El Dorado County Grand Jury
• 2019-2020
• Agency Response
Pioneer Fire Protection District Fire • Rescue • Ems P.o. Box 128*
⚠️ Translation Notice: This content has been automatically translated. The original English text is the official version. Translation may contain errors.
⚠️ Este contenido ha sido traducido automáticamente. El texto original en inglés es la versión oficial. La traducción puede contener errores.
Findings and Recommendations 6 findings
F1
Long term fiscal sustainability of fire protection on the West Slope of the County is highly questionable. Yes, we agree that long term fiscal sustainability is in question. However, when local districts discus or meet to collaborate on JPA's, Fire Authority or other types of collaborations other agencies fill the need to disrupt this process or demand to be included. In addition, you failed to mention our elected officials and professional working for them have been told by their constituents no more taxes. "The county takes enough, from us"; this alone has made it challenging for the fire districts.
Related Recommendations (1)
R1
Fire Protection Districts, Cal Fire, BOS and LAFCO should continue discussing ways to improve County fire protection services. Concluding Summary: In 2019-20 Pioneer Fire Protection District began conversations with Amador County Fire Protection District regarding collaborating resources. In addition, we have entered with Amador County and 4 other agency regional Safer Grant to consolidate recruitment, training and retention of volunteers for each of the six (6) agencies. We are currently working with Garden Valley and Georgetown in separate regional grants. In 2019-20 Amador County Fire Protection District and Pioneer Fire Protection District amended and renewed its Auto Aid Agreement and recently entered into a JOA, and are collaborating on a shared station in Fiddletown. We truly respect what all of our County Fire Chiefs (Neighboring Fire Chiefs) are facing. We are moving forward, but it is very difficult to move forward when we have more than our community's opinions to deal with especially when a Grand Jury report comes out with inaccurate information and does not include professional subject matter or industry experts' opinions or practical non funded solutions! There are a number of sweeping statements regarding the fitness, readiness and preparation of the Districts which are based and what appear to be skewed and bias perspective of pro Cal Fire as if it is a foregone conclusion that they should be the entity taking care of the fire/rescue/EMS protection of our county. The most egregious and blaring are the calculations of per person dollars which are inaccurate for a number of reasons not the least which is the incorrect population numbers. These are grossly inaccurate. Furthermore this "cherry picking" of data creates a narrowed scope that does not come close to painting a complete picture. The report does not address the fact the Pioneer Fire Protection District has already entered into working relationships with Amador Fire Protection District and has opened additional fiscally responsible services to our community. Perhaps the Grand Jury should look to Pioneer and our creative work to enhance our service even as we see retraction in revenue. Marie Fitts Jerry Jumper PFPD BOD Vice Chair PFPD BOD Chair Mark S. Matthews PFPD, Fire Chief Proudly serving the El Dorado County communities of Mt. Aukum, Fair Play, Outingdale, Grizzly Flats, Omo Ranch, Happy Valley, Coyoteville,
F2
County citizens on the West Slope experience a wide disparity in fire protection services often masked by Automatic Aid, based on their location and their specific fire district. Proudly serving the El Dorado County communities of Mt. Aukum, Fair Play, Outingdale, Grizzly Flats, Omo Ranch, Happy Valley, Coyoteville, PIONEER FIRE PROTECTION DISTRICT FIRE • RESCUE • EMS P.O. Box 128 7061 Mt. Aukum Road Somerset, California 95684 Phone (530) 620-4444 • Fax (530) 620-4317 www.pioneerfire.org Automatic Aid and Mutual Aid is collaboration and is a big part of working towards sustainability, especially when funding is not available. You failed to list real examples of disparity, looking to nearby county's (same demographics) for comparable services being provided. We are not questioning that we have to do more with less, we have been aware of this for a long time. Your trained, educated and professional County Fire Chiefs are way ahead of this report! However the Grand Jury report has not listed any persons or consultants with subject expertise in these areas and seems to be bias with a larger state agency.
No recommendations for this finding
F3
Efforts to improve fire protection on the West Slope of the County have been ongoing for many years with limited success. You mention the disparity, but fail to come up with real equitable solutions and seem to listen to only one agency. In addition, Pioneer Fire Protection District has open two stations in 2019 and in 2020 open a combined collaborated station with Amador Fire Protection District are working towards opening another station, adding paid personnel and volunteers.
No recommendations for this finding
F4
Cal Fire has the infrastructure, staffing and expertise to be a major component of a solution to the County's fire district disparities. We disagree with this opinion and believe you should have utilized subject matter experts and not given an opinion (that appears bias). This district had a different experience with Cal Fire and it is not listed in your opinion.
No recommendations for this finding
F5
Improvements in the existing fire protection model for the West Slope requires all fire protection districts to take a holistic view of fire protection and the political will to embrace change. Is this an educated and historical analogy, or is this just an opinion? The local fire districts elected officials are part of this political arena and hear from its constituents often on this subject, we believe you to be caviler and basically a back-seat driver with limited knowledge and access to our community. Reality, smaller communities do not embrace change especially in our demographics. It is more difficult than "holistic" we do not believe holistic it's practical in this category or your response, and under definition in our state it's were not positive holistic is a legal approach!
No recommendations for this finding
F6
Fire protection districts on the West Slope have not displayed the ability to take a holistic view of fire protection or the political will to embrace change, to the determent of all County citizens. Again, we do not support or agree with this statement. It should not have been added. PIONEER FIRE PROTECTION DISTRICT FIRE • RESCUE • EMS P.O. Box 128 7061 Mt. Aukum Road Somerset, California 95684 Phone (530) 620-4444 • Fax (530) 620-4317 www.pioneerfire.org
No recommendations for this finding
* This report's PDF did not contain easily extractable text and required Optical Character Recognition (OCR) for analysis. There may be minor errors in the extracted findings and recommendations due to OCR limitations with scanned documents.