By Darrell R. Santschi
The Press Enterprise
COLTON, Calif. — One of Colton’s four fire stations will shut down today and Saturday in the first wave of a plan to temporarily close three stations on a rotating basis to save money.
On any given day, three stations will be open and one will be closed.
“No one in the city is happy about this,” Colton Fire Chief Tom Hendrix said by phone Thursday.
“As a result of the city’s fiscal situation we find ourselves where we need to eliminate nine firefighter positions and the closure of one fire station,” Hendrix told the City Council on Tuesday. “This is in addition to the six firefighter positions we lost approximately two years ago.”
That amounts to a third of the city’s firefighters.
Colton has been grappling with a financial crunch owing to the sagging economy and to the loss of $5 million a year when the city’s utility user tax expires this summer.
Rather than permanently close down one station, Hendrix said, the plan approved by the council Tuesday will shut down one station at a time on a rotating basis for two consecutive days. The city’s headquarters fire station on E Street, where equipment is stored, management functions are performed and members of the public come with questions, will not be subject to the rotating closure, he said.
The other three stations, in the northwestern, southeastern and southwestern sides of town, will be subject to the closures. The first to close, station 213, is located on La Cadena Drive and is the closest station for residents of La Loma Hills area.
Hendrix said the rolling closures, which he calls “brown-outs,” spreads the pain of cutting back service. In some areas, including Reche Canyon, when the closest stations are closed, firefighters will not be able to meet a national standard of having as many as 15 firefighters at an incident within eight minutes.
The plan was strongly opposed by City Councilwoman Deirdre Bennett, who erupted in tears when her fellow council members voted to approve the plan before she could introduce a motion to table the proposal.
She said it will leave residents of Reche Canyon more vulnerable than other areas of town when its closest station, on Meadow Lane, closes down.
“I have a major issue with that,” she said. “We are leaving a major area of our city unprotected or less protected than other areas of the city. It’s a lower level of service. To me, it is not equitable.”
Councilman Vincent Yzaguirre said he was sympathetic, but that the “sheer reality” of the situation is the city’s budget crisis.
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