CA County Pushing Ahead on Fire Tax

The Sonoma County Board of Supervisors Tuesday directed a team of fire chiefs to push ahead with a plan for a possible countywide sales tax measure this fall to pay for more firefighters, equipment and stations.

The board also authorized spending $1.6 million a year to help fund the county’s newest fire agency, to be formed from the consolidation of four existing departments that cover Santa Rosa’s outskirts and Windsor.

The two moves were part of a large package of proposals meant to help modernize the county’s antiquated firefighting network, partly by reducing the number of agencies and the bureaucracy needed to oversee them.

But that yearslong, complicated effort bogged down again Tuesday in a contentious discussion among supervisors, ending in a split vote that postponed until March some of the most difficult issues, including the fate of the county’s 11 volunteer fire companies.

Supervisors James Gore and Susan Gorin said they had unanswered questions about the plan for those companies and Supervisor Shirlee Zane wanted labor leaders to be more involved in the discussion.

That put them at loggerheads with board Chairman David Rabbitt, who found himself voting against proposals he liked because they weren’t being handled as a single package.

“I think we have in our grasp an opportunity to have a generational change in how we deliver fire services,” Rabbitt said.

Rabbitt had voiced support for a recommendation put forward by Jim Colangelo, interim head of the county’s Fire and Emergency Services Department, who had asked supervisors to support all seven proposals despite their lingering questions. The details could be worked out for their approval later, he suggested.

“This is the time to move through on a bigger solution,” Colangelo said. “If you reject that today you send a very dangerous message to the public...”

That didn’t sit well with Gore. “Thank you for putting us into a corner,” he said. “I don’t appreciate you publicly calling us out.”

“I refute the idea that the wheels on the bus explode and everyone has failed fire services,” Gore said.

Rabbitt urged wholesale approval but his board colleagues would not join him. “This is too important to fail,” he said.

The exchanges played out before nearly 100 firefighters and chiefs who filled the meeting chambers. Afterward, dismayed chiefs said they would work to retool the slate of proposals for March.

“It’s disappointing,” said Mark Heine, chief of the Windsor and Rincon Valley fire districts. “We’ll go right back to work and hammer out the details.”

For years, Sonoma County fire officials have called for reforms that would more effectively organize firefighting services and improve resources and training for firefighters. In some regions, the growth of rural communities has outstripped the ability of largely volunteer crews to provide around-the-clock protection. In other areas covered by paid firefighters, tight budgets mean that some fire engines have less than the standard level of staffing.

In the proposed overhaul presented Tuesday, the most advanced effort is the planned consolidation by fire agencies serving Windsor, Rincon Valley, Bennett Valley and the Mountain area west of Calistoga. They are set to form into one large department by May. Supervisors praised the plan as a model for others to follow, and authorized a related shift in property tax funding, plus an ongoing $1.6 million and a one-time payment of $500,000.

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