The Davis Enterprise, on the eve of the water election, uses their Sunday editorial to argue, “Money-saving change will not jeopardize public safety.” The Enterprise writes, “While all eyes will be on results coming in from the Measure I election on the surface water project, we hope the council will give plenty of serious attention to these necessary changes.”
While these were agreed to by the Davis City Council, “with relatively little controversy,” the decision “on a recommendation to revert to three-person fire crews won’t be quite as easy.”
The paper notes, “City leaders approved four-person fire crews in 1999 after the Occupational Safety and Health Administration issued its ‘two-in, two-out’ mandate for firefighters in emergency situations. But that was long before the country’s economic downturn, and critics say the fire staffing levels are no longer compatible with Davis’ financial reality.”
The proposal from Interim Chief Kenley calls for staffing levels in the fire department on a daily basis to shrink from 12 firefighters down to 11, “with three-person engine crews at the downtown, West Davis and South Davis fire stations, as well as a two-person crew on a rescue unit assigned to the Fifth Street headquarters. Estimated savings: $360,000 per year.”
The paper adds, “Typically dispatched in tandem with a fire engine, the rescue vehicle could be designated a stand-alone unit and could respond to incidents with the West and South Davis fire engines if needed, Kenley suggests.”
However, as the Vanguard has reported, “Members of Davis Firefighters Local 3494 have opposed the reduction, saying it would increase safety risks to firefighters and damage to burning structures if fire crews, waiting for backup to arrive, are delayed in making their initial attack on a blaze.”
“They have taken their case to the public, knocking on doors and speaking with neighborhood groups in an effort to drum up residents’ support,” they write.
“When it comes to public safety, $300,000 is not a significant amount of money,” Bobby Weist, a fire captain and president of the firefighters’ union, told The Enterprise.
“We’re all for public safety, of course, but the savings are important as well. The three-person fire staffing model works quite well in Woodland, Vacaville, Roseville, Chico, Fairfield and Napa, and it can work for Davis, too – especially because we have another fire department in our back yard, on the UCD campus,” the paper writes. “Our City Council needs to heed Kenley’s advice and make the switch.”
Will This Change Increase Risk to Public Safety or Property?
At Tuesday’s meeting, Bobby Weist, the President of the firefighters’ union, argued that the reduction of one firefighter would reduce the ability of firefighters to immediately attack fires, thus putting not only lives but also property at risk.
In his audit, Interim Chief Scott Kenley assessed the impact on fire insurance premiums should Davis reduce the number of fire personnel on duty at any point in time.
The City of Davis is rated as a Class 4, in terms of the Public Protection Classification. Chief Kenley noted, “The last grading was completed in April of 2012, with an overall grading of 69.19. This is the closest the City has been to a Class 3, missing it by just 0.89 points.”
There is no cost differential between a Class 3 or Class 4 ranking, and fire protection overall has become less of a factor in insurance costs due to the fact that most insurance claims are for non-fire losses.
Chief Kenley writes, “Over the past fifteen years, advances in the development of fire service analysis tools and changes in how insurance companies set their rates relative to residential and commercial has caused a reassessment of the significance of the ISO PPC.”
State Farm estimates, “70% of claims paid under the homeowner’s program are non-fire losses, so the new rating system will emphasize an all hazards approach to property loss.”
Chief Kenley cited a 2008 report that argues that the rating schedule “persists as a relic of bygone days when insurance was a speculative and risky industry and catastrophic fires were commonplace.”
Most importantly, as City Manager Steve Pinkerton argues, “We believe that the overall modifications to our service delivery system proposed in the management audit will improve and not diminish our ranking.”
While the fire review has been focused on the staff size, the critical improvement comes from dropping the boundaries between the City of Davis and UC Davis, which allows UC Davis crews to be first responders in the city and adds two additional units to the city, therefore greatly reducing the impact of simultaneous calls when responding to emergencies.
In addition, while Davis will reduce the number of personnel, they will also improve their flexibility and speed, and that “will actually improve [their] ability to respond.”
Mr. Pinkerton notes, “Currently, Engine 31 and Rescue 31 respond in tandem and are staffed with only two personnel on each piece of equipment, which cannot be separated.” With these changes however, the separation of Rescue 31 from the need to respond in tandem with Engine 31, allows, in one scenario, Engine 31 to remain in quarters as Rescue 31 responds to assist another unit.
“The change will result in added flexibility of the Fire Department to use resources in a more efficient manner. Combined with the two additional UC apparatus we can now access due to the boundary drop, we now have doubled the number of available resources from three to six,” they write.
On Tuesday, Bobby Weist argued repeatedly that their objections were not about protecting the union’s turf, but rather about ensuring public safety and safety for his fire personnel. But these changes do not appear to impact public safety negatively, and may actually improve it.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
Several things have troubled me about this process:
1. Mr Weist misled the City Council during public comment time when he suggested that he and other firefighters had been excluded from providing input to Chief Kenley’s report. He leveraged this misinformation into holding a round table with the CC where he would have direct access to them and to the community at large to press his case.
2. The firefighters, though they have a right to do so, held a public meeting and have actively campaigned directly with city residents to reject parts of the report. I keep asking myself what other city department uses this approach to bypass respected channels of communication and contradict their superiors? How would we feel if traffic engineers or planners went to the voters to lobby directly for more money to be spent on street repairs? If not wrong, it is unseemly and feels disrespectful of leadership. (Whistleblowing by staff for illegal or unethical acts would be something completely different and I do not view the firefighters as whistleblowing.)
3. In the aforementioned roundtable the firefighters were unable or unwilling to discuss their concerns within the context of broader city budgetary challenges and did not really address the issue of whether proposed changes would have an adverse affect on public safety. I watched the roundtable and heard only vague assertions about this.
All this to say that the tactics of the firefighters, in my view, are beyond the pale and designed to scare rather than inform, maintain the status quo rather than deal creatively with the broader challenges of the City and create (maintain) a privileged place for this one city service that makes it hallowed and untouchable. I urge the CC this week to swiftly approve the other changes proposed by Chief Kenley in his report.
If DFD wants to keep its staffing they should consider trying to take the ambulance contract for the city and providing paramedic services. With the shakeup going on within Yolo County EMS and the new ambulance contract going to bid it might not be as impossible as many think.