JULIAN, CA —There were apparently no harsh words, no accusations, no nasty asides.
Despite months of acrimony between members of the Julian-Cuyamaca Fire Protection District and the county, the first inspection of the fire station where the volunteers have been sequestered for the past three weeks went off without a hitch Friday.
Both sides had agreed a day earlier to allow daily inspections as part of a court agreement as the volunteers contest the county’s takeover of the district. The visit came hours after the county won a significant battle in court.
CAL FIRE Battalion Chief Jeremi Roesler and County Fire Authority Fire Services Coordinator Kevin O’Leary toured the volunteer station Friday afternoon for a bit less than 30 minutes, taking inventory of the items and vehicles stored there. The two were welcomed into the station by volunteers and could be seen checking out various fire trucks and equipment.
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The county maintains the station and all assets of the volunteer district belong to the county after voters earlier this month opted to go with professional county firefighters during a special election. Once the vote was certified, the Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCO), which oversees special districts in the county, voted unanimously on April 8 to dissolve the volunteer department.
But that afternoon, as the county tried to conduct an inspection of the station, it was denied access to the building off state Route 79 a few miles south of Julian. Ever since, the volunteers have stayed inside the station, even though they can no longer respond to calls. All emergencies are being responded to by county fire firefighters based in two nearby CAL FIRE stations in the area. The Fire Authority contracts with Cal Fire.
Also on April 8, a legal challenge was launched just hours after the LAFCO vote.
Attorney Cory Briggs, on behalf of the district’s board of directors, sued the county and LAFCO, saying they could not take over the department because San Diego Superior Court Judge Randa Trapp had days earlier found that the district’s board of directors, as it was comprised a year earlier, had violated state open meeting laws when they decided to seek dissolution of the department because of financial concerns.
Briggs argued in a lawsuit that since the initial request for dissolution was illegal, then everything else that followed was null and void.
But Friday, Trapp reopened the case by allowing a request from lawyers representing the county and LAFCO to “intervene.” She also set an Aug. 16 hearing date at which the county will ask for a new trial on the open meeting violation issues.
That means that the county will continue to provide emergency services in the 87-square-mile fire district until at least that date.
Trapp said the county and LAFCO should be allowed to have a say in the open meeting case because they have a direct interest in its outcome. She said when she ruled that the violations had occurred, she had not been presented all the facts because Briggs and attorney Craig Sherman, who was representing a group of volunteers, had agreed to the facts and there were no lawyers present to express opposition.
In court filings, the county alleged that what Briggs and Sherman had done amounted to collusion and fraud.
“Here, unbeknownst to this court at the time, its ruling did affect both LAFCO and the County,” Trapp wrote in a tentative ruling she upheld Friday.
Briggs and Sherman asked the judge to remove the “unbeknownst” language from her ruling, but Trapp refused.
“My tentative is confirmed as written,” she said. “And those words were specifically added because the court was not fully aware of what was going on.”
She said she had been surprised when no one came forward in opposition before she ruled on April 5.
“Instead, the court was assured that the allegations that were being made were correct. The tentative stands, " she said Friday.
Following the court hearing, Fire Authority Chief Tony Mecham said inspections of the station will not take place every day, but only occasionally.
After touring the station Friday, O’Leary and Roesler declined to comment on what they found. They will be producing a report with their findings next week.
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