Big Issues Dominate City Priorities List – Part One

From Economic Hardship to Fire Staffing Reductions –

We often take this month-long break from city council meetings to re-focus on the priorities facing the city.  We are now halfway through the month of August, but still three weeks remain until the next city council meeting.

With that issue off the table, there is no shortage of big issues still facing the council, many of which must be dealt with in September.  The list is so packed with high-end items, that issues that critically need to be addressed such as Fifth Street Redesign or Cannery Park do not make the list of top 5 priorities.

This is the first of a two-part series highlighting key issues.

5.  Economic and Commercial Troubles

We start with the fifth biggest issue, which in many ways should be the biggest issue.  Honestly, we have not written enough about Borders going out of business.  The pro-growth forces brought in Borders to the protest of many who claimed that it would lead to the death of independent bookstores and one-by-one it proved largely to be true.

There will be those who claim that Borders did not directly cause, for instance, Bogey’s to go out of business, but the bottom line is that it did not help.

As Alzada Knickerbocker of Avid Reader told the Enterprise a few weeks ago, “We lost half our business” when Borders opened in September 1998 and “It never came back.”

Ms. Knickerbocker is fortunate though; her business survived and may now have an opportunity to improve in the wake of the demise of Borders.

The irony with Borders closing, aside from the poor policy decisions made by past leaders in this community, is that Borders did well in Davis and now Davis is not only without a number of independent bookstores, it will be without the tax revenue of Borders.

It is not just Borders that is creating a void, it is internal business practices.  A few weeks ago the Vanguard ran a story about the fact that the landlord at the South Davis shopping center, built by and owned by Paul Petrovich, has four of seven stores in one section vacant due to excessive rents.

Four businesses at Oakshade Plaza in South Davis have either closed or moved in recent months.  Mermaids has closed.  Davis Creamery moved from Oakshade to the Lofts.  Quiznos closed July 7, reportedly posting a sign that they could no longer afford the rent.

Pure Beauty then closed their South Davis location.  That leaves four of the seven storefronts in that portion of the shopping center vacant.

In another story that we have not covered, is the further demise of Westlake IGA.  The Vanguard had learned a month or so ago that the business owners were now looking to sell their store.

Preciously, we reported that their Bay Area stores had folded and the Davis store has struggled, despite a rally and neighborhood campaign to save it.

There is good news but also bad news.  The good news is that there are a number of entities interested in buying the store.  The bad news is that the landlord is interested in filling the vacant space and Dollar Tree is interested.

Writes the Sac Business Journal, “Westlake Plaza’s landlord and broker are eager to fill an empty space next to the grocery store, and Dollar Tree Inc. has expressed interest. For the prospective startup grocers, a dollar store is a deal killer. And neighbors say Davis doesn’t need a second Dollar Tree, which sells food, minutes away from the first.”

“We all want a successful shopping center and a healthy food store,” said Katherine Hess, the city’s community development administrator.

That may be, but the city allowed the property to essentially lie vacant for nearly four years until neighborhood activists and the Vanguard pushed them into action.

The city has prioritized economic development, and while we may take issue with some of the thrusts, the bottom line is that the city cannot afford to allow its existing commerce to further collapse, threatening to further erode the sales tax base.

4. Fire Staffing Report

We were expecting that the city would already have received the fire staffing report from CityGate.  This is crucial if the city is to cut $2.5 million from personnel costs.  The continuing belief is that report will recommend the city goes from 4 person fire engines down to three.

The original CityGate report seemed to believe that the critical number was 15. And they argued at that time for four-firefighter crews, “To provide both the speed and weight of attack and to lessen the need for two units to respond to a modest call, fielding three 4-firefighter crews is a very effective strategy, given the unusual amount of simultaneous incidents and widely spaced stations.”

Moreover, they are insistent that Davis needs more than 12 firefighters on duty.  As a result, they need to work with UC Davis fire, “In the combined developed area of Davis and UCD, four fire stations staffed with a total of 15 firefighters on duty are wholly adequate to cover the entire area, if deployed as one system.”

The interim city manager reportedly believes that such a move overall could save between $1 million and $1.5 million to the city.

The Vanguard, in anticipation of this issue coming forward, has spoken with Fire Chief Bill Weisgerber.

The fire chief clearly opposes the move, arguing, “The idea of going from 4-person to 3-person engine companies is seemingly a ‘cost-savings’ strategy.”

He continues, “However, the issue is more accurately one of  how many firefighters are needed to respond in time for both the rapid treatment of life-threatening medical emergencies (before permanent or fatal harm occurs) and the control and extinguishment of fires (at the earliest stages, before small fires become large).”

The question that Mr. Weisgerber believes is critical is how many personnel are needed on the scene of a residential structure fire within 11 minutes of a 9-1-1 activation?

He responds, “Firefighting forces of 15, plus a command officer, are necessary to perform all the tasks vital in reducing the effects of fire on the structure and to the occupants. That equates to the first unit arriving at 4 minutes travel time, with multiple units by the 8th minute of travel.”

Our examination, from a few years ago, showed roughly 85% of all stations have gone to three-men crews.  Mr. Weisgerber, however, argues that, “Davis’ fire stations are widely spaced apart. Multiple units are needed to deliver enough firefighters to serious emergencies, within a reasonable period of time, in order to effectively perform synchronized tasks for the necessary results.”

He adds, “A compounding issue in Davis is the high occurrence of simultaneous fire-related incidents – averaging an unusually high frequency of approximately 20% of the time.”

Mr. Weisgerber’s citing of the high occurrence of simultaneous fire-related incidents is something that I would like to probe more, because CityGate mentioned it two years ago – why would Davis have an “unusual rate” of simultaneous incidents, which Mr. Weisgerber cited to be 20% of the time?

The bottom line is that Davis is looking to cut $2.5 million.  Fire staffing changes could get us halfway there and would target a department that is at the heart of the city’s compensation problem.  Most cities have already gone to three-person staffing arrangements, but as the Chief’s comments indicate, this is going to be a political fight.

We will have the remainder of the list later this week.

—David M. Greenwald reporting