City Terminates CalFire Station-10 Contract

Apparently, the City’s budget is much worse than most of us citizens knew, as City Manager Grant Yates surprised citizens with the announcement that the City is terminating the contract with CalFire to provide City Fire Protection Services from Downtown Station-10.

The City description of Fire Station-10 on its website states:

“Located downtown near the “old town district”, Station 10 is the oldest of the four fire stations in Lake Elsinore. Built in the 1950’s, Station 10 is a CALFIRE fire station; One of nine in Riverside County. CALFIRE and Lake Elsinore jointly operate three fire engines and a squad from this facility through their cooperative-integrated system.
Equipment located at Station 10 include paramedic Engine 10, Engine 3173 and Engine 3175 (the CALFIRE wildland engines), and Squad 10 (mostly operated by the Volunteer Firefighters”).

Terminating the contract for CalFire Station-10 will save the City a projected $781,705 next year in Fire Service Operations & Maintenance. The City already is running a budget deficit (spending more than they make) and will need to dip into the dwindling savings to cover the shortfall of $1,251,451.

I’m sure this surprise announcement will ignite an uproar from downtown citizens and businesses. The Downtown has fundamentally different factors that demand a rapid response in fighting fires and providing paramedic services. For example, the downtown has the oldest and tallest buildings, highest density (low income) apartment building and historic buildings, which means the response time for fighting fires is critical. For example, who remembers the Masonic Lodge blaze during the 2011 Winterfest Event on Main Street? The City also has a number of restaurants, boat launch, beaches and host several special events in the Downtown that require a rapid response from paramedic services.

When you have only 4 Fire Stations, closing one is a 25% reduction. When you consider this old building is already paid for, the economics aren’t compelling to terminate the CalFire contract. I think the City should look elsewhere to cut the budget. I would start with the Finance (Administrative Services) Department budget, in which the “Salaries & Benefits” have grown by $382,729 since 2013 (See page 102 of Budget). I’d rather have more firefighters, than bean counters.

Perhaps it’s just easier to cut the budget at the expense of residents in the downtown due to the high proportion of disadvantaged citizens.