Soon-to-be-retiring Hollister Fire Chief Mike O’Connor told the San Benito County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday that the $1.1 million countywide consolidation of fire services has improved coverage and helped lower some residents’ insurance rates.
In a report summing up the first full year since the county contracted with the Hollister Fire Department to coordinate fire service for the entire county — including San Juan Bautista — O’Connor said his staff has expanded its youth outreach, reorganized and restaffed stations and worked to ensure that all four fire stations in the county are staffed at all times. The county and city entered into the agreement on July 1, 2013 and the two-year contract is up for renewal on June 30, 2015. it will automatically renew annually unless one of the government entities provides six-month notice to cease the deal.
O’Connor said there have been 3,644 fire calls in 2014 through the day of his report, with a seven-minute response time to 90 percent of those incidents. The response time from Station 2 on Union Road has increased from 4 or 5 minutes because it now responds to calls in south county, but when those crews are not at their base, others fill in for them, improving service overall. Plans for a fire station in the northern portion of the county at Aerostar Way and Flynn Road are still a go, along with the current stations in downtown Hollister and San Juan Bautista. There is also talk of adding a station in south county.
CalFire continues to staff its stations during the fire season, with bulldozers and air tankers stationed at the Hollister Airport.
The local fire service has been approved for up to 80 volunteers, but is just short of half that right now, at 38. O’Connor hopes that number will rise in the coming years.
Local insurance rates for some homeowners — like those in the San Juan Canyon —Â have dropped since the reorganization of the fire service, said County Administrative Office Ray Espinosa. O’Connor noted that the city of Hollister has moved from a Class 4 rating to a Class 3, which he called excellent. Class 1 is the top rating. San Juan Bautista is Class 5 and San Benito County, within 7 to 9 minutes of a station is a Class 5. Outside of that response distance, the county is rated Class 10.
County Supervisor Anthony Botelho said all parties involved knew the consolidation would be a challenge. “It’s very difficult to bring departments together to work as a cohesive unit,” he said, adding that “we still have a lot of work to do.” Still, he said that if he had to grade the efforts thus far, he would give the city of Hollister an “A-plus.”
“You’ve exceeded my expectations,” he told O’Connor, adding that there is still a need to “iron out some personnel issues,” likely referring to the recent paid administrative leave from which O’Connor recently returned after a city investigation turned up no wrongdoing.
Supervisor Margie Barrios said that she has “not received a single complaint (about the consolidated fire service) from any of my constituents.”
Supervisor Robert Rivas, who asked for the report, said that the 7-minute average response time “is unacceptable” and that increasing the number of stations and personnel will help reduce that. His main concern, however, is what he called “a complete breakdown, in my opinion, of the communication between the city and the county,” particularly related to O’Connor’s suspension. “There needs to be more communication between our staffs; the administration of the city and our county. I hope in the future that we can have that dialogue between our governments.” He also suggested the formation of a Joint Powers Agreement “to take the politics out of it between our board and council members” at the city.
Board Chair Jerry Muenzer said the county has “made great strides in the last year and a half to improve fire service not only for the city of Hollister but the county as a whole and the city of San Juan. We know we have issues, but we can only handle one issue at a time, especially in difficult financial times.”
Muenzer said it has been a “great step” for the city and county to work together on a fire service agreement and that he “fully” supports the creation of a special fire district or JPA Â to oversee the operation of fire service operations. “I still am hoping we can do the same for law enforcement that we’ve done for the fire department.”