Fire Campaign Succeeds in Scaring a Few Residents

If all goes as planned, by the end of the day today, the city could conceivably wrap up lengthy issues involving fire and water.  But as we know, things rarely go as planned, and while water has gotten the bulk of the attention with a highly contentious election wrapping up at 8 pm tonight, fire will take center stage this evening before the ballots are all counted.

The firefighters’ union, led by Bobby Weist, their president, have worked hard to drum up support from the community.

The community has been peppered with fliers asking, “Did you know that the City Manager is proposing to reduce staffing/service level of the fire department?” and requesting that the recipients contact the Davis City Councilmembers whose email addresses are provided.

A funny thing happened though, while 20 people as of midday Monday had contacted the city in support of the firefighters union – 12 people contacted the city in support of Interim Chief Scott Kenley’s proposal.

One person wrote the council, “Last week I received an anonymous flyer on my doorstep beginning ‘Did you know that the City Manager is proposing to reduce staffing/service level of the fire department?’ “

The writer noted, “I knew this was being considered, and I think it may make sense for Davis to do this.  You all know better, than I, the state of the city’s finances and what choices need to be made.  I cannot be at the meeting Tuesday March 5, but I trust you will discuss this and decide to do what seems best for the city.”

Some of the letter writers clearly got their marching orders from Mr. Weist, and many of them had their facts confused.

Writes one this weekend, “Many of us are very, very upset with this former Stockton city manager, Pinkerton even considering cutting or messing with the fire department and police department in our fine City of Davis.”

Mr. Pinkerton, of course, was never city manager at Stockton, but he did work there for a time and Bobby Weist last week referred to him as the city manager from Stockton.

The writer continues, “We need a fire chief, not Mr. Scott Kinley, an unknown [now going to the police department weekly to ‘consult with Mr. Black’] he needs to go back to the law firm he works with.”

One would think you might want to get your facts at least remotely correct before spouting off an angry letter.

But they continue, “We do not need to merge with UCD, Joe Krovoza has almost conflict of interest working for UCD in a apartment complex that is going south, and is in need of a fire house there and wants the City of Davis to help him in saving that complex.”

“We need goals in the fire Dept. to make our fire dept. a class 1 fire house to reduce our insurance rates in our community. We need to work with the Insurance Services Office (ISO), and the Public Protection Classification (PPC) programs. I do not see that listed as goals on any of the staff reports and the recommendations Mr. Kinley writes,” he writes, clearly picking up some technical details.   As we noted last week, Davis has a Class 4 insurance rating, a tick below Class 3.

Continuing, he writes, “I may have missed these items, but I have read most all dealings in the fire department issue as hospital administrator I have worked with fire departments and police departments on my disaster and fire plans for 40 years. I built Woodland Memorial Hospital and was the first Administrator for 12 years and without the excellent working relations with that fire house we would not have been so successful.”

“I have talked with many city managers since Mr. Pinkerton has come, he has poor morale with city workers, never visits departments, stays in his office and has an air of ‘hiring consultants to clean house.’ Lets hope we do not turn into a ‘Stockton City!’ he writes and adds, “If you want to cut budget, call me and a few other citizens to sit in on the budget review,[at no charge] and we can start with all the overhead in the CM office, like assistants, consultants, and some with questionable qualifications.”

A retired firefighter, Kevin Kelly, clearly has a vendetta against myself and Rich Rifkin.  His subject matter reads: “Please don’t make a short sided decision about your ‘FIRE DEPARTMENT AND THE CITIZENS THEY PROTECT,’ by listening to a blogger & a angry columnist !!!!!!!!!!!!”

“I’m a retired firefighter with 28 years of service with the City of Davis, and have lived in Davis since 1983,” he writes.  “I’m e-mailing  today to ask you not to cut firefighters. I’ve worked with 3 person engine company and I’ve worked with 4 person. I can tell you first hand the difference one firefighter makes.”

He then gives three examples of where an extra firefighter would help, but he fails to note most of these scenarios would have at least a fourth and fifth firefighter arriving within two minutes of the first unit, maybe sooner with the boundary drop and enhanced cooperation with UC Davis.

He concludes, “By cutting the level of service, you are going against what Davis is all about, a progressive and an innovative city. The population has grown from 46,000 to 65,000 since the 90’s.The number of calls the fire department responded to has gone from around 2,500 to 4,600 annually in that time period. 9 line personnel positions have not been filled in over 5 years. You have a group of well trained, professional firefighters who risk their lives to protect the citizens of your town 24/7.”

On the other side, however, is a retired firefighter for Davis for 33 years.

“It appears to me that many of the issues that have been brought up are incorrect assumptions.  There will be no increase in response time of an engine and crew if there is a reduction of staffing since it obviously takes no more time for an engine with three personnel to respond than an engine with four personnel,” he writes.

“The statement that there will be an increase in the frequencies of no available resources is also not legitimate because the issue is how many personnel will be arriving on an engine, not how many engines will be dispatched to a given emergency.  Certainly more work can be performed in a given timeframe by 4 persons vs. 3, but the same argument holds true for 5 persons vs. 4, 6 persons vs. 5 etc,” he continues.

“The OSHA regulation often referred to as ‘Two In, Two Out’ has been cited as a reason to continue maintaining a minimum of four person engine companies so that there will be no delay of entry into a burning building and for more efficient use of resources,” he writes and then notes as Scott Kenley did that there are exceptions to the IDLH rule.

He quotes, “If, upon arrival at the scene, firefighters find an imminent life-threatening situation where immediate action may prevent the loss of life or serious injury, such action shall be permitted with less than four firefighters on the scene, when actions are based on appropriate concepts of risk assessment and management.”

The most interesting point, however, follows, “It is widely accepted that the City of Davis Fire Department was the only department in the State of California to implement four person engine companies based solely on the OSHA ‘Two In Two Out’ regulation.  And it  should also be considered that 70-80% of requests for  assistance to a fire department is for emergency medical calls and then there are two ambulance personnel responding.”

He adds, “A look around to surrounding fire departments show that many are operating safely, effectively and efficiently with three person engine companies.  Several members of the Davis Fire Department live in these communities and some reside in communities that may have two person companies and they feel that their families and property are safe and they do not feel that they need to move to communities that have higher staffing levels.”

He concludes, “I support the findings and conclusions from Interim Fire Chief Scott Kenley and urge you to continue to adopt the recommendations he proposed.  The recommendations are prudent, well thought out and fiscally responsible for our community.”

“In South Davis this is going to be a huge impact to you,” Mr. Weist told one resident at last week’s meeting. “If your house is on fire and we’re not here trying to tell you that if this happens, you’re going to die.  We’re not trying to scare anybody or anything.”

But that is what they have done.  They have scared a lot of people into writing panicked and ultimately uninformed emails to council.

“As a Davis resident, employee of a small Davis company, and mother of a growing family, I have great concern for the proposed service cuts for our Davis Fire Department,” one resident wrote.  “As a North Davis resident, I understand that our response time from the city’s currently staffed fire department time is greater than five minutes, which is one minute too late if oxygen deprivation is the emergency situation.  Our residents need a fully staffed fire department to provide quality and safe care in emergency situations, especially when in transition with EMT ambulance services.”

They conclude, “I urge you to look at other cost-saving measures, within all departments, before cutting from any of our public service providers.”

Having panicked and uninformed communications from the public is not helpful for public discourse, and ultimately will not help the firefighters achieve their goals.

The council is clearly going to read most of these comments as either coming from parties that are self-interested or parties that have been presented one side of the story that they do not even fully comprehend.

Last week, Bobby Weist repeatedly said this was not about anything other than their concern for public safety in the Davis Community.  But the firefighters want to preserve the status quo completely.

They have been unwilling to take pay cuts, they make a full $1000 a month more than their police counterparts, and have been unwilling to make any concessions at the bargaining table.

If they believe that preserving that extra firefighter is so important, than perhaps they can make a good faith effort to bridge the income gap with police officers to show that they are sincere about this.

Otherwise, this looks a lot like trying to have their cake and eat it too, while scaring the residents with half-truths and distortions.

—David M. Greenwald reporting