Meet Carly

I think many people voted against Measure “U” without knowing what that would mean. Now they’re finding out what it means and they’re upset. I think an engaged, well informed public is essential. So maybe now that they’re awake and alert, we can start to talk about solutions.
I’m not going to repeat my complete assessment of the situation that is available on the White Oaks Blog.

For those who say the upper management should take cuts, see Monday’s agenda. The consent calendar includes a resolution taking away their contracted wage increase, which saves almost $111,000. The staff report is at: http://www.epackets.net/cache/2/44swfne3k4uqkaqkyos2ma45/1028044103192010073747364.PDF

Your summary of the options is excellent.
So let’s see…..
The City of San Carlos has a %3.5M deficit and Upper Management is going to help bridge this gap by foregoing a scheduled salary increase in the amount of $111,000. Let’s all be clear this is NOT a salary reduction. A salary reduction occurs when one’s salary is reduced.
Here is one section from the epacket:
“Over the past 5 years, police expenditures have increased 21% and fire expenditures 30%. During the same 5 year period all other City expenditures have been reduced 13.4%. Despite the fact the public safty costs have grown substantially in the past decade, public safety levels have been greatly diminished by the City’s decade long efforts to combat 11 straight years of budget deficits”.

Doug,
And your point is?

Has anyone considered that outsourcing would “raise the bar” when it came to outsourcing? There has been all this chatter about the serviceability would be lowered if our police and sheriffs were to be outsourced. It could be on the contrary. The sheriffs department could certainly raise the bar. I know cal fire would. Cal fire could even add an additional engine/truck company and still save the city of San Carlos a ton of money. Cal Fire keeps there bar very high when it comes to meeting the standards and doing the best job possible for the community. Cal Fire services communities all across the state. Riverside County alone is run by Cal Fire and they run over 150,000 calls a year. I think it would raise the bar for public safety in San Carlos and would stream line emergency responses all over the county. if the entire state stands by its local department called Cal Fire, why couldn’t San Carlos?

Ann,
The Riverside County Grand Jury disagrees with you. Their report advises the County to get out of Cal Fire ASAP because of fiscal mismanagement as well as practices that put the lives of the public at risk. The State Legislative Analyst’s Office has advised the Governor to cut Cal Fire back to its original mission: fighting wildland fires. If we sign up and the State pulls out, then what? I don’t trust the State to keep its word.
The Cal Fire proposal only covers a portion of what our Fire Dept. does, so it remains to be seen whether we would save any money once we pay for all the stuff they don’t do.
The Sheriff’s office may have very high standards for what they do, the question there is: what would they charge us to provide the high quality of service we presently have and would that save us money. Their present proposal costs less than what we have now but it also provides less service.
The County itself is facing a $150 million budget deficit. What will that mean for the Sheriff’s office? I don’t know and neither does the County, yet. Rest assured that they cannot afford to subsidize us, so when costs go up, so will our bill.

Pat,
This Riverside county grand jury issue is a very bad rumor. I know many people that work in Riverside unit. All this talk about the county wanting Cal Fire out is news to them. I think some facts from your source are very misleading. I just made some phone calls to Riverside and got the info straight from the source. If your trying to allude that Cal Fire is a “podunk” fire department, you are greatly mistaken. Cal Fire is a much different department than what a lot of people think. Not only is it the best department in the world at fighting wild land fires (some country’s have been know to send there firefighters to Cal Fires training facilities), Cal Fire is one of the most progressive departments in the nation when it comes to all aspects of emergency responses. Cal fire greatly excels past the minimum and meets and beats many small departments with efficiency in there work force.

Ann,
My source is the Grand Jury Report, which can be found at:
http://www.riverside.courts.ca.gov/grandjury/09rivcofiredept.pdf
The LAO recommendation is at: http://www.lao.ca.gov/analysis_2009/resources/res_anl09003005.aspx
I’m afraid that anecdotal recommendations from your friends just don’t offset the data.
I am not saying that Cal Fire is not excellent at fighting wildfires, that’s what they do. If we contract with them and they close stations that don’t get many calls for wildland fires, we’re up the creek.
In addition to those concerns, we have the fact that they didn’t even bid on many of the services our fire department provides. We have no idea whether there will be any savings by the time we pay for all those other services.
We provide Haz Mat services for the entire County. Who’s going to do that if our highly trained, experienced firefighters choose not to give up pay increases for years to come and work for an agency that can transfer them anywhere in California at any time, an agency for which they do not have respect.
Half Moon Bay went to Cal Fire recently, and I hear they are not at all happy with the service.

Pat,
You should not be speaking on subjects for which you have little or no information about. The report you’re talking about has to deal with volunteers for which some in Riverside are trying to limit or abolish and the volunteers are fighting it. The fight is spearheaded by some ambulance chaser who sits on the board/council and was or still is a volunteer. Not saying volunteers are bad, but they have a place and should know it, unlike some volunteers in San Mateo County. As for services or lack thereof, the city dictates what services they would like from Calfire. You want a Hazmat and you agree to pay for it…it’s like magic…you get a hazmat. The state can save a city so much money it’s unbelievable….small example: there is a city that pays $19,000 for their engine not including personnel. The engine breaks down – no charge for the reserve unit. The engine is on a call – no charge for the cover engine. You need hose – no charge. The engine is completely out of service – no charge for a new one. $19,000 a year is all that’s charged. Now for all the badmouthing of Calfire – here’s the truth: All of the Bay Area firefighter’s are overpaid. Don’t get me wrong, if I made starting $100,000 plus full benefits and had to work 10 days a month and you wanted to take that away from me, I too would be calling anyone and everyone all sorts of names. Reality check – It’s one of the best jobs around and it’s an extremely important job in so many ways and I think many who are fortunate to work in the field forget how fortunate they are and forget the true reason and meaning for being a firefighter. Cities, can’t afford to pay the salaries they allowed for so many years and something has to give and it ain’t gonna be pretty.

Oh by the way, they don’t close stations because they don’t run wildland fires and the state can not transfer an employee wherever they feel like it whenever they feel like it…get your facts straight.

I live in unincorporated Nevada County, CA in a moderately populated area of 1/2 to 1 acre homesites. Cal Fire provides our fire protection and they do a stellar job. Fast response, highly trained firefighters with state of the art equipment. The closest fire station to my neighborhood is 1/2 mile away housing 2 fire trucks and 1 EMS ambulance staffed 24/7/365. If a second or third alarm is sounded, another Cal Fire station 2 miles away responds. Cost? By vote, those in unincorporated areas passed a property tax addition of $50 per year per household to bring in Cal Fire in 2006, thereby booting out the cities of Grass Valley and Nevada City as fire protection providers.

If the voters in San Carlos would approve a parcel tax of $50 per parcel, we’d have $750,000 per year dedicated to fire and we wouldn’t be having this discussion.
While the Grand Jury report focuses on the conflict between Cal Fire and volunteer firefighters, it reveals some very troublesome practices on the part of Cal Fire.
The LAO is recommending closure of any stations that don’t get enough calls for wildland fires, in order to save the State money. Given the state of the State, I don’t trust them not to follow that advice. People who work for Cal Fire tell me they can be transferred and have no recourse.
I’d like to see each person who thinks firefighting is an easy job put on 70 lbs of turn out gear, climb three flights of stairs, and carry a disabled person down the same three flights, as our firefighters did just before the first revenue measure failed. Or, put on the same 70 lbs of gear and wade into some unknown toxic substance. Look what has happened to the firefighters who worked at ground zero in 2001. Firefighters have a very high rate of disability, because they do a dangerous job.
I’m asking for an apples:apples comparison of costs. Cal Fire has provided a very affordable bid, but it doesn’t provide the service we have now.
Ron, I have cited sources for my information, you have not. Why should your claims be considered “facts” and mine not?

I would recommend that before the San Carlos City Council makes a final decision on the budget, that they request the City Manager to request a proposal from Redwood City detailing the merging of the San Carlos and the Redwood City Police Departments. Redwood City has recently sent the San Carlos City Manager a letter expressing their interest in joining the two police departments. Redwood City is a very professionally run department with a highly respected and experiences Police Chief. Why not find out exactly what Redwood City has in mind, in a written proposal which would serve as an alternative to contracting out City L/E services to the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office. I believe the time would be well spent and would bring a fresh view to the current budget alternatives for the San Carlos City Manager and City Council to review.

Bob,
Very good comment. It is my understanding that Redwood City proposed providing contracted police service, not merging the two departments. Contracting with any agency means a loss of local control, so I too would prefer a merge.

Pat;
sounds like you are anti CAL FIRE and your ignorance is blinding you. CAL FIRE is the most progressive fire department in the state for wild land, structure, haz mats and medical calls. lets talk about your comments, 2 chiefs from butte county(CAL FIRE) are on the rewrite staff of rescue systems and low angle rescue just to name a few. Your haz mat comment is funny, CAL FIRE has highly trained HAZ MAT techs, teams and can handle any call thrown at them. To say that CAL FIRE runs only wild land and thats what they do is ignorant, lets take BUTTE CO for instance. They have a rescue team, haz mat team, 2 type one incident commanders that are ICs on teams for wild land, 3 stations in the chico city limits which get up to 2000 calls a station per year, water rescue equipment, air support apperatus, medics, help run the best fire academy in the state at butte college, put on a truck academy 2 times a year, extrication 3 2 times a year. They are the riverside of the north and lead the progression of CAL FIRE seeing that John Hawkins, once a division chief in butte, is the Unit Chief for all of riverside!! CAL FIRE has given the same service if not better than any city fire department in the state to the people of butte county (all 275,000), they public loves CAL FIRE. before you mock or say negitive things about the department i suggest you actually go out and talk to the people in the areas that CAL FIRE serves and see what they say.

Mr. Tyme,
I don’t have to go to Butte Co. Half Moon Bay is closer. Was John Hawkins the unit chief in Riverside when the Grand Jury recommended that the County start its own fire department and get rid of Cal Fire?
The proposal to San Carlos does not include Haz Mat and other services provided by our department.
I am not ignorant, I just disagree with you.

John hawkins is the unit chief now and has been for most of this decade. You have to look outside halfmoon bay because that is a new addition to CAL FIRE, there is obviously going to be some people unhappy right after the switch. why dont you look at lake county fire, napa county fire, sonoma county fire, santa clara unit or any of the surrounding CAL FIRE units who handle anything the public asks of them. If the proposal doent have HAZ MAT then have the city council ask them to add that in there, thats what they are there for, make them do their job.
Also i was wondering if you read pages 12 and 13 of the grand jurys report. voulunteer fire fighters do not offer the same protection as carrer fire fighters, its a shame that they had to resort to this. just because they are unhappy they arent being used does not warrent a grand jury report, CAL FIRE serves the public with the highest regard. maybe the volunteers need to understand that they have a job before being a fire fighter, you dont see professional fire fighters comming to their day job and complaining “why dont you use me to do this job”. its uncalled for and who is to say that they wouldnt do the same thing as soon as a diffrent department took over.

My point is that not taking a scheduled salary increase of $111,000 when the deficit is $3.5M will do little or nothing to solve the deficit.
It is nothing more than a public relations gambit.
The City has been running a budget deficit for 11 years.
Do you think it is going to get better?
If the City proposes a tax increase to keep our police and fire, I will consider voting for said increase provided it is not a one or two year band aid.
The thing with tax increases is that they never seem to solve the problem.
2 or 3 years later, more money is needed.
If the City and all its employees can figure out a way to maintain status quo for say 5 to 10 years, let’s have them calculate the tax increase needed and put it to a vote.
But I don’t want to fight this battle again two years from now.

Bob,
Nice to meet you tonight. I was very pleased at all the citizen support for our public safety employees. Too bad the Council paid no attention whatsoever!