On Sept. 10, a powerful regulatory agency will begin the process of deciding an issue that has split the community of Julian — whether to disband its 34-year-old volunteer fire department in favor of the County Fire Authority assuming control and staffing.
The Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCO), which has countywide jurisdiction but is independent of county government, will hear the pros and cons during what promises to be a lengthy hearing.
LAFCO is responsible for overseeing changes to local governmental boundaries, including the formation, consolidation, merger and dissolution of special districts.
The commission’s staff is recommending the dissolution of the Julian-Cuyamaca Fire Protection District, the last volunteer department in the county. All the other volunteer departments in the backcountry have been absorbed by the county in the past decade.
But the decision will be up to the agency’s eight commissioners -- two county supervisors, a San Diego City Council member, two city council members from the other incorporated cities, two directors of special districts, and one member of the general public.
Should they vote to move forward, that would trigger an Oct. 16 “protest hearing” at which voters and property owners in the Julian fire district can submit their opposition to the dissolution in writing.
Recent history suggests it’s not a sure bet the commission will even get to the protest hearing stage. A few years ago, when another unusually controversial issue came before LAFCO commissioners, the board decided to end everything right then and there.
Hundreds of angry Rainbow residents had packed the LAFCO chambers in 2015 to protest the Fallbrook Public Utility District’s attempt to merge with the Rainbow Municipal Water District. Opponents called it a “hostile takeover.”
After listening to hours of public protests, the board decided to nix the whole thing, despite the fact its own staff had recommended the action and had spent countless hours on the proposal.
Should LAFCO commissioners vote to move forward with the county takeover, those who live or have property in the 81-square-mile fire district will still be able to stop the process.
“The legislative intent of the protest hearing is to create a check on the commission’s ability to enact change,” LAFCO Executive Officer Keene Simonds said.
If more than 50 percent of property owners or voters fill out the appropriate paperwork, the matter will simply be dismissed. Should 25 percent to 50 percent of voters or property owners express opposition, that would trigger a mail-ballot vote of all concerned, Simonds said. Only if less than 25 percent of both groups say they oppose the county takeover would the move become final.
Exactly how the people of Julian and Cuyamaca stand on the issue is difficult to judge. Many favor the county’s position, which guarantees 24/7 staffing of the station with professional firefighters.
“Justification to proceed with the reorganization now is marked by the immediate ability of County Fire Authority to provide consistent and increased service levels within the affected territory by assigning full-time firefighters at all times to Station 56,” the LAFCO report in favor of consolidation concludes.
“This contrasts with Julian-Cuyamaca FPD and its dependency on a dedicated but — nonetheless — increasingly limited pool of available volunteers, which results in inconsistent and — at times — deficit service levels.”
To read the whole 158-page LAFCO report, including letters of opposition, click here.
But opponents represent a concerted and vocal group that wants to retain the volunteers for several reasons, including they don’t trust the county to provide the level of service they say the volunteers currently offer.
For many years, the volunteer department has struggled financially and in February its board of directors voted 3-2 to ask the county to take over. The year before, the board had made the opposite decision, which led to the county withdrawing a paramedic fire engine and other benefits it had been providing the volunteer department in exchange for it agreeing to consider dissolution.
For years, the Julian directors had resisted overtures from the county to join the authority, which was formed to unify fire protection in the backcountry following the 2003 and 2007 firestorms.
They tried to place on the November ballot an initiative that would overturn the volunteer board’s vote, but it was thrown out in court. What will appear on the ballot is a measure that would increase a $50 tax assessment to $200 to better fund the department. If the dissolution has already happened by then, the vote would become moot.
Julian residents actually pay $100 a year to support the department. The other $50 is to pay off the debt on a new fire station which opened in 2017 along state Route 79.
Should the county take over, that $50 tax would go away as the county would pay off the remaining $1.598 million fire station debt and retire the assessment.
When the supervisors in May voted unanimously to proceed with the LAFCO process, Ron Lane, the county’s deputy chief administrative offer for public safety, told the supervisors they were “on the brink of fulfilling” its vision of “bringing together a disparate group of fire agencies spread across a vast area into a single fire and EMS system.”
Perhaps more than anyone in the county, Supervisor Dianne Jacob has been the driving force behind the Fire Authority and she is one of the supervisors who sits on the LAFCO board.
But whether she will attend the Sept. 10 hearing is unknown. She has been recovering from unspecified surgery and has not attended a supervisor’s meeting since June. Her chief of staff, Jeff Collins, said he expects Jacob will attend.
“It’s an important decision by LAFCO and she wants to be a part of it,” he said.
Supervisor Greg Cox would fill in for Jacob if she can’t attend. Bill Horn is the other supervisor who sits on LAFCO.
Opponents of the dissolution of the volunteer department list many reasons they feel the community is better served by volunteers.
For one, the department has long been a source of pride in the area, supported both in spirit and financially by hundreds, perhaps thousands of residents.
They don’t trust the county to do what it says it will do and they worry that professional county firefighters (the authority contacts with Cal Fire for staffing) won’t be familiar with the area enough to sometimes find homes on a back road where a medical emergency or structure fire is happening.
They dispute statistics submitted by the county about deficient service and response times by volunteers and they say the district is not in the midst of a financial emergency and point out that if the ballot measure passes, enough money will be available to support the volunteers.
A group known as the Julian Fire Plugs, a support organization for the volunteer firefighters, asked LAFCO to suspend its decision until after the election.
“If the initiative passes, this should be notice to LAFCO that this community wants to remain independent and is willing to pay to do so,” Fire Plugs President Jan Payne and six others wrote.
Fire Authority and Cal Fire Chief Tony Mecham on Friday made his position clear, adding it will eventually be up to the vote of the populace.
“I believe the days of the small, independent fire districts are over,” Mecham said. “Julian, even if in November gets their 300 percent tax increase, will not be able to provide the same level of service that the county is proposing.
“I believe a consolidation with the county is better for the tax payers and the residents of both Julian and Cuyamaca.”
[email protected]; 760/529-4931; Twitter: @jharryjones
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