The Hermosa Beach City Council will try to find money in its lean budget to partially restore five lost positions in the Police Department, and to forestall a planned cut in Fire Department staffing.
The council also decided, on a split vote, to study the possible outsourcing of city parking enforcement and animal control to a private company. Council members on Tuesday delayed final approval of a budget for the upcoming fiscal year to study those moves, and will take up the budget again on June 22.
Hermosa City Manager Steve Burrell and his staff are left with the task of finding hundreds of thousands of dollars in budget cuts or revenue increases to fund the public safety positions. Burrell is expected to present the council with a range of options, and council members said the public safety positions remain up in the air.
During discussion of the budget, firefighters helped convince council members to rethink a plan to cut $350,000 in overtime costs by reducing staffing levels from six firefighters per shift to five per shift.
Firefighters pointed out that a $30,000 study by a city consultant found that even the six-person staffing did not provide Hermosa with adequate protection.
Fire Capt. James Crawford, a 26-year veteran of the department, said five-person staffing was imposed briefly in 1989, and led to the most devastating fire in city history, destroying a house and nine apartments, and damaging two condos near Fourth Street and Palm Drive.
Crawford said the smaller staffing limited the firefighters’ aggressiveness as they battled the blaze, and he recalled the sorrow of seeing displaced residents outside their burned homes.
“I don’t want to see that again,” Crawford said.
Mayor Michael DiVirgilio said the police and fire positions should receive priority attention in the new budget.
As presented to the council, the $24.5 million operating budget called for freezing a total of 14 vacant employee positions, raising $33,000 by creating 40 new parking spaces by eliminating U-turns at a number of Hermosa Avenue intersections, and raising $300,000 by converting the downtown parking structure and a nearby parking lot from attendant parking to pay-by-space. ER
