Inland Boom Town Suffers Growing Pains

With a sparkling-new upscale mall, swelling home prices and a popular minor league baseball park, Rancho Cucamonga has become the envy of other up-and-coming cities in one of the fastest-growing corners of the Inland Empire.

But city firefighters and some community members have expressed concern for months that the population growth is outpacing the city’s ability to provide emergency services, putting residents at risk because of slower response times.

“It’s a mismatch here,” said Jim Townsend, a city fire engineer, and president of the firefighters’ local union chapter. “The planning that went into the implementation of the new homes, mall and baseball field was all first-class. But the Fire Department’s resources are not. It’s just too sparse.”

Rancho Cucamonga is the ninth-fastest-growing city in the U.S., a recent census study showed. Since 1995, the city’s population has increased 41%, from 114,000 residents to more than 161,000.

In the last 12 years, the city added one fire station, for a total of six, and a dozen firefighters, for a total of 72. The average response time to an emergency call has increased by about 90 seconds in the last decade.

“The demand for service is exceeding our current resources,” said Peter Bryan, Rancho Cucamonga Fire Protection District chief. The demand has increased as the town’s population has aged and traffic to local malls has risen.

A new fire district study confirmed the complaints the city’s firefighters union has been raising with the City Council all year: Rancho Cucamonga has outgrown its fire department.

In the study, officials measured firefighters’ travel time in more than 4,600 emergency medical service and fire calls from Feb. 15 to Dec. 31, 2004. The study showed that in 55% of the calls, Rancho Cucamonga fire units took four minutes or less to reach their destination. The national standard for fire departments, according to the National Fire Protection Assn., is for 90% of the calls to take four minutes or less.

The fire district study recommends more than $20 million in additional funding for two new fire stations; to relocate an existing station to speed up response times; and to hire 26 personnel, including 19 firefighters.

The fire district operates with a staff of 95, including administrative personnel, and an annual budget of $18 million.

While agreeing that the issue needs to be addressed, Rancho Cucamonga City Manager Jack Lam said the city’s tight financial situation might hamstring any quick action.

“The city budget can absolutely not do this,” Lam said. The plan “puts a price tag on the recommendations, but it doesn’t say how you fund it.”

The Rancho Cucamonga Fire Protection District is an independent local agency and is funded through a 12.7% cut of the city’s property tax. Council members also serve as fire district board members.

Lam said the fire district has operated under a deficit since the mid-1990s, requiring an extra $1.7 million annually from the city’s budget in recent years. Attempts to increase the fire district’s budget would require voter approval to increase taxes -- and ballot measures proposing such an increase failed in 1981 and 1989.

“There will always be policy issues in cities ... needs beyond what we can pay for in all services,” Lam said. “You can’t suit everybody’s demands. Ask any city. There are all kinds of demands. No one says we have all the money we need to do all the things we want.”

However, in Moreno Valley and Fontana, two of the nation’s other 15 fastest-growing cities that are in the Inland Empire, county fire officials are boosting personnel and adding stations.

“We have to keep up with the growth,” said San Bernardino County Fire Department spokeswoman Tracey Martinez, whose agency covers Fontana.

The Central Valley Fire Protection District -- the San Bernardino County Fire Department district that oversees emergency services for Fontana and several surrounding communities -- will have nine stations and a $21-million budget by 2006. All nine will respond to emergencies in the area, allowing Fontana to meet its response time standard.

In exchange, the city pays the county fire department $3.5 million from its general fund, enough to pick up the payroll for 24 people, including paramedics, to staff two of the stations, said Jeff McPherson, Fontana’s business services manager.

The other stations are funded with $12 million in property taxes collected in Fontana and the surrounding communities in the fire district, said Dan Wurl, San Bernardino County assistant fire chief. An additional $3 million in the fire district’s reserves will be used next year to help compensate for the ninth station.

“It’s always a hardship getting money for new stations,” Martinez said. But Fontana has been very vigilant in funding a fire department that serves its community as best as it can. Fontana is fortunate to have the ability to fund like it has.”

Jim Cook, a battalion chief for the California Department of Forestry in Moreno Valley, said the city of 166,000 built a fire station staffed by 12 new firefighters in 2003, and is moving another station toward a more heavily congested pocket on the east side of town.

The money to fund the forestry department-staffed station comes from the city’s general fund, a coffer built by sales taxes, a special fire tax paid by the city’s property owners and a special city utility users’ tax paid by homeowners and businesses. The city has approved its first paramedic service for next year.

“Our council has been very supportive,” said Stan Lake, the fire chief of Moreno Valley. “If growth demands it, you’ve just got to do it.”

Rancho Cucamonga Mayor William Alexander, a 35-year fire department veteran in Ontario, said that although his city was one of the Inland Empire’s fastest growing, the perception that the city’s treasury was overflowing was wrong.

Alexander said the city received only a small share of property tax revenues and sales tax revenues from the new Victoria Gardens shopping center and other new businesses. Plus, to keep up with growth, the city has been pressed to build new roads and expand other city services.

But Alexander said the strategic plan, to be formally presented at a special meeting tonight, was “overdue and we’ll give it as quick a response as economics will allow.”

Bryan said the strategic plan would be the first study of the fire district to be presented to the City Council since the district’s 1989 inception.

The plan’s intention, Bryan said, is to assess what the district’s needs are and to provide an estimated cost of paying for necessary services.

“Public safety is touted as our No. 1 priority,” Alexander said. “We need to bite the bullet and raise our public safety standards, because right now we don’t meet those standards. We have an obligation to protect lives and property.”

The Rancho Cucamonga firefighters union, in the study based on December 2004 response times, found that 30% of that month’s calls required response times of eight minutes or more. In the northwest part of the city, firefighters required 10 minutes or more to reach the scene of 32% of that month’s 77 calls.

In May, it took Rancho Cucamonga firefighters almost 14 minutes to respond to Fred McBride, 81, who suffered a stroke in his caretaker’s home, located in the northwest corner of the city.

McBride’s stroke occurred while firefighters closest to his home were fighting a structure fire and a hazardous-materials situation, and the paramedics who responded to McBride’s home were based 8.3 miles away, fire spokeswoman Kelley Larson said.

“I checked to see if he was breathing,” said Dena Becraft, McBride’s caretaker, “but I needed someone here to tell me what else was happening. I personally would love it if we had a fire station closer to our home.”

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Growth in Rancho Cucamonga

Rancho Cucamonga’s population has grown 41.2% in the last 10 years, increasing the time it takes to reach emergency incidents, according to fire officials. According to Fire Chief Peter Bryan, about 12,000 emergencies will be handled by the end of the year, compared with about 6,600 in 1994.

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City population

1995: 114,587

2000: 127,743

2005: 161,830

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Emergency travel times

The number of minutes it took in 2004 to travel to about 90% of fire and emergency medical service calls throughout the city, compared with the fire chief’s goal:

Goal: 4 minutes or less

EMS* : 6 to 7

Fire: 7 to 8

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By fire station

Minutes of travel time taken for about 90% of all emergency medical service incidents:

*--* Station 1994 2004 1 5 to 6 6 to 7 2 5 to 6 6 to 7 3 6 to 7 6 to 7 4 5 to 6 6 to 7 5 4 to 5 6 to 7 6 Not open 7 to 8

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Sources: Rancho Cucamonga Planning Department, Rancho Cucamonga Professional Firefighters Assn., Rancho Cucamonga Fire Protection District, ESRI, TeleAtlas