Daily Press
HESPERIA, Calif. — The Pilot Fire and a recent structure fire in the vicinity of a closed fire station in Hesperia have raised concerns among firefighters, who say they believe current staffing levels in the city of 92,000 residents are inadequate.
What’s more, they say they don’t believe a solution to the problem is imminent. That’s because city officials don’t have the money to increase staffing and a proposed annexation by San Bernardino County fell apart because of pension liabilities.
“We have the worst staffing ratio of any city of this size,” San Bernardino County Professional Firefighters Local 935 Vice President Jeremy Kern told the Daily Press. “You look at incidents like the Pilot Fire, structure fires or collisions where there are rescues or extrications. We need people on scene fast to keep the fire small, keep a fire contained to the house and from spreading into the garage, vehicles or vegetation. But with the staffing that the city funds, we don’t have the means to do that.”
The 8,110-acre Pilot Fire started near Silverwood Lake on Aug. 7 and quickly resulted in more than 5,300 evacuation orders for homes in the southeast Hesperia, Lake Arrowhead, Lake Gregory and Crestline. The fire burned mostly in the San Bernardino Mountains, but also scorched the southern border of Hesperia in the Summit Valley area. That sparked concern among San Bernardino County Fire Department officials.
Since June 2004, the Hesperia Fire Protection District, a subsidiary district of the City of Hesperia, has contracted with the San Bernardino County Fire Department to provide fire suppression, ambulance and fire prevention services. Both parties agreed on a 10-year contract in 2004. Since the contract expired, the city has been contracting for firefighters services with the department on a one-year basis.
Hesperia currently funds seven firefighters per shift per day, Kern said. They are assigned to three fire stations. A captain, engineer and firefighter/paramedic are assigned to Stations 302 and 304. An engineer is assigned to Station 305, which is a joint station funded by both the county and city. The County Fire Department funds the captain and firefighter/paramedic at that station.
Hesperia City Councilman Paul Russ admits he believes there are not enough firefighters in Hesperia.
“I don’t think it’s ever adequate. I would love to have more,” Russ said. “I don’t think the current staffing is adequate but it’s all we can afford to do. We only have so much money. I don’t think we can ever have enough police and fire services to be adequate. If I could wave my magic wand I would quadruple both of them. We have so much needs out there, we could never staff it the way we need to and should staff it for a city of our size. We can’t print money. We are constrained by money because we don’t have the ability like the federal government to just print money.
“We have a fire district fund that brings in about $10 million in revenues a year. Like six years ago it was like $6 million a year. That thing has grown with the population growth. They use every bit of it and we just can’t afford as a city to subsidize it out of general funds as some say we should. We have to live within a confined budget. I don’t know of any council member that is willing to take money out of a general fund to put into fire funds to keep ongoing operations.”
Hesperia City Councilman Russ Blewett said the situation isn’t as bad as it looks, given the high volume of medical calls — compared to fire-related calls and traffic collisions — that firefighers respond to.
“The vast majority are ambulance calls. That’s where most of the calls are,” he said.
According to figures from Hesperia spokeswoman Rachel Molina, which she said are provided by the county, Hesperia firefighters responded to 11,577 calls during the fiscal year of 2014-2015. Those figures show that 9,462 calls, or 81.7 percent, were medical calls.
However, Kern said whenever the department responds to a medical call, it’s not as simple as just sending an ambulance.
“If you have somebody who is not breathing and has no pulse, you can’t simply send an ambulance with two people to respond,” Kern said. “You need one person to secure an advanced airway for the patient. You need another person doing compressions, another person drawing up medication and starting IV, another person getting patient information and scene safety. Through our dispatch, we try to get as much information to see what type of medical call it really is by asking a series of questions.
“In the case where somebody isn’t breathing, having a significant cardiac event or stroke, minutes and seconds count. Having the firefighter/paramedics available and strategically placed throughout the city allows us to get paramedic care on scene when needed as soon as possible in cases where ambulances are not close, available, on bed delay or extended response time. This is another reason why having stations in service and able to respond is critical.”
The most recent example came last week when a structure fire burned a workshop in the back of a home in the 8900 block of Hickory Avenue.
Firefighters from Station 304, located at 15660 Eucalyptus St., were dispatched at 8:55 p.m. on Wednesday and arrived at the home seven minutes later. While the 20 personnel, including assisting engines from Victorville, who responded were able to contain the fully engulfed fire to the workshop and there were not any injuries reported, fire officials said the blaze threatened nearby exposures, including the home.
The blaze was located a block west of Station 301, which closed in 2012.
In 2011, more than 80 percent of city voters rejected Measure F, which was designed to help fund the district with a new $85 parcel tax. The rejected measure forced the closure of Station 301, located at 9430 11th Ave., and cut nine firefighter positions from the city’s contract.
The closure of Hesperia’s oldest fire station, which opened in 1957, trimmed $752,000 from the Fire District’s then $9.2 million budget, according to previous reports.
The city pursued and obtained a two-year Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response grant, which allowed Hesperia to reopen the station from July 2013 through June 2015. The end of the grant resulted in the elimination of nine firefighters in the city: three firefighter/paramedic positions, three engineer positions and three captain positions due to the reduction of one fire engine. According to previous reports, in an effort to maintain five ambulances, 15 Ambulance Operator/EMT positions and 15 Ambulance Operator paramedic positions were added to offset the loss of staffing from the completion of the SAFER Grant.
Molina confirmed the city also funds eight full-time paramedics daily in addition to the firefighters. Kern says the figure provided from the city includes five “single function” paramedics and three firefighter/paramedics at the three stations.
Molina said the current level of service reflects the number of personnel that can be funded by the existing property tax received by the district.
“The Hesperia Fire Protection District is funded by property tax. During the recent recession, the City’s General Fund subsidized the Fire District because property values had dropped significantly, resulting in a significant reduction in revenue received by the District,” Molina said.
Union President Jim Grigoli said he feels the solution is simple: An agreement from the city to annex the Fire District into the county, which be believes would result in immediate improvements in various aspects, most importantly staffing levels.
Hesperia City Manager Nils Bensten agrees.
“One of the benefits of annexation of the Hesperia Fire Protection District to the county is that it enhances strategic fire protection coverage for the area. Similarly, it allows the city to focus on city-related services,” Bentsen said.
Such an annexation would require county approval, through the Local Agency Formation Commission or LAFCO. LAFCO governs the organization of local government services provided by cities and special districts. An application to LAFCO, along with supporting documentation, must be made to justify the reorganization.
“We were disappointed to hear the LAFCO process stopped,” Grigoli said. “We were under the impression the city was going to move forward with annexation. We thought there was light at the end of the tunnel. But it doesn’t feel like we are heading that way. We have an obligation to the residents and ourselves. We feel our firefighters are working in unsafe conditions. Our whole goal is to get enough suppression people on task when we have an incident.”
Molina told the Daily Press that the city is working on an agreement for annexation of the Fire District.
“We believe the county should be the provider for the City of Hesperia,” Kern said. “We have served the city for over the last decade and our service has been good. If the city is unwilling to increase the service in Hesperia, then turn around and annex to the county where there will eventually be a chance to increase fire service down the road.”
But it’s not that easy, according to Russ, who says Hesperia and the county had a tentative agreement regarding annexation.
However, when it boiled down to the LAFCO process, Russ said Hesperia learned it would have a “huge” California Public Employees’ Retirement System liability, stemming from the district’s contracts prior to the original 10-year 2004 contract with the County Fire Department. A county source told the Daily Press the city’s liability was in the millions of dollars and LAFCO simply refused to take on all of that debt.
“We worked around that issue and it’s going to take any financial benefit we had from annexation. But we were willing to move forward anyways because over time it was still beneficial,” Russ said. “But then the county did not like the deal and they backed away from the deal in the annexation.
“So we had half the (original) offer, plus the liability for the pension obligations. In addition, the county wanted us to annex the district into County Fire Service District No. 5. And when we did that there would be a per parcel tax to every property in the city. We have said that we absolutely refuse to do that and let them know that is non-negotiable.”
As was the case in 2011, Molina confirmed that residents have voted four times against five ballot measures to levy a tax to support fire services in the city.
“No way are any of us going to slip a parcel tax in the backdoor,” Russ said. “There is no way we will do it. If they want to put another initiative on the ballot and vote for it, they can do so. But we will not do that to our residents after they turned it down four times.”
Blewett said a fire tax on every parcel in the city is not going to happen in his lifetime.
“The entire council feels that way,” Blewett said. “Our residents can’t afford that with an average household income around $57,000. When they were out trying to pass Measure F, the voters let them know how unhappy they were. There is no way that the taxpayers in this city want to pay more for protection. But we are still negotiating with them and all options are on the table right now.”
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