Acting on an extensive Fire Department audit presented last month, the Davis City Council moved forward Tuesday on recommendations that, if ultimately approved, would bolster the city’s cooperation with the UC Davis Fire Department.
Specifically, the council voted 4-1 for staff to begin the process of seeking a shared-management plan between the city and university fire agencies, as well as a potential boundary drop that would enable UCD and city fire crews to respond to incidents within the others’ jurisdictions if needed.
But the council held off on two other suggestions — reducing staffing levels at two of the city’s three fire stations and modifying the Fire Department’s response-time goals — pending a stakeholders’ workshop tentatively scheduled for January.
“It’s important that all the views are thoroughly put out on the table,” Councilman Brett Lee said of the workshop, which is expected to include representatives of the city, UCD and their respective fire departments, as well as members of the public.
“We need to have strong proponents of alternate views have a chance to really state their case.”
The recommendations before the council stem from a 165-page audit of the Davis Fire Department authored by Interim Fire Chief Scott Kenley. The report concluded that while the community enjoys a high level of fire service, there are various areas with room for improvement.
One of them is in the area of staffing, where Kenley said the city could realize hundreds of thousands of dollars in savings each year by reducing some fire crews from four to three members.
The city moved to four-person crews in 1999 in response to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s “two-in, two-out” mandate for firefighters in emergency situations, but that decision has been revisited in light of the struggling economy.
Kenley’s follow-up report recommends that the city adopt a daily minimum staffing level of 11 firefighters — three each at the West and South Davis fire stations, and five downtown to occupy both a fire engine and a smaller rescue unit.
Typically dispatched in tandem with a fire engine, the rescue unit could be designated a stand-alone unit and respond to incidents with the West and South Davis fire engines, Kenley suggests.
“Coupled with the boundary drop … the city will have six units available for response instead of its current three,” the report says. “This will result in an increased level of service to the community while reducing the cost … of staffing all units with four personnel by approximately $360,000.”
But the suggestion has met with strong resistance from local firefighters, who insist that a shift from the four-member crews will erode the city’s level of service.
“Davis has always been known for having better than normal,” Joe Tenney, a Davis fire captain, told the council Tuesday. “Their standard has always been higher, and we’ve always strived to have excellent service. … Why go backwards?”
The council also held off on a recommendation to modify the city’s response-time goals from the current five minutes — which, according to Kenley, is met just 42 percent of the time instead of the desired 90 percent — to seven minutes, which Kenley described as more “realistic” and in keeping with the industry norm.
Meanwhile, the city has begun interviewing candidates to permanently fill the Davis fire chief position, though that selection process may be delayed six months while the potential shared-management plan is pursued.
Kenley, who took on the interim fire chief position in May, is expected to leave the post in mid-January, when the number of post-retirement hours he is allowed to work for a PERS agency maxes out.
— Reach Lauren Keene at lkeene@davisenterprise.net or 530-747-8048. Follow her on Twitter @laurenkeene