Op/Ed: Calamity or Collaboration

By Mark Bisbee, Watsonville Fire Chief

As the Watsonville Fire Department prepares to celebrate its 150th anniversary on Nov. 12, it’s a good time to also consider how the new financial realties may shape it in the future.

As I look through Scott Baron and Gene Friend’s excellent history of our department, I’m struck by the fits and starts our department went through since its founding in 1861 with the Pajaro Bucket Company No. 1. The first sixty years brought advances from bucket brigades to hose carts, steam engine to first
motorized apparatus (it was called Ol’ Buck and it still sits in our museum to this day).

The WFD continued to consist of three separate companies for the next 60 years until the great fire of 1927. During this calamity, eight packing sheds burned and explosions blew manhole covers sky-high. Mutual aid was rendered from the city of Santa Cruz and Salinas. After this fire, the WFD became more organized; purchasing a second fire engine, its first ladder truck and hiring more staff.

Another 60 years later, in the 1980s, the city’s population had grown to almost 24,000 and had 28 paid personnel six engines and two ladder trucks working out of two fire stations with 683 calls. Now the WFD protects closer to 60,000 people with 34 firefighters from two stations going to 4,110 calls.

While much busier now, it serves little purpose to lament the lack of staff or the current fiscal situation: it’s a fact that nearly everyone and every organization must grapple with worldwide. The question is best framed not as the ability to survive the revenue rug pulled from under us as much as it is how to thrive within a new economic environment. It’s not a budget crisis as much as it’s a crisis over priorities. Each entity must grapple with some really tough funding choices and explore better ways to do business.

One better way bandied about is often consolidation. Full consolidation for fire agencies has been somewhat of a greased pig: through the years, piecemeal efforts have been made, but issues of governance, political will, labor contracts and different cultures have made firm grasps rather slippery. As the Watsonville Fire Department prepares to celebrate 150 years of service, there is a great deal of pride in our distinctive history and unique identity.

The truth is that the fire agencies are already a model of operational unity: we all act as one organization at larger incidents. The recent experience with our coupled with annual wildfires statewide provide ample example.

Another way is through increased collaboration. There are—and have been—. One current effort underway is to increase operational and administrative effectiveness and efficiency between the UCSC and City of Santa Cruz Fire Departments.

Local fire agencies have come together and share the same regional 9-1-1 center, which is a model of success in collaboration for local public safety agencies. Currently our regional 9-1-1 center has also added San Benito County: including the Cities of Hollister and San Juan Batista. The fire agencies
have also formed a Joint Powers Agreement to integrate Emergency Medical Services: with exemplary collaboration between the County EMS Agency and American Medical Response, the local ambulance provider.

Seven county agencies also share a jointly-funded EMS Chief, which eliminates the need for separate EMS officers in each of those agencies. And this model may be the way to go: sharing key positions and eliminating the need for redundant positions within each organization. In addition to a shared EMS
Chief, efforts should continue to consider shared Training and Fire Marshal Chief Officer positions. Especially since the essential duties for many staff positions are the same, eliminating this duplication through attrition could lead to cost savings or even bolster firefighter staffing on the streets.

Our communities, elected officials and firefighters must grapple with the intense fiscal fire we now face and accept the new reality it brings to bear. As such, it’s an opportune time to consider some resilient restructuring and turn this potential calamity into effective collaboration.