By Bryan Scott

Across our nation one essential service that government provides is responding to calls for help.  Taxes are paid with the expectation that a reasonable response will be provided when members of the public need the police, the fire department, or emergency medical assistance.

Across our nation the first response to a 9-1-1 call is usually the police or fire department. The arrival of this first responder means that someone trained to handle a crisis is taking charge of the situation, be it a crime, a fire, or a medical emergency.

The time for this initial response is typically three-to-five minutes.  The City of Brentwood specifies a response time goal of three-to-five minutes for all emergency calls in their General Plan.  Service models everywhere include this goal.

In East County, it is intended that East Contra Costa Fire Protection District (ECCFPD) provide the first response for medical emergencies.  The May, 2017, ECCFPD 90% Response Time was 10 minutes 26 seconds for Brentwood West, and 9 minutes and 53 seconds for Brentwood East.

In cases where necessary follow-up assistance arrives later, once the first responders have assessed the situation, and perhaps stabilized it.

When the need is for emergency medical service this secondary response is an ambulance from a private business.  Contra Costa County provides this ambulance service for most parts of the county, including the service area of ECCFPD.

By contract this business, American Medical Response (AMR), has agreed to response time goals.  For the service area of ECCFPD (except Bethel Island) the contract states that an ambulance must be onsite for Priority 1 (Potentially Life-Threatening) Emergencies within 11 minutes and 45 seconds.

The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) is an international standards organization that has developed response time standards for fire and emergency medical response organizations.

In the NFPA 1710 standard describing a fire district’s response to a medical emergency it says that, at a minimum, the fire district must be able to “… arrive within a four-minute (240 seconds) response time to 90 percent of all emergency medical incidents.”

This applies to the fire district whether they provide a fundamental First Responder (AED) trained staff or Basic Life Support (BLS) trained staff.

The NFPA 1710 standard describes the same response time for fire calls, “the fire department shall establish a time objective of four minutes (240 seconds) or less for the arrival of the first arriving engine company at a fire suppression incident, …”.

This public safety response model works when there is a first response in the four-to-five minute range, and a secondary response at 11 minutes and 45 seconds.

The response model does not work when both first and secondary responses arrive at the same time, or within a minute of each other.

Last month Brentwood residents needed to call 9-1-1 for help 338 times.

In the Brentwood West area the response time was 1,190 minutes longer than the nationwide goal, using the 90% response time numbers.  Collectively that’s nearly 20 hours late in one month.

For Brentwood East the response time was 900 minutes longer than the nationwide goal, using the same 90% response time numbers.  In this aggregate case help arrived 15 hours late in a single month.

As with the financial investment disclaimers we see, these numbers are averages and may not reflect your individual performance, or the time it takes for you to get help, should you need it.

This public safety response model is plainly broken.  Government needs to take action to fix it.

Bryan Scott is a Brentwood resident and Co-Chair of East County Voters for Equal Protection, a non-partisan citizens action committee whose aim is to improve funding for the ECCFPD.  He can be reached at scott.bryan@comcast.net, or 925-418-4428.  The group’s Facebook page is  https://www.facebook.com/EastCountyVoters/.  

By Bryan Scott

People are dying in East County, homes are burning down, and residents are paying dramatically escalating insurance premiums, often increasing by over 200%.

The fire district serving the needs of over 110,000 people in two cities, half a dozen unincorporated communities, and spread over 249-square miles of Contra Costa County is critically underfunded.

The state of California set-up the funding for these services in the 1980’s, when all that was needed were several groups of volunteer firefighters to serve 8,000 people in a couple of East Contra Costa County farming communities.  The need for fire and emergency medical services in East County has changed dramatically in the last 40 years, and the population has grown to over 110,000 residents.

All fire districts in California are funded with property tax revenues.  A permanent solution to this funding problem requires reallocating some of these property tax funds from the current recipients to the fire district.

Contra Costa County Fire Protection District receives ~14% of the property tax revenue.  The fire district covering the San Ramon Valley gets ~15%, and the fire district serving the Moraga-Orinda area is funded at~ 21%.

The East Contra Costa Fire Protection District (ECCFPD) gets less than 8%.

A survey conducted last Fall found that on a per-person basis ECCFPD gets about $106 each year, compared to $349 per-person for San Ramon Valley and $366 for Moraga-Orinda fire districts.  This unequal funding is to provide essentially the same services to county residents who pay the same property tax rate.

Gus Vina is the City Manager of Brentwood, and Bryan Montgomery is the City Manager of Oakley.  Combined, these two these public administrators are responsible for managing the safety of 100,000 residents.  They have a moral, if not legal, duty to ensure the safety of their employers, the taxpaying residents of their respective cities.

Both City Managers should be applauded for their efforts in dealing with this crisis.

In 2015 a government-employee task force was formed, under the leadership of Vina, and temporary funding was obtained from the two cities and the County.  This funding kept a fourth fire station open for 18 months.

In 2016 both City Managers helped get a Utility User Tax (UUT) on the ballot in their respective cities, even though public opinion polling said the measures would gather only 40% support, at best, with the voters.  While a general tax measure of this type requires only a simple majority to pass, Brentwood’s vote came in at 39% in favor.  Support for the UUT in Oakley was less.

Both Brentwood and Oakley are now talking about another temporary funding contribution, along with the County.

These temporary band-aide funding measures, do not address the fundamental problem, the structural property tax funding deficiency.

It is too bad neither one of these municipal managers has gotten behind the permanent solution to the funding crisis, reallocating property tax funds.  But perhaps it is understandable.

The challenge here is that the money for a permanent fix comes from the current recipients of property tax funding.  These recipients include the cities both Vina and Montgomery are paid to run, Brentwood and Oakley.

And while they have endorsed short-term financial contributions, they have not worked towards the obvious and final fix to the funding crisis, the reallocation of property tax funds.

So, East County residents will continue to die, homes will continue to burn down, and insurance premiums will continue to go up.

Scott is a Brentwood resident and Co-Chair of East County Voters for Equal Protection, a non-partisan citizens action committee whose aim is to improve funding for the ECCFPD.  He can be reached at scott.bryan@comcast.net, or 925-418-4428.  The group’s Facebook page is  https://www.facebook.com/EastCountyVoters/.  

By Bryan Scott

The East County Voters for Equal Protection (ECV), a non-partisan citizens action committee, is organizing a workshop later this month to discuss a proposal to correct the structural funding deficiency that is afflicting the local fire services agency, the East Contra Costa Fire Protection District (ECCFPD).

Twenty-two local government entities have been invited, including the county, the cities of Brentwood and Oakley, special districts and schools.

The proposal ECV is advocating will improve ECCFPD funding by about $7.8 million, and potentially provide for three additional fire stations, bringing the district’s total to six.  There are now just three permanent stations serving 110,000 people spread over 249 square miles.

The proposal relies on the traditional growth in property tax revenues to avoid any cuts in current funding.  If the proposal is adopted the increased property tax revenues that  22 government entities can expect would grow a little slower over a three or four year program implementation period.

This proposal is a significant one.  It is the type of policy decision that elected officials, the chosen representatives of the public, need to make because it is the general public who will benefit from this program.

Government administrators are naturally opposed to this proposal.  City Managers, schools administrators, the county administrator, have all gone on record opposing the solution because their specific government entity would lose future funds.

These government workers are not looking at the big picture.   All government funds come, in one manner or another, from the public taxpayers.  The money ought to be used to meet the needs of today’s taxpayer population.

That’s why the elected representatives of the people need to make this decision, not those who are paid to operate pieces of the people’s business.

The Ghost Ship Fire occurred in Oakland several months ago.  It was a tragedy that took the lives of 36 people at a warehouse in the city’s District 5.  Noel Gallo is the City Councilmember who represents District 5, and he stepped forward visibly during the crisis.  He is a former school board member who understands the importance of fire and emergency medical response services to a community.  Gallo will speak at the fire district funding workshop.

The structural funding problem that has increased response times and reduced the number of firefighters is not a new phenomenon. It has grown as East County’s population has grown, dramatically since the late 1990’s.  Attempts to solve the problem with new tax measures have failed three times.

This proposal, if adopted, will address this structural funding problem.  It will provide money to East County fire and emergency medical services so that ECCFPD receives an allocation rate closer to the rate that other parts of the county receive for their fire and emergency medical services.  The funding allocation rate will then be at about the average for the county’s fire districts.

Shifting public money to a higher-priority service, in many cases a life-sustaining service, is the right thing to do.  Three lives have been lost due to inadequate response capability, a fire department official has said.

The proposal being brought forth is not new.  It has been talked about for over 15 months.

ECV was formed in January of 2016.  The leaders of this group have made 19 formal presentations to public agencies, civic and social groups.  They have attended over 46 meetings with elected, hired, or appointed officials, and conducted 10 public committee meetings.  Over 75 articles and opinion pieces have been published in local periodicals, online, and in social media by ECV.

It is time for our elected representatives the people to do what’s best for the people.

Bryan Scott is a Brentwood resident and Co-Chair of East County Voters for Equal Protection, a non-partisan citizens action committee whose aim is to improve funding for the ECCFPD.  He can be reached at scott.bryan@comcast.net, or 925-418-4428.  The group’s Facebook page is  https://www.facebook.com/EastCountyVoters/.