Jackson and Sutter Creek Join Hands in Fire ProtectionWednesday, February 23, 2005 - 12:30 PM
By Stan Oklobdzija
The city of Jackson and the Sutter Creek Fire Protection District joined forces at Monday's Jackson City Council meeting to present the county with an amended proposal to the Amador Fire Protection District. Under dispute is the automatic aid agreement which requires the city of Jackson's volunteer fire department to respond to unincorporated areas of the county outside the city's limits. Already, SCFPD has threatened to suspend its services from the project, before entering into additional dialog with the county.
At issue is the amount of money the county will reimburse the departments for calls and workman's compensation issues. At present no agreement exists between the county and cities participating within the automatic aid agreement. Following the failure of a program which swapped two full-time firefighters between the Jackson and Sutter Creek stations in exchange for fire protection outside their jurisdictions, the county advanced a proposal to compensate each city $103 per call.
In October of last year, the SCFPD requested a flat fee of $40,000 per year, with the ultimatum that if not paid, they would withdraw their services from the agreement by Dec. 1, 2004. After further discussion, the Amador Fire Protection District rejected this proposal and the SCFPD gave notice that it would suspend its services effective Feb. 1. As of now, the service termination is on hold while the two agencies negotiate.
According to Jackson Fire Chief Mark Morton, “we're on a record for 2005 based on the number of calls responded to this January.” At present rates, he expects the number to exceed 950 calls this year.
Councilmember Al Nunes concurred with Morton's assessment.
“There are some people who think that our fire department can be run completely by volunteers,” he said, “but we just can't get enough volunteers to do it anymore.”
Morton also cited fears that development in the county would put too much of a strain on the all-volunteer department.
“Our responsibility is not only the city limits, but up to the railroad in Martell,” he said. “I believe this area has the biggest potential for growth.”
The proposal, prepared by both agencies, calls for a retroactive compensation of $105 per call from July 1, 2003 to the present and compensation of $150 per call for the next two years. Also on the proposal was a plan by AFPD to include a “fire benefit assessment or tax ” on new development, that would be aimed at creating a full-time fire service for Amador County.
“The county is not going to do completely away with the volunteer fire department,” said Morton, “A full-time county fire department would be supported by volunteers.”
“We're hoping if we take this agreement to the county, they'll adopt it and we can go ahead,” said Ed Arata of the SCFPD. “If the county doesn't want to deal with this, we're still prepared to pull out of the auto aid agreement.”
Both Morton and Arata were quick to note that any retreat from the automatic aid agreement with the county would not affect the mutual assistance between Sutter Creek and Jackson.
“They would most certainly come into the city limits of Jackson to assist us,” said Morton, “and we would do the same.”
After reviewing the proposal, councilmembers voiced their support on the issue.
“This has been a long time coming,” said councilmember Marilyn Lewis.
The council directed staff to continue negotiations with the AFPD on behalf of the city of Jackson.
“The city will make a counter proposal to the AFPD,” said Jackson City Manager Mike Daly in a later interview. “Now we'll both be coming at them with the same proposal.”
Arata was pleased with the outcome.
“We've got to hold the county's feet to the fire,” he said.
Reprinted with permission from the Amador Ledger-Dispatch
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