Ad-hoc committee listens to crowd overwhelmingly in favor of local control
Blog note: This article
references a 2015 Grand Jury report suggesting that there is an opportunity for
improved emergency services by exploring the possibility of contracting for
some services with Cal Fire.
For the second time in four
days, an ad-hoc committee exploring Cambria’s fire protection options heard
from residents about their preferences and concerns moving forward.
And for the second time, those
who spoke from the audience Thursday, Sept. 3, at the Veterans Memorial
Building were overwhelmingly in favor of retaining local control rather than
entering into a long-term contract with Cal Fire.
The Cambria Community Services
District ad-hoc committee, consisting of board Vice President Muril Clift and
Director Michael Thompson, listened to input and fielded questions from an
audience of more than 50 people — about half of whom wore red T-shirts bearing
the message “Keep Cambria Fire Local.”
Of the 16 people who spoke —
some more than once — all but one urged the committee to retain the Cambria
Fire Department for fire protection as opposed to signing a more permanent
contract with Cal Fire. (The other speaker confined her comments to urging
audience members to read up thoroughly on the issue.)
With Cambria Fire Chief Mark
Miller’s retirement this summer, the CCSD board entered into a one-year,
interim agreement with Cal Fire to provide the community with fire protection.
Several of those who spoke had
also attended the committee’s first workshop, held Monday at the same location.
One of them, Mark Bonnard,
received applause when he asked, “I don’t understand why we’re spending so much
time on a problem we already have fixed.”
It was a sentiment echoed by
others in the audience, who questioned why the directors were considering a
switch to Cal Fire.
“We’re starting with the grand
jury report,” Thompson said in answer to a question by Cambria Healthcare
District trustee Mary Ann Meyer.
Thompson was referring to a report
that suggested there was an opportunity for improved emergency services if the
CCSD were to explore contracting Cambria Fire Department responsibilities with
Cal Fire. It further recommended that the CCSD request a presentation from Cal
Fire and obtain community input about the possibility of contracting with the
state agency.
Cal Fire officials, however,
have said such a presentation wouldn’t include a delineation of costs. Such a breakdown,
Chief Rob Lewin has said, would only come once the CCSD has committed to hiring
the agency. This was a sticking point with several audience members.
“Would any of the board members
or anyone else purchase a house, vehicle, insurance, anything without having
full disclosure of the cost before they signed a contract for the purchase?”
Jerry Wood asked. “I think not. Especially when it involves public funding.”
Both Clift and Thompson
expressed reservations about signing a contract before receiving an indication
of what services would be provided and the costs involved.
“Both Mike and I agree that
that would be problematic,” Clift said. “It would be a problematic situation if
we couldn’t get a real analysis of what everyone is providing.”
More than one member of the
audience suggested putting the matter to a direct vote of residents, each
receiving an enthusiastic round of applause, but the directors weren’t ready to
commit to such a course.
Instead, they suggested the
possibility of a survey to be included in water bills, and Clift reminding the
audience that board members had been elected to make decisions on behalf of
their constituents.
“There might be a vote, but
that’s a decision the board is going to have to make,” he said.
As they had Monday, former fire
chiefs Bob Putney and Bill Knoop spoke forcefully against contracting with Cal
Fire.
Knoop responded when Clift
asked the audience what they meant by keeping Cambria Fire local, pointing out
that the CCSD couldn’t require firefighters to live within the community they
serve.
“What is considered local is
local control,” Knoop said. “Once you sign a contract with Cal Fire, you no
longer have any control over the employees, period. No ifs, ands or buts. You
no longer have any control over the equipment. … Local control is important
because we have a way to talk to a local fire department, a way to deal with
them.”
Putney added that it would be
difficult to reverse course down the road if, after contracting with Cal Fire,
the community had second thoughts.
“This is a labor contract,” he
said. “The minute they stroke the pen with Cal Fire, all the employees will be
their employees, and you may never see them again.”
Cal Fire Chief Rob Lewin,
however, said earlier in the day that it’s not a complicated matter to shift
employees back to local supervision if a district decides to reactivate its own
department after a period of time under Cal Fire. He added that the equipment
remains the property of the local district.
In addressing the fire
protection workshop, Putney added that Cambria Fire and Cal Fire have different
missions and different strengths.
“How do you think the Los
Angeles police would feel if the city of Los Angeles got a contract with the
California Highway Patrol?” he asked. “Both are law enforcement agencies, (but)
both have vastly different missions.”
He described Cal Fire as “a
great wildland department. I love Cal Fire.” He added, however, that “when I
came down here, I was a little disappointed that their ability to fight
structure fires is not as well ingrained.”
Other audience members repeated
concerns, voiced at the first meeting, about a lack of familiarity with
Cambria’s streets potentially hindering the efforts of firefighters responding
to calls for help.
At one point in the meeting,
Clift sought to reassure audience members that the district’s investment in
fire protection hadn’t dropped. He said that, while the percentage of tax
dollars earmarked for fire protection had dropped from 80 percent in 2009 to 65
percent in 2015, the effective investment hadn’t changed.
Clift said that the state, in
that earlier period, had shown a tendency to dip into local coffers. But
he said, fire funds were off-limits to the state, so CCSD overbudgeted the fire
department to keep the state’s hands off district money.
“In effect, it became a slush
fund for the general manager,” he said. “The
extra money (in the fire
protection budget) was used for other things so the state wouldn’t reach in and
take that money.”
In answer to audience questions
about how long the committee’s fact-finding process would take, Thompson
reiterated what he had said Monday: that there would be five or six meetings
with the public to seek feedback.
Clift added that they planned
to make a “group and individual contacts with every employee of the CCSD Fire
Department within the next two weeks.”
Feedback from and comparisons
with other communities are also planned, he said, mentioning Los Osos,
Marysville and Canyon Country among them, starting within the next month or so.
The entire process, he and
Thompson estimated, would take about six months.
September 10, 2015
The
Cambrian
By
Steve Provost
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