by Garth Meyer
Redondo Beach and Hermosa Beach have hired a consultant to study the feasibility of Redondo providing fire department services to Hermosa.
The two cities will split the $50,000 cost of the study by CityGate Associates, due for completion in four to six months, about the time Hermosa’s contract with Los Angeles County Fire expires.
“Hermosa Beach had a very informal discussion with us about what it would look like if it contracted with RBFD,” Redondo Beach Fire Chief Patrick Butler said last week. “They reached out to us. Very, very informally. That’s not really our business model. But Hermosa Beach is a great neighbor, we surround them on three sides. It’s very early in the discussion.”
The Redondo Beach Fire Department has a longstanding mutual aid agreement with Hermosa Beach and other neighboring departments.
“Let’s say they have a large fire, we go cover their station,” Butler said. “Can we do this full-time? Do we have the capacity? Absolutely yes, we could start it tonight at 6 p.m. But to do it would require a broader discussion.”
The Redondo-Hermosa question follows decades of talk of consolidating the three beach towns’ fire departments, including Manhattan Beach.
“I think Manhattan is a bridge too far,” Butler said.
“This is not Redondo Beach looking to expand its footprint,” he added.
Nonetheless, Butler has little concern that the department could cover Hermosa.
“We would integrate seamlessly with them. The residents of Redondo Beach, they don’t get impacted,” he said.
The Los Angeles County Fire Department has provided services for Hermosa Beach for the past seven years, operating out of a city-owned fire station. In the event of a contract with Redondo, Butler said, the county would just move its personnel, trucks and equipment out of the Hermosa station, and RBFD would move its equipment in.
“Like renting an apartment. A new tenant comes in, they bring their own furniture,” he said. “Let’s roll the tape forward. No one would lose their job. The County firefighters would get absorbed somewhere else.”
The chief noted that any financial arrangement with Hermosa Beach for fire services would be revenue neutral.
“A government agency cannot make a profit off of another government agency,” he said.
Citygate is the same firm Redondo Beach hired in 2023 to evaluate a proposed agreement for L.A. County Fire to cover Redondo Beach, and to disband the RBFD. The evaluation ended in a unanimous 2024 city council vote not to pursue it.
Public input was heavily against the notion to disband the local fire department.
Last November, Redondo voters approved Measure FP, which will fund construction of two new fire stations, replacing the city’s current 1960s buildings. Butler said a contract with Hermosa would not affect the design of the new facilities.
“Not in any way shape or form,” he said. “Zero impact.”
The chief dismissed reports of RBFD contracting for coverage of the Palos Verdes Peninsula.
“Not even any formal discussions,” he said. “It would be too far of a reach for us to even consider.”
The Redondo-Hermosa Citygate contract will also study whether RBFD should bring back ambulance services in-house. In recent years, the city has contracted with McCormick Ambulance. ER
County firefighters union to study SB-wide fire services
by Kevin Cody
The Los Angeles County Fire Fighters Union Local 1014 plans to commission a study on the cost of its members servicing Redondo Beach, Manhattan Beach and Torrance.
LACFD has contracted for service with Hermosa Beach since 2018.
Los Angeles Fire Fighters union president Dave Gillotte said the study is meant to “provide [cost] numbers as a comparison,” and is not a first step in the formation of a South Bay Los Angeles County Fire Department.
The proposed County Firefighter study coincides with a study on Hermosa Beach contracting with the Redondo Beach Fire Department when Hermosa’s contract with County Fire expires next year.
The two cities have retained CityGate Associates to conduct the study.
In 2017, CityGate recommended Hermosa disband its 107-year old fire department in favor of contracting with the County for fire protection.
Citygate concluded in that study, “There is no way a one-station fire agency can ever cost-effectively afford the headquarters, team bench depth, specialities, and extra technical-response capacity as found in the [Los Angeles County Fire] District’s proposal.”
Hermosa’s 2017 council voted unanimously to contract with the County.
Hermosa firefighters, at the time, also supported the County contract and were offered lateral transfers.
Gillotte said the County Fire Department offers services smaller departments can’t afford, including one of only two certified search and rescue teams in the country, air support, a dive team, a hazardous material team, and a mobile strike unit.
Gillotte said LAFD also provides financial stability because the department is funded primarily by a 1997 “Special Tax” on property, and a 2024 parcel tax. As a result, the department was unaffected by the $1 billion deficit Los Angeles County faced this year, he noted. ER
3 Responses
Hermosa probably pays several hundred thousand a year to manage the county contract. That’s a leftover from old Suja days where she never met a taxpayer dollar that she didn’t waste. HB will need to dump its wasted money from Suja first.
It is quite a turn of events. A year ago the RBFD wanted to be absorbed into Los Angeles County Fire Department under the guise of increased capacity. Wisely, Redondo residents unanimously rejected that misguided notion. Now RBFD say they have the capacity to take away the entire Hermosa department from LACFD.
Hermosa is going to need to carry 100% of its own cost burden or this shouldn’t even be considered.