As Hermosa Beach nears a decision on the future of its fire department, pockets of once-strenuous resistance to the prospect of contracting with Los Angeles County for fire services delivery are beginning to diminish.
The City Council will vote some time next year on one of two choices: maintain the existing independent department with added staffing, or contract with the Los Angeles County Fire Department. Information about the two options continues to flow in, and while the council initially planned on making a final decision at its Jan. 10 meeting, councilmembers are now indicating that they may delay a decision until at least February to gather more information.
The passage of time, and the swell of information, appears to have softened resistance to eliminating the city’s fire department. Recently, a citizens advisory group and the city’s Emergency Preparedness Advisory Committee voted unanimously in support of the county option; each group began with significant hesitancy about eliminating a century-old local institution, but was worn down by the advantages that contracting with the county could bring.
“We all came in pretty much to a man, or woman, and said ‘We have to keep our department — it’s ours,’” said Andrea Valcourt, head of the citizens advisory group, in explaining the group’s initial mentality.
Valcourt cited the county’s ability to give Hermosa the most “bang for its buck,” but financial numbers for the county option have been something of a shifting target. City staff initially forecasted that an annual contract with the county would be less expensive than continuing an independent department. But a city-commissioned study of the two options, released last week, estimated that the a department with added staff sufficient to meet minimum needs set the city back $6,225,198 per year; although negotiations are still being finalized, the study forecasts that a contract with the county would be about $385,000 more per year.
At a Monday night study session on the issue, some objected to aspects of the study’s methodology, specifically the way it incorporated revenue from ambulance services. (If Hermosa were to contract with the county, it would still have the option to run or contract with an independent ambulance service.) And Aaron Marks, head of the Hermosa Beach Firefighters Association, said it was a mistake to think about money the department could “bring in.”
“The Fire Department is not a source of revenue. Whenever we start looking at it as a source of revenue, problems start,” he said.
But financial considerations will invariably play into the decision. Interim Chief Pete Bonano said that while staffing costs are comparable, the real opportunity for savings exists in facilities costs. Under either choice, the existing station would need to be rebuilt. Keeping an independent department would require building a new “headquarters” station, while contracting with the county would allow for building a smaller “neighborhood station. The latter could cost as little as $2 million while the former could run about $14 million, a disparity that would increase when debt service on bonds to finance construction is factored in.
Present at Monday’s meeting was L.A. County Fire Chief Daryl Osby, who identified another local group that would likely support the move: the sizable number of county firefighters who already live in Hermosa or nearby. Interim Chief Bonano is the only current member of the department living in the city.
“We have a lot people in the department that live in the region. People are excited to live and work here,” Osby said.
