Davis FireOne of the big questions facing the Davis Fire Department is the issue of staffing and the issue of whether or not the fire department needs a fourth fire station. Data presented by the Davis Fire Department has often shown that Davis has a relatively low number of fire fighters per thousand people, a high population per station, and a low cost per capita.
The Vanguard’s analysis largely confirms those findings that would seem to suggest that davis is in need of more fire staffing, an additional fire station, and that it is run relatively cost effective.
However, the Vanguard moves beyond that statistical analysis and analyzes these measures looking number of service calls as the key variable rather than population. Using the metric of service calls, we find Davis consistently inefficient. Davis ranks at the bottom in total service calls per year over the four year period, at the bottom in calls per 1000, in the middle of calls per fire station, and fourth to last in the staffing ratio for service calls.
The key finding here is that when you look the cost per call for the city of Davis is it the fourth most expensive of the 12 sample cities at just under $2100 per service call. It ranks below Palo Alto, Folsom and Roseville. And just above the city of Berkeley and the city of San Luis Obispo. However, even that is not the complete picture.
Davis provides Basic Life Support (BLS) and requires firefighters to be EMT’s. However, the highlighted cities provide Advanced Life Support (ALS). That means that in addition to fire and EMT services, they also provide ambulance transport which requires Paramedics. In other words, they are providing far more service with their expenditures than Davis does. Whereas Davis has to outsource ambulance services for an additional expenditure.
Looking at it that way, Davis provides the highest cost per service call of any city only providing fire and BLS.
The key for these data is the low volume of service calls overall and the low volume of service calls per 1000 residents. Davis is at the very bottom in terms of number of service calls and far on the bottom in terms of number of service calls per 1000 residents.
On the other hand in terms of calls per station, Davis ranks in the middle at seventh which probably suggests that its current number of stations is about right. Adding to that fact is the fact Davis is the smallest of these cities in terms of square miles (not shown) at 9.9 square miles. It is also second in population density to Berkeley which has 101,000 residents for its 10.5 square miles as opposed to Davis’ 63,000 residents for its 9.9 square miles. Thus the physical area of Davis is the smallest and its population heavily concentrated.
This is important to understand because in terms of population per fire station Davis ranks only behind Vacaville and just ahead of Fairfield in terms of the number of people each fire station has to serve on average. Davis also has the second fewest fire fighters per thousand residents, this time just ahead of Fairfield and just behind Napa and Vacaville.
As was mentioned earlier, Davis also ranks second to last in terms of cost per capital. Davis spends just under $144 per person on fire services, that ranks well ahead of Fairfield’s $112.50 which was the lowest cost per resident. Davis ranks just behind Napa which was at $147.66.
These statistics are generally used to support additional fire personnel and a fourth fire station. However, they appear to be mitigated by actual need in terms of number of service of calls.
So while Davis ranked 9th in actual overall spending on fire services, again accounting for the fact that five of the municipalities use their fire budget to provide ambulance and paramedic services as well, Davis ranks fourth in that cost per service call.
Davis needs to evaluate its staffing needs based on a full array of statistical measures. As the city moves into a cost saving mode, there are a number of issues it needs to weigh in terms of staffing of the fire department.
The first question is the one that the Vanguard has touched on the most and that is salary of the individual fire fighter in addition to their their overtime, total compensation, and perhaps most importantly their pension plan that will pay them 3% at 50 for every year of service they have provide pro rated to their ending salary.
The second issue is it needs to evaluate its staffing needs. Davis unlike a lot of other cities uses a four person unit. If the city were getting a high number of fire calls, a four person unit might be preferrable, but the call volume and the ratio of fire calls to other emergency calls suggest that this is not the case. Therefore the city might want to look into other staffing configurations that will allow the department to continue to serve the public at the highest possible level while conserving the costs.
Along the same lines, the city might evaluate whether every fire station needs to send out all of its equipment for every call. This is done in case of multiple calls but the result is a loss of efficiency and cost effectiveness. Again, we do not pretend to know the answers here, only pose the questions of things the city can explore to reduce cost.
Finally the issue of the fourth fire station arises. The fire department has long maintained that response time dictates a fourth fire station. The fourth fire station would add construction and maintenance costs, but also staffing costs.
Our analysis calls the need for the fourth fire station, or at least a full fourth fire station into question. The number of calls, the overall staffing, and the population density all point to the need to maintain current levels of staffing at best. A full fourth fire station with equivalent staffing looks like a great waste of resources according to this model.
That is not to completely rule out a fourth fire station. However, the city will need to develop an alternative model for it. A fully staffed fourth fire station, would greatly add to the cost per call. Resident surveys already indicate a high satisfaction rate. So the question is really what is the safety bang for the buck by adding another four person team on call at all times, which would raise the cost by another third.
The city might be better off developing some sort of alternative staffing model or a hybrid model if it believes there needs to be a greater spread throughout the city geographically. However given the compactness of the city, that is not altogether clear. Moreover, given the relatively low call volume Davis receives, the need for additional resources do not seem pressing or justified.
Davis needs to get its fiscal house in order overall. Right now, the city’s fiscal situation is not in crisis mode but there are problems on the horizon if the city fails to contain costs. Fire staffing and salaries would seem to be one area that the city needs to look into in order to do so.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
…Whereas Davis has to outsource ambulance services for an additional expenditure….Why do they have to do it? Palo Alto provides ALS and charges for services. AMR charges Davis residents for its ALS services. Most of the …fire… calls are really medical calls so why not provide the service and have users (mostly insurance) pay for the program?
The only point is that Davis for comparison purposes is not incurring the additional cost that some of the other city's are incurring for in-housing their ambulance services. So comparing budgets without taking this into account is not comparing apples-to-apples.
We need to replace our current system with a volunteer fire department. The medical calls should go to the ambulance companies where they can be paid for through private insurance.Simple way to solve a lot of fiscal heartache and bring a spirit of public involvement.
DPD, good work with your thoughtful analysis.My own opinion is that the Lewis Homes Project would tip us over the line and require building a 4th Fire Station located in the north side of town. The applicants don't want to talk about that, but it's a fact.Also, on the 3 v. 4 member crew concept, when I was first elected to the CC in 2000, I thought that adding the 4th member was wasteful. However, since then I have decided that the 4-member crews are the most efficient and safest for them and the members of the public.One of the biggest problems is the fact that the Fire Dept sends two trucks and full crews to every accident, whether injury reported or not. That change happened in the few years, and I think that an independent consultant should analyze this policy.
The County controls the ambulance issue. They want AMR, as the Davis calls (mostly insured) heavily subsidize the calls in other parts of the county (mostly uninsured). A Davis FD ambulance capability would leave the rest of the county paying its own way, meaning, County Govt would pay for the large number of uninsured patients.So … ask your local friendly County Supervisors to change the policy.
The incremental cost to provide ALS would be significant, but probably not as much as you think. They need the equipment and paramedics. The equipment would be entirely incremental. On the people side you would hire paramedics instead of emts – roughly a 10% premium. An ambulance has two people – one emt and one paramedic. I do not know what the ROI would look like, but someone should do the analysis. Why should Davis residents have to support two programs?
I should have added something. Palo Alto has two ambulance teams – they cover the city as well as Stanford. More than half of the Fri/Sat calls come in from Stanford. Palo Alto provides all fire/med services for Stanford. Davis already has one ambulance – it is sitting at the UCD fire station. In my opinion Davis needs to think more about sharing services with UCD.
Where does Davis rank in population compared to these other cities?It seems that Davis is smaller than most of these other places. Are these really good choices for comparision?
Davis is in the middle of this group in terms of population. I used the cities that Navazio and other city staff generally use as comparison points.
…My own opinion is that the Lewis Homes Project would tip us over the line and require building a 4th Fire Station located in the north side of town. The applicants don't want to talk about that, but it's a fact….Good point. And this city cannot afford a fourth fire station. It cannot afford to fill potholes right now, nor pay its employee pension benefits. Forget a 4th fire station. If Lewis properties wants to build at the Cannery site, let them pay for a fourth fire station!
……………The first question is the one that the Vanguard has touched on the most and that is salary of the individual fire fighter . ……………David , what is the base pay of a Davis firefighter ?
Class Title: Firefighter I Class Code: 42000 Salary: $23.88 – $29.03 hourly$2,674.57 – $3,250.96 biweekly$5,794.90 – $7,043.74 monthly$69,538.85 – $84,524.88 annually Based on 2912 on duty hours per year
If you take the numbers that David Greenwald reported for 2007 for the 35 highest paid fire personnel (excluding the chief, the business manager and the administrative manager) and update them based on the pay increase of last year, you can approximate how much the base salaries, the overtime and the city's contribution for their pensions will cost Davis taxpayers in 2009, assuming that the new contract which comes into effect on July 1 neither lowers nor raises their current rates of compensation:Job Title = Salary + O.T = PERS = TotalCaptain $202,036 == $27,497 == $229,533Captain $162,838 == $26,188 == $189,025Div Chief $159,546 == $33,331 == $192,877Captain $149,894 == $27,497 == $177,391FF2 $145,972 == $23,910 == $169,882Captain $145,531 == $26,188 == $171,719FF2 $145,143 == $23,910 == $169,054FF2 $143,167 == $23,910 == $167,077Captain $143,132 == $27,497 == $170,629Captain $142,633 == $27,497 == $170,130FF2 $140,881 == $23,910 == $164,792FF2 $140,163 == $23,910 == $164,074Captain $137,498 == $27,497 == $164,995Captain $134,559 == $27,497 == $162,056FF2 $134,397 == $23,910 == $158,308FF2 $133,395 == $23,910 == $157,305FF2 $133,084 == $23,910 == $156,994Captain $132,627 == $27,497 == $160,124FF2 $132,407 == $23,910 == $156,317FF2 $128,286 == $23,910 == $152,196FF2 $128,100 == $23,910 == $152,010FF2 $127,801 == $23,910 == $151,712FF2 $125,651 == $23,910 == $149,562Captain $122,873 == $27,497 == $150,370FF2 $122,412 == $23,910 == $146,323FF2 $122,288 == $22,772 == $145,060FF2 $120,369 == $23,910 == $144,279FF2 $120,188 == $23,910 == $144,099FF2 $120,082 == $23,910 == $143,993FF2 $119,686 == $23,910 == $143,596FF2 $119,457 == $23,910 == $143,367FF2 $119,085 == $23,910 == $142,995FF2 $116,206 == $23,910 == $140,117FF2 $115,888 == $22,772 == $138,660FF2 $115,166 == $21,687 == $136,853Even if the city freezes the base salaries of all fire department personnel for the next 3 years, the cost of the city's share of their pensions (about 72%) is expected to go up substantially beginning in 2011. It was $2,287,588 in 2008/09. I don't know how much that number is going to grow. I have heard estimates that it might be an additional 20-25% (meaning $450,000 or more).
…How many structure fires were fought by firefighters in Davis last year, 2,4?…The DFD responded to 37 builing fires (posted on their website) from January 1 to December 31, 2008:Jan. 02, 2008 Time: 5:22 PM Location: 625 CANTRILL Dr Jan. 05, 2008 Time: 12:28 PM Location: 44468 CLUB HOUSE Dr Jan. 06, 2008 Time: 2:42 PM Location: 3318 LILLARD Dr Jan. 10, 2008 Time: 8:37 AM Location: 1111 RICHARDS Blvd Jan. 19, 2008 Time: 12:24 AM Location: 23354 County Road 95 Rd Jan. 22, 2008 Time: 5:25 PM Location: 2940 SPAFFORD St Jan. 25, 2008 Time: 9:00 AM Location: 5035 HAMEL St Category: Fire Desc: Building fire Feb. 07, 2008 Time: 2:18 PM Location: 3226 CHESAPEAKE BAY Ave Feb. 10, 2008 Time: 5:36 PM Location: 44332 S EL MACERO Dr Feb. 20, 2008 Time: 10:55 AM Location: 3023 ALBANY Ave Feb. 20, 2008 Time: 4:57 PM Location: 2000 SHASTA Dr Mar. 05, 2008 Time: 11:42 AM Location: 1311 DRAKE Dr Mar. 15, 2008 Time: 11:30 PM Location: 3022 BOULDER Pl Apr. 04, 2008 Time: 1:20 PM Location: 625 CANTRILL Dr Apr. 16, 2008 Time: 7:52 PM Location: 1280 OLIVE Dr Apr. 20, 2008 Time: 8:27 PM Location: 1337 CAMPHOR Ln Apr. 30, 2008 Time: 12:38 PM Location: 43223 E OAKSIDE Pl May. 01, 2008 Time: 9:52 AM Location: 1820 Whiting Ct May. 02, 2008 Time: 2:55 AM Location: 2505 5TH St May. 09, 2008 Time: 11:43 AM Location: 222 LA VIDA Way May. 10, 2008 Time: 4:08 AM Location: 1100 OLIVE Dr May. 21, 2008 Time: 6:01 PM Location: 1753 RESEARCH PARK Dr May. 23, 2008 Time: 9:41 AM Location: 715 POLE LINE Rd May. 29, 2008 Time: 2:27 AM Location: 220 3RD St Jun. 11, 2008 Time: 5:52 PM Location: 330 UNIVERSITY Ave Jun. 21, 2008 Time: 10:06 PM Location: 1111 J St Aug. 11, 2008 Time: 5:32 PM Location: 44178 GREENVIEW Dr Aug. 11, 2008 Time: 6:46 PM Location: On 2ND St at COUSTEAU Pl Sep. 02, 2008 Time: 4:13 AM Location: 1543 DRAKE Dr Sep. 11, 2008 Time: 3:28 PM Location: 1027 OLIVE Dr Oct. 30, 2008 Time: 12:14 AM Location: 709 ARTHUR St Nov. 03, 2008 Time: 9:59 AM Location: 1115 AUBURN Dr Nov. 12, 2008 Time: 4:52 PM Location: 2400 POLE LINE Rd Nov. 13, 2008 Time: 3:19 PM Location: 1013 ARTHUR St Nov. 28, 2008 Time: 9:55 PM Location: 442 SCHMEISER Ave Dec. 11, 2008 Time: 6:07 PM Location: 100 FARO Ave Dec. 13, 2008 Time: 10:50 AM Location: 1850 E 8TH St…ONLY 10% of the fire station calls are for fire issues….That percentage seems about right. I would add that the majority of fire calls appear to be grass fires in the county….The overwhelming majority of the fire station calls are for emergency medical services….True. What I have never understood is why the DFD responds to every single medical 9-1-1 call. I have spoken to people from some other fire departments in our area, and all of the others seem to use discretion, based on the 9-1-1 information.
Thanks for posting the numbers on the structure fires. That averages 3 per month, more than I had realized.
Sparky the firedog says WOOF WOOF .
Attention all bean counters , what type of bean are you counting today ?Because if it's a heart attack bean every minute counts, the chance of death doubles every minute , until help arrives .That seems like an important bean to me !
That's correct but you don't need a four man fire department to show up when you have a heart attack. Which gets back to the revamping the staffing issue.
………That's correct but you don't need a four man fire department to show up when you have a heart attack……….Then , how many do you need ? For a heart attack .
I would guess two or three.
……… David M. Greenwald said…I would guess two or three………….Maybe an interview with Rose Conroy , would clear up a lot of these questions .Thats what I'd do if I was guessing .
I've talked to the chief in the past and listened to her, I know how she answers that question. I have also looked beyond this department to see how others answer this question.
I agree. The question is whether the current configuration is the only way to get that speed. Or whether you can produce another configuration that is more cost effective and because of that possibly faster.
The city’s cost numbers above, of course, don’t include any amount for their other benefits, which are substantial, or equipment expenses and so on.
Here are some statistics comparing Davis to Palo Alto.If you take the 2008/2009 operting budget for Palo Alto fire and divide it by the number of fire fighters you get $190K – in Davis the number is $185K. That cost includes salaries/benefits, equipment costs (depreciation & maint), supplies and some facitlities costs. I doubt it covers pension costs.More intersting is the net cost per employee – the gross costs net of all of the "revenue". The revenue would include inspection fees, fire protection fees and insurance payments. The net cost per firefighter in PA is $108K while it is $149K in Davis. 43% of the gross cost in PA is offset by revenue sources while Davis only gets back 19%. So the Gross in PA is higher but the Net, covered by taxpayers, is much less.
Wow! Clearly I’m in the wrong line of work. I didn’t know that city workers could make that kind of money.
Hello David, These people are overpaid for what they do. It would be great to fire rose conroy and reduce everyone’s pay commensurate to work done. And if they don’t like it they can always go somewhere else. How many structure fires were fought by firefighters in Davis last year, 2,4? Everyone can thank the firefighters union and rose conroy for the financial burden coming down the road for the city taxpayers. Even if nothing gets changed the whole system the firefighters use to justify it’s gross overpayment will eventually choke itself. Thanks David for a well done article.
Rich Rifkin , you still can’t get a base pay correct !Either get it right , or give up , because you are so far off base .Anon : 1;58 looks more like it .
Anonymous: how’s about you provide us all with the …correct… information. Thanks.
http://agency.governmentjobs.com/davis/default.cfm?action=agencyspecsThat is the link to base salaries. It is also important to consider benefits and overtime but be clear and identify each piece so there is no confusion.
…Rich Rifkin, you still can’t get a base pay correct! Either get it right , or give up , because you are so far off base….The numbers I list above are based on the public records published by David Greenwald. As I said, they include base salary and o.t. and the city’s cost of the pensions for fire personnel.
The Lewis mixed use at the old Hunt Wesson site would not be any kind of a …tipping point…. Many East Davis neighborhoods have been out of the …five minute response time for almost a decade (including Wildhorse and some other East Davis and North-East neighborhoods). The five minute response time issue is much more needed to be responded to by an Emergency Medical Service (EMS) the vast majority of the time NOT for a fire. The real solution that citizens have been demanding for over 10 years is that we DO NOT need a fourth fire station but INSTEAD we need to add an Emergency Medical Service (EMS) station in the east part of Davis.ONLY 10% of the fire station calls are for fire issues. The overwhelming majority of the fire station calls are for emergency medical services. One EMS station would cost a fraction of an entire fire station and the extremely expensive fire fighter staffing. Also, we would not need to double the staffing for an EMS station like a fire station has to cover …two in two out… safety measures to assure that there needs to be at least two fire fighters available outside for every two inside a FIRE response situation. The Davis Fire Department is completely out of control demanding an entire fire station and so many firefighters when only 10% of the calls are for any kind of fire. The fire fighters have a good thing going with their hefty salaries and super-hefty retirement deals. We need an EMS service in the east part of Davis and Emergency Medical Techs (NOT more firefighters and another fire station)to respond to the medical emergencies.
I used to be for the fourth fire station due to the five minute rule and I do think that Davis should have its own fire/ambulance service. However, currently AMR provides ALS services and I thought everyone was within five minutes of AMR. Is that not true?
You never fully value the services of the fire department, until you need them. Then, you are relieved that they are only minutes away and cost is not a consideration.Budgeting is key in producing efficiency.If the City Council was not focused on the numbers of calls, etc., I don’t think that the department would be sending its entire crews out on all calls. I believe that change was probably reactionary. But who cares if all of them go when a call comes in? What would they be doing instead?What is important is how long it takes for help to arrive, not how many people are arriving to render aid.
…You never fully value the services of the fire department, until you need them. Then, you are relieved that they are only minutes away and cost is not a consideration….I’ll give you an example of why cost does matter. I understand your scenario. The counter to that scenario is that right now the city does not have resources to fund a bunch of …unmet needs…. What are these needs? Things like road repair, infrastructure upgrade, etc. In some of these cases, these represent public safety risks. It may actually be more likely that your health in jeopardy from poor road conditions than it is that your life is in jeopardy because of lack of response time by the fire department.Moreover, the solution is to look at alternative staffing arrangements that allow for rapid response time while being fiscally responsible. I would oppose fiscal responsibility at the expense of public safety. I don’t think we face that, but I think the fire department wants that to be the terms of debate rather than how to give the city residents the best possible service while being fiscally responsible. IMO, that’s what the discussion should focus on. It is not an either / or scenario.
David, I agree with you on this. I believe that we are at the point where the City cannot give more money to the fire department. We’ll have to see if the department can trim excess and be more efficient over the next few years. I’m sure staff will want raises. It will have to come out of finding savings, not increases to their budgets.
Well that’s part of the problem–she’s got a vested interest in that answer. What I’d like to do is explore, as I have said, alternative staffing options where these issues would be weeded out. What I do know is that most departments do not have four member teams.
………… David M. Greenwald said…Well that’s part of the problem–she’s got a vested interest in that answer. …………But you’ve got to start with the chief , so you can be objective with your research , otherwise it’s just your ideas about a subject that your knowledge is most likely not up to speed on .Wouldn’t if you were doing a research paper for a school , the most logical place to start would be with the person in charge .If I wanted to learn how to run a blog , then I would talk to you .
My father in law (a fireman) and Dr. Lee of the Palo Alto Clinic introduced CPR training to Northern California many years ago. An irony is that after he retired my father in law died of a heart attack because the fire department was not able to respond quickly enough. Speed is vital.
Just so we’re clear here:I think the board made a mistake bringing forth closure of Emerson. However, that does not mean we should misrepresent the facts that actually occurred.I disagree with the closure of Emerson as I disagreed with the closure of Valley Oak. I think that was a grave mistake that we have not even begun to pay for.Had I been voting on the board in December and February, I probably would have joined Lovenburg opposing the construction project, if for no other reason than what we are seeing play out now.
I love how people who know nothing about Fire or EMS are making these radical statements. I guarantee that when the S**T hits the fan, you will be glad that help gets there quickly and with as many hands and as much equipment as possible. Have any of you people done CPR on a 300 pound person, while kneeling in emisis and fecal matter. Trust me some times you need six people. For those of you pulling the voulunteer card, you should look at the numbers of firefighter deaths in the nation and their causes. The only things that voulenteer firefighters are good at is crashing and killing themselves and others, as they speed through streets in their personal vehicles. And second they also have a great way of botching up fires and other calls. When your house is on fire or you loved one stops breathing, do you really want the kid from the hardwear store responding in his chevy pickup?! Come on, get real! That is a hundred steps backwards. The Davis Fire Department provides BLS, Fire attach and Rescue, HAZMAT, Low angle rescue, Trench rescue, Vehicle extrication, confined space rescue, Triage, and anything else people call them for. Firefighters are problem solvers, a true all risk department that repsonds to anything and everything. Any time someones problem no matter what it may be becomes more than they can handle, they call the fire department. This is a lot of knowledge and responsibility to be given to random members of the community. You need people with the training and experience of a proffesional.
Just so you know, Davis only has two
AMR units during the Day and one at night. So if they are busy, you will have to wait for one to come from west sac or somewhere else in the county. The fire department gets there every time, almost always faster than an ambulance. So stop picking on these guys, the money and benefits they recieve is really for there families. Because most of them wont get to live a long lush life such as yours. So the least we can do is to make sure that their families won’t be left wanting when they lose their mother or father, husband or wife.
The argument by F. Greenwald misses some key points.
If that’s what it takes to do the job, how come other cities are able to handle their calls for service at a lower cost.
And while there is indeed a safety consideration in play here, I still believe and no one has told me to the contrary that we can restructure our staffing. Other departments seem to have different staffing arrangements, less costly ones, and still provide good service to their community.
The bottom line is that if it puts people at risk to try to cut costs for public safety, it also puts people at risks for the city not to have enough money for basic infrastructure upgrades and repairs.
Finally, the city has to find ways to cut costs. The city’s employee salaries led by the top end and public safety as shown on the graphic of the Enterprise yesterday, rose at very high and unsustainable rates. We have to get those costs in order. Otherwise vital city services will shut down.
I have faith that our fire fighters can find ways to be just as good in a more cost-effective way.
Other cities may have 3 person enginge companies, but you have to remember that alot of the places your comparing Davis FD to, have a fire house for almost every square mile of city. So when they get a fire the engines are stacked on top of eachother in sometimes 2 minutes or less. The great thing about 4 person engine companies is, that when one engine gets a fire in their area, while waiting for the other engines to come from much further away (more than ten minutes in some areas of Davis) they can start an interior fire attack with the personel on hand. If they had 3 person engine companies then they would have to sit around out side and watch the fire grow, while waiting for the next engine company to arrive before making entry. Considering that fire doubles in size every minute, thats the difference between a simple kitchen fire or a fully involved stucture fire threatening neighboring homes.
So the answer is, yes Davis fire could restructure to 3 man engine companies. But because of 2 in 2 out rules, you would have many more large fires that cause much more damage and threaten more lives. So once again you are taking huge steps backwards. The people in Davis have the very best in fire protection and anyone with half a brain would not wanna give that up. Not to mention you can never have enough working hands on a structure fire.
I got an idea. Maybe we could do without a city park every block or a public pool or two. You should be looking into cutting excess fat like that rather than sacraficing public safety. Think people would rather drive a few extra blocks to take their kids swimming, than to watch their house burn down while the fire dept sits in their drive way waiting for the next do engine, so they meet 2 in 2 out before attacking the fire.
After 9/11 people seemed to have an appreciation for the public safety that they take for granted. So quickly people forget. You are bashing the very people who would sacrafice everything to help a stranger, even you David.
Oh and I almost forgot. You wanna talk about the fire department being more cost effective. They provide this great level of service, short a full fire house and with no Truck company of their own. You show me any other city that doesn’t have a truck company and has to depend on neighboring departments to provide them with one. Thats just embarassing.
“The Davis Fire Department provides BLS, Fire attach and Rescue, HAZMAT, Low angle rescue, Trench rescue, Vehicle extrication, confined space rescue”
It would be interesting to know how often and when the last time each of these things were performed.
David thats a real ignorant way of looking at things. How often do you get in a car accident or get really sick or have your house burn down? But the lack of occurance doesn’t stop you from having car insurance or health insurance. These are all things that can easily happen in Davis and when it does you will be glad that people are training in all these specialties. Remember Fire departments started as insurance companies. Stop hating its pathetic.
Instead of insulting David, how about answering the question? You’re acting like there is unlimited money in the city for fund these things especially if they remote possibilities.
You seem to be a firefighter based on your post, don’t you think perhaps your moniker is inappropriate?
I’m not a firefighter, but I work in public safety in another city and live in Davis. I have a vested interest in the safety of my family and the protection of my property. And your right I did let my emotions get the best of me. I apologize if I insulted you David. I have just been reading these blogs for months now and watching the city council meetings, and I have become increasingly frustrated with peoples cut throat suggestions. You have to remember these people whose jobs you’re talking about cutting have lives and families. It just seems wrong that after they have spent their lives serving the City of Davis, that the city would just turn around and cut their salaries and pensions and maybe eliminate their position all together.
I don’t have all the answers and that’s why I’m not on city council. Just makes me angry to see people make suggestions about things they don’t understand. We could certainly make cuts in other areas that wouldn’t sacrifice our fire protection or police force. I don’t get why people who have no idea about public safety think they know more than a fire chief who has come up through the ranks and has developed years and years of experience over time. You think you might want to listen to this person once in awhile. Like the fourth station that they have been telling council they need for the past 4 or 5 years. Why would it benefit the firefighter in this town if they got a fourth fire house, most of them don’t live here. They probably live in cities with a fire station every square mile. The fourth station in Davis is for the community that lives in the north part of town, who are out of the 5 minute response time. But apparently no one will care about that till heaven forbid something horrible happens and help can’t get there in time.
What I’m saying here is that David can crunch his numbers in ways to make the DFD look like a huge burden on the city. And it seems like he has something personal against the fire department, and he is trying to start some sort of lynching party here.
There are other luxuries that the city can do without, that should be looked at before we start sacrificing our excellent public safety that we are lucky enough to have.
So I’m sorry if I hurt any feelings, but I’m getting tired of this personal attack on our bravest. It’s easy to sit back and be sideline quarterbacks to the city manager or council members. So if you think you are better than the city manager or any council members, then get off your rear and run for the position or apply for the jobs. If the people of Davis believe in you then they will vote you in. Let’s see what you can do better.
37 building fires? I HIGHLY doubt that number. Perhaps, that’s what the call ORIGINALLY came out as, but most, what DFD refers to as “first alarm structure” fires turn out to be nothing more than a pan smoking on the stove or hot coals burning in a trash can- NOT HOUSES ON FIRE as they may want you to believe! For the ACTUAL number, check the Enterprise who should have photos of the home. It’s all propoganda- just like this blog.
“So if you think you are better than the city manager or any council members, then get off your rear and run for the position or apply for the jobs. If the people of Davis believe in you then they will vote you in. Let’s see what you can do better.”
The wife did and we all know what happened…
“David thats a real ignorant way of looking at things. How often do you get in a car accident or get really sick or have your house burn down? But the lack of occurance doesn’t stop you from having car insurance or health insurance. These are all things that can easily happen in Davis and when it does you will be glad that people are training in all these specialties. Remember Fire departments started as insurance companies. Stop hating its pathetic.”
Dear F. Greenwald, just because we have insurance, doesn’t mean we have to pay alot for it or bankrupt the city while doing it. Now whatever you do, don’t go out there and start a bunch of fires in Davis just so as to justify the need for more fire departments.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Yup and F. Greenwald are high ranking fire officials or getting paid loads of money somewhere in the government system of Davis. I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re making way over 100k on the tax payer’s dime, and are republicans that believe in small government when it benefits them, and big government when it benefits them.