Wolk, Yamada, Saylor, Provenza, and Helen Thomson Write Letter Protesting Fire JPA

City Objects – Letter Contains Inaccuracies and Misinterpretations of the Proposed JPA: Tuesday was supposed to mark the meeting in which the city council would formally approve the Joint Powers Agreement for shared management services between the city of Davis and UC Davis Fire Department.  Early on Tuesday morning, the Vanguard learned that Senator Lois Wolk, Assemblymember Mariko Yamada, Supervisors Don Saylor and Jim Provenza and former Supervisor Helen Thomson wrote a letter to the Davis City Council opposing the agreement.

The letter argues, “We believe that governance of public safety is and must remain a core function of the elected City Council of Davis. Community oversight and accountability is an important element of municipal services.”

They write, “We urge the Davis City Council to take another look at the serious long-range consequences of this proposal before contracting out any of these core municipal functions. There is a key difference between sharing or coordinating services and merging governance with the constitutionally separate and unelected Regents and Chancellor.”

“This proposed action would place a well-established and effective municipal service within an entity whose primary mission is higher education and research, not public safety,” the letter continues. “This could easily result in a lessening of service and response for the residents of the Davis community and the surrounding areas historically served by the Davis Fire Department. We deeply appreciate the presence of the UC Davis campus and respect the leadership of the campus. Unified operations and efficiencies are appropriate considerations, but should not come with loss of community accountability.”

The letter comes on the heels of efforts by the Davis firefighters’ union to mount a petition drive in which the union is telling the public that the agreement would effectively turn over control of the fire department to the unelected UC Regents.

However, city officials believe that the letter is largely inaccurate.  They argue and show documentation that strongly suggests that this agreement does not give UC Davis control over the city’s fire department; rather it creates a shared management model for the management of both departments.

The shared management services model would acknowledge “the current level of collaboration between the agencies relative to the West Valley Regional Fire Training Consortium, the sharing of the Division Chief duty coverage, and the positive aspects of the Management Services Agreement between the parties that was placed on hold in January of 2012.”

As the staff report in October indicated, “A Shared Management Services Agreement would take full advantage of the Joint Powers Agreement governance model where both parties retain a significant amount of local control. Implementation of this alternative could be accomplished in a short period of time (one to three months).”

Moreover, as the city analysis presented to the City Council on October 15, 2013 indicates, “The governance model is a Shared Services Agreement. A new agency was not created, therefore it is not a Joint Powers Authority or Agency. Additionally, a separate governing body has not been created. The SSA only covers mid and executive management levels and each member of the team remains an employee of their respective agencies.”

The city adds, “The Fire Chief is directly supervised by the City Manager of his/her employing agency, however, he/she answers to the respective City Managers in relation to the managerial responsibilities and activities of each organization.”

Both City Manager Steve Pinkerton and UC Davis Vice Chancellor John Meyer confirmed to the Vanguard on Tuesday that none of the signers of the letter had met with or spoken with them about the agreement or their concerns.

On July 27, 2010, the Davis City Council unanimously passed a motion to execute a Management Services Agreement with UC Davis for shared fire services.

City officials told the Vanguard that the structure of upper management in the 2010 agreement and the current proposal is almost identical.  It would have created a single fire chief with compensation shared between UC Davis and the City of Davis along with a “unified command team for singular management and oversight of both the City of Davis and UC-Davis fire departments.”

The only real difference between the 2010 agreement and the proposed 2013 agreement is that, in 2010, Interim Chief Bill Weisgerber would have headed up both departments.  In 2013, it would be UC Davis Chief Nathan Trauernicht who would head both departments.

The Vanguard asked Supervisor Don Saylor to explain why the city council, including Mr. Saylor, passed the merger in 2010 without opposition.  At the time, there was no opposition either on the council or in the community.   The Vanguard asked him to explain what specific differences with the 2010 model led to his opposition this time to a similar upper management structure.

Supervisor Saylor did not respond to the Vanguard‘s email.  The Vanguard also asked for clarification from Assemblymember Mariko Yamada and Senator Lois Wolk, and was told separately that the neither Senator Wolk nor Assemblymember Yamada were available to answer the Vanguard‘s questions.

The only current elected official to respond was Supervisor Provenza, who told the Vanguard, “As I understood it, the City of Davis was the lead in the prior model with the Davis Fire Chief in charge. A big difference. The trend has been to shift authority to cities in communities with a university. It is essential that police and fire departments be directly accountable to elected officials.”

However, at the meeting in October, Former Interim Chief Scott Kenley was clear in response to a question from Mayor Pro Tem Dan Wolk, the son of Senator Wolk, that no new agency would be created under this arrangement and the fire department would not be under UC Control.

As the report indicates, “The Fire Chief will have executive management responsibilities for setting the organizational values and vision; representing both the City and UC in interactions with external influences and the business community; and, providing guidance and recommendations to the City Council and UC Chancellor’s Office relative to the delivery of fire and life safety services.”

It adds, “The City Manager from Davis and the Administrative and Resource Vice Chancellor of UC Davis will serve jointly as the ‘Chief Administrative Officers,’ one providing guidance to the Fire Chief relative to UC Davis issues and the other relative to City of Davis issues.”

In other words, there is no lead agency in this arrangement.

While the fire departments will operate under the name, “West Valley Fire & Medical,” there will not be a new agency or governing body.

While the city considered a Joint Powers Agency/Authority, a Joint Powers Agreement would allow for the fire department to have oversight by the city manager and keep decision making powers at the local level of each entity.

They write, “A Shared Management Services Agreement would take full advantage of the Joint Powers Agreement governance model where both parties retain a significant amount of local control.”

The letter from the public officials argues, “We believe that community wide fire and medical emergency service is not a core function of the University. Only two of the University of California campuses currently operate their own fire and emergency services departments: UC Santa Cruz and UC Davis.”

They continue, “Santa Cruz is now in the process of moving away from this model and placing the UC Santa Cruz fire and medical emergency service under the total authority of the City of Santa Cruz. Davis, however, is on the verge of going in the opposite direction, moving more responsibility and authority to the University, away from the City.”

However, that contention is contradicted by information about the UC Santa Cruz Fire Department on the agency’s web site.

Their site notes, “Beginning in January 2012, the UCSC Fire Department entered into a joint management contract with the Santa Cruz Fire Department. Following the retirement of the former Santa Cruz Fire Chief, UCSC Fire Chief Jeff Trapp assumed the role of Fire Chief for both agencies, and all other chief officer positions are shared as well.”

It continues, “During emergency responses for serious incidents, the SCFD duty Battalion Chief responds as the incident commander and other SCFD units respond to assist the campus engine company.”

In fact, this is exactly how the UC Davis- City of Davis model would work.  Chief Trauernicht would be backed with two Deputy Chiefs and Three Division Chiefs.

As the October staff report notes, the joint management structure which “provides for one Fire Chief; two Deputy Fire Chiefs; three Division Chiefs (24 hour); and, one Fire Marshal (40 hour). The Fire Chief will have executive management responsibilities for setting the organizational values and vision; representing both the City and UC in interactions with external influences and the business community; and, providing guidance and recommendations to the City Council and UC Chancellor’s Office relative to the delivery of fire and life safety services. Both of the Deputy Fire Chiefs will report directly to the Fire Chief; one having managerial responsibilities for the day-to-day operations of the fire department, and the other will serve as the West Valley Regional Fire Training Consortium Coordinator.”

The key point here is that the fire chief would represent both the City and University and would make recommendations to the city council and the chancellor’s office.

The problem here is that the public officials never met with either the city or the university before firing off their letter.  It appears that their perceptions of the JPA are based off of the concerns expressed by the Davis firefighters’ union president.  Instead of investigating themselves, they fired off the letter.

The comment by Jim Provenza confirms that the only real objection here is that the city wishes to hire UC Davis Chief Nathan Trauernicht to head up both agencies, which leads to the perception that UC Davis is running the show, whereas the documentation shows it is, in fact, shared management and, while Chief Trauernicht will remain a UC employee, he will have to answer to both the chancellor and the city manager.

At this week’s council meeting, both Davis firefighters’ union president Bobby Weist and Captain Joe Tenney attempted to charge that the JPA was moving forward without authorization and final approval from the council.

This contention was based on the placement of an ad by the West Valley Fire & Medical for a Deputy Fire Chief Training and Safety.

According to the ad, “West Valley Fire & Medical” is a newly formed shared management team that uses a joint powers agreement to lead both DFD and UCDFD.”  The ad states for “full consideration, apply by November 22, 2013.”

In addition to Mr. Weist and Mr. Tenney, some councilmembers complained that this was putting the cart before the horse.

Chief Trauernicht suggested a more innocent explanation, that originally the JPA was set to go to council for final approval two meetings ago in early November.

He said, “Given council’s initial direction, we undertook efforts based on that original timeline to ensure we would both meet expectations and hit the ground running.”

However, the JPA, he said, “is still being reviewed by both legal councils on a timeline that has been beyond our control, thus the appearance of cart before the horse.”

He added, “It is unfortunate and regretful that we weren’t able to roll this all out on the original timeline, but the intention behind these actions were born out of enthusiasm and the desire to be prepared for a launch of the shared management agreement as quickly as possible.”

The letter from the public officials closes: “We understand there are a number of issues that come before the city council relating to delivery of fire and medical emergency services from one council to the next.  There will always be a variety of viewpoints and often disagreements about those issues and how to pay for them.”

“However, none of these individual policy decisions is more important than basic governance — how those decisions are made, who makes them and the transparency of the decision-making processes. The University and Chancellor do not have the same open and transparent procedural requirements that a California municipality enjoys,” they add.  “This is not just an issue of salary, benefits or pensions. The relevant criteria are quality of service for the citizens of Davis, citizen oversight and transparency, and maintaining the governing primacy of the elected City Council. On this we should all agree. We urge the City Council to reconsider this change in governance.”

Unfortunately, none of the signers took the time to discuss with the city their concerns, and perhaps to gain a better appreciation for what is actually contained in the agreement.  Hopefully in the next few weeks those discussions can occur.

—David M. Greenwald reporting