negligent. That realization is reinforced even further when all the peculiarities of the outlying stations/communities subject to closure are factored in.
I agree with anyone who says every dollar of spending is important. So, if you are seeking ways to make up the ~$70K in difference between 8 stations at 2/0 and what was voted on I suggest the following:
1. Carefully scrutinize the fireboat program. In a perfect situation I would think this district would need this capability, but as we both know right now “perfect” is not even a recognized term in this district’s lexicon. Last Tuesday I saw the ECCFD fireboat, with a 4-person crew, well into San Joaquin County, driving around and shooting the water cannon. The next day I saw them twice driving around in fast-water just outside DB. I seriously doubt any of the times I saw them they were on a call. Maybe they were on a training mission and training is good… but is it good/reasonable to allocate that kind of labor spending (my guess it was OT) in the face of imminently shutting down 25% of your fire vehicle capacity and potentially leaving an entire sector of the district without reasonable fire service? Once again the negligence factor comes to mind when you consider those engines you are planning to take off the road have the opportunity to serve everyone one of the 110K district residents plus every person who passes through while the fireboat, even in the most theoretically ideal circumstance, could possibly only serve a few percent of the district. I am not one to say run out and sell the boat but I do believe it should be considered for deactivation or put on some kind of ultra-emergency standby-only status (or POC/volunteer operated) until the district’s overall financial situation is addressed.
2. We all understand that move-ups and other circumstances cause stations to, from time to time, be empty. Developing a plan based on call patterns and other factors (seasonality) to implement a “dark-shift” program that rotates through all stations in the district would seem to have merit. The savings in overtime could indeed offset the ~$70K. I might guess that less than 20 dark-shifts alone could more than make up the difference and allow the 8 station 2/0 scenario to be at the same savings level as the choice you made which would idle 25% of the fire truck capacity 24/7/365.
I have stated my thoughts to your board in person and now in writing, I have made public comments in DB and my opinions have been printed in the newspaper. At this juncture my first inclination is continue my public rhetoric by obtaining more public records and pursuing my theory of negligence along with the potential poor judgment related to operational observations. But at this time I am not going to do that. I believe the obvious is so glaring and the case for proceeding with the 8 station 2/0 scenario while, aggressively and with undivided community support, developing the ultimate strategic plan is so overwhelming that you all will be moving in that direction with no further cajoling from me. Please do not underestimate the value of all the communities in this fire district having a unified objective as the all important and extremely difficult revenue enhancement dilemma is tackled.
You know as I write this letter and think about the implications of the term “negligence” maybe it is not a strong enough characterization. How is it even remotely defensible to eliminate 25% percent of a large and diverse fire districts fire engine capacity to save ~$70K that is easily saved (and maybe more) in other very straight forward lower risk ways? Maybe insane is a better term.
If I have stated anything herein that is factually wrong or not accurate please advise.
Thank you and good luck with your difficult task.
Sincerely,
Jeff Barber
Clearly, right now, in this fire district, under the present circumstances it is all about response time. It is also about serving vast areas and areas with special needs/circumstances/dangers that are utilized by all residents of the district as well as by thousands of transients every day. The 6 station scenario presently on the table is a political solution not a strategic solution aimed at best serving the district and not one that will set the process effectively in motion for developing the ultimate solution(s). The board acted too quickly and without proper consideration of all the variables. They have the opportunity now to adjust their decision to one that will better serve the entire district on an interim basis and set the stage for a cohesive process to achieve what is ultimately necessary to maintain a strong and long-term viable fire district.
A few other key points I firmly believe:
1) glover and piepho need to pay at the ballot box for how this fire district has been handled/governed/neglected.
2) The raging deficiencies of the district cannot be placed-on/blamed-on the employees. Nothing about what this board has to do is easy (but it could be said closing stations is the easy way out).
3) The two main objectives of the new fire board should be to preserve response times (during the interim period) and develop a comprehensive strategic plan to fix the problems. The next objective needs to be the formation of a real "special district" with independently elected representatives.
4) The $$ reserves are not sacred and should be used to protect the people of the district.
5) Bankruptcy should be considered as an aspect of the strategic plan. Bankruptcy may happen anyway so it should be understood and considered as a proactive tool to help achieve the ultimate solution.
6) Decisions may/will have to be made that are not consistent with union wishes. So be it. Welcome to 2010!
7) In these matters putting politics first is, in my opinion, negligent or worse.
8) Key Point (and this is HUGE)...if bob mankin and I generally agree on something (at least we agree on at this point district wide response times being the ultra critical consideration) then either the world is about to end or he and I are on the right track.
Now a question for both you and humble peasant because you keep bringing it up. What was the BoS supposed to have done to fix the problem? Be specific and don’t give me the tired developer fee angle with math that doesn’t add up. If you can't fill a $2.9M hole, which doesn't even maintain the status quo, then you idea isn't fiscally viable. At the time of formation the district was tasked with ENHANCING fire services. Instead they've got it in reverse and now seem to be content stepping on the accelerator in that retreat.
The powers that be in the district wanted local control. They now have that. The likelihood that a special tax would pass when originating in Martinez is much less than one which is formulated via a local controlling agency. Do you disagree?
The BoS serves as a pass through for property taxes flowing down from the state. THEY DO NOT SET THE RATES OR THE DOLLAR FIGURES ALLOCATED. Why are you still struggling with this, John? A former commissioner who doesn’t get the basics? They cannot funnel general fund dollars to this problem because the county does not have the legal obligation to provide fire services. ECCFPD is not a county fire department and it wasn’t even when the BoS was acting as the Board of Directors. They were simply the BoD by default. They have a mountain of other fiscal obligations that are MANDATED they fund, yet you keep suggesting, directly or indirectly, that they should funnel GF dollars(which they can’t) to this problem?
One last thing; isn’t Cypress Lakes in Oakley? Are you suggesting the Oakley planning commission should be approving projects and developer fees to fund capex projects in neighboring towns? Not sure the folks in Oakley are going to sign up for that, nor should they.
But let’s keep focused on the facts. I trust you have read the Chief’s docs. Within the scenarios provided to the Board at the May meeting it states that DB response times go from 6.5 minute average to 11 on the upper end or a 70% increase. For E59, let’s say you got a medical out at Discovery Pt at 3am. 60-90 second turnout time and now it’s 5.3 miles of travel distance. Sorry, those trucks don’t accelerate or stop like race cars and we’re talking about traveling down some narrow streets. There is no way you’re getting there in 7 minutes. You’re not supposed to travel more than 10 mph over the speed limit. Google maps puts it at 12 minutes and that’s without turnout time. Explain to the readers how you’re cutting that in half and why your numbers don’t jive with the Chief’s.
Once you start down the path of services provided according to revenue, you’re on the slippery slope. The cities with concentrated blocks will always win, leaving the outlying areas without. You jump between call volume and tax revenues, then make no mention of the resulting distribution of both once you make the closures. You fail to mention the 1.5/2.5 mile rings on the analysis maps don’t properly account for the geographics that are unique to Discovery Bay. It doesn’t matter much that most of DB falls within the ring when there is no bridge to get you there in a direct manner and the indirect path you have to take doubles the figure.
On call volume, if you take out 57 and 58 and assume 59 takes them all, now it’s almost as busy a station as 52, but with a much more massive geographic area to cover. You consider that equitable? How much Delta water and grassland areas(ie. south county and Vasco) is 52 responsible for? E59 will be at 1268 calls, while E52 is at 1383, according to stats in the LAFCO MSR.
On revenues, Knightsen comes up shorter than Bethel Island or DB/Byron in terms of revenue/station op cost ratios, yet you don’t see them even in the discussion for closure. On an individual level, DB residents have more of their tax dollar flow to your salary than do those in Brentwood. Why did you not make note of that?
Personally I think that’s a bad yardstick to use. It’s a horrible, horrible scenario when you start providing social services and in this case public safety services based strictly on ability to pay. That’s simply not consistent with the American values I know. The simple fact is tax revenues are not set up with fairness as their primary goal and you don’t get a 1:1 return of services for dollars paid. If you did, you’d be driving to work every morning over dirt roads because individually you haven’t contributed enough to build and maintain the roads you drive on. Those are built with a collective effort and it is with a collective effort that this district is run.
The only metric that matters here, IMO, is response time and only the 8 station model maintains response times through the largest expanse of the district. Only the frontier areas served by Marsh Cr are impacted, and that’s not to trivialize them. Anything else result in increased potential loss of property and lives for large expanses of the district.
The 6 station model the Board has leaned toward is nothing but a resource grab in difficult times. If you’re going to start applying that mentality, do you give up move-ups from the areas you cut? Do you give up mutual aid too? Seems you want to cut some people off, but retain the ability to tap their remaining resources during times of need.
This problem should be approached with a district wide mentality. If you start taking this every man for himself tack, we’re all screwed.
The 6 station model reduces available equipment district wide(again see the Chief’s docs) and saves only $70k which has no material affect on a drop dead date for monies. It makes no fiscal sense and it’s unconscionable that the district would be considering raising the response times for 20-25k people by 70-150% for almost 25% of the people they serve when an alternative is on the table.
Your concern for fire fighter safety in the 8/2 model is noted. But your suggestions would seem to put increased safety of the responder on a higher plane that the safety of the people you serve. Is that the trade-off you intended?
The only savior for this district is a special tax. Revenue was deficient before the economic crash. The property tax revenues which feed it will not recover in any significant amount for more than a decade. Pre-crash revenue flows from the existing parcels will not likely recover in my lifetime. They can’t due to the 2% annual increase cap in Prop 13. New revenue from new construction could offset some of that, but to make up just the current year’s deficit, you’re talking 15,000 new homes with a $200 per parcel tax. Who’s going to build that in this economic environment and as Measure F just clearly pointed out, who’s going to even allow it?
People aren’t using their heads here to do the math and come to the realization of just how urgent this revenue problem really is. It’s been known for 10 years, yet the current ECCFPD Board is now 5 meetings in and hasn’t had one single agenda item to discuss the problem. As Director Finetti stated at the last meeting, they just continue to rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic.
It is a travesty that this has gone on for so long. and it's only a matter of time before it results in a line of duty death. There have been several attempts made to increase staffing to 3-0, but unfortunately the need to staff yet another station comes up and they go back down to 2-0 in order to make ends meet. Coverage at the expense of firefighters safety. It's like tying someones arm behind their back. If stations need to be closed 3-0 staffing is a big step in the right direction enhancing efficiency and effectiveness at the engine company level and providing a safer working environment for the line personnel.
Also, there will certainly be an increase in response times but the response times depicted in the article are somewhat inflated. For example, E59 responding Code 3 from quarters to the end of Discovery Bay Blvd. is in the realm of a 7 minute response. That is on par with other stations in the district with busier more heavily populated areas. Currently the Byron/Discovery Bay area has 3 engines=6 firefighters on scene within 10 minutes which is better than most areas in the county and certainly better than anywhere else in the district, responding to less than 5% of the call volume for the district in an area that generates less revenue than the City of Oakley pays for a single engine with 3 firefighters. If a population of 30,000 can make due with 3 firefighters in 7-8 minutes a population of 17,000 can do the same.
Nobody wants to see their local house affected by a station closure, but realistically Discovery Bay and Byron currently have the best coverage in the district and are only generating a small fraction of the call volume. Bethel Island doesn't even generate enough revenue for one engine at 2-0. In fact they are currently operating at a deficit of $700,000.
It's a hard pill to swallow but despite the population and the property value these areas just do not generate enough money to support that many stations. Mary and Federal have known this for years and let things lie.
FD9500, I don't know why you are bringing up station 95. But since you did, the major difference between the other examples you brought up is that the other stations didn't have toxic mold, were far more viable in terms of repair, each run nearly 1/3 of the total calls for the district, and were never condemned by county health. That station is a shanty at best and cost to remodel is prohibitive since such an extensive remodel would most likely require the sleeping quarters to be placed above the water line.....essentially they would be better off leveling the station and starting over or going to another location altogether. At this point they aren't even talking so much about a closure at 95 because it actually runs more calls than 57 and 58 combined.
The bottom line is that Byron, Discovery Bay, and Bethel Island do not generate the revenue to support the level of service and coverage they are currently receiving (which is sorely understaffed to begin with). If people want to continue to receive that level of service they will have to put their money where their mouth is. That is the harsh reality. Mary and Federal pleading for the Fire Board to wait is too little and too late and personally offensive considering their lack of initiative contributed greatly to the problem.
John I have really enjoyed reading your comments and the article you wrote, but I don't understand how or why you think the union has so much to do with the closing of stations. I agree that they have influence but in this case they really have not had much input except when they were asked. Ultimately this is the Board and the Chief making some really tough choices. There are huge disparities in the revenue being contributed vs. the level of service being provided. That coupled with the actual number of calls for service is what they are having to weigh in the balance. It may seem rash, but they are trying to do what Mary and Federal should have done years ago.
Which station will they close next year when they
lose the next 10 per cent of their budget.
According to the fire disrict the Bethel Island station has to be closed because of mold, asbestos
and lead paint. One of the Brentwood stations had a problem with asbestos and is still open. Station 93 in Oakley had a problem with mold and
is still open.