Battle Between Oceanside Firefighters and City Officials Heats Up

Oceanside firefighters say they know the city is in dire financial straits, but when it comes to making cutbacks they believe their forces are already too threadbare to be stripped any more.

On Thursday, they took their case to court, hoping a judge will reverse a city management decision to reduce the minimum staffing level from 29 firefighters citywide per shift to 26.

The city contends that the move will save nearly a half-million dollars a year in payroll expenses. Firefighters counter that lower staffing level will leave only one driver available to drive either a rescue truck or a ladder truck, depending upon which is needed.

But Vista Superior Court Judge Ronald Johnson said his courtroom wasn’t the place to decide the issue--at least not yet--and ordered the Oceanside Firefighters Assn. to first take the matter up with a state arbitrator.

Thursday’s hearing is the latest episode in the increasingly bitter relations between city fathers in Oceanside, San Diego County’s third largest city, and their firefighters, who claim the department is dangerously understaffed to handle fire and medical emergencies.

The estrangement has been marked by charges and counter-charges with heavy political overtones. City officials have claimed that the firefighters want at least 29 firefighters on duty at all times because it would lead to hundreds of thousands of dollars in overtime pay for them. Firefighters say they’re not looking for more overtime pay but simply more firefighters so stations can be adequately staffed.

City officials say the Fire Department has to take the budget cuts on the chin like other departments in the city; firefighters respond that, given the city’s growth and the department’s inability to keep pace with new fire stations, the department already has sustained a one-two punch.

The conflict has intensified in recent days as city voters prepare to go to the polls Tuesday to decided whether Councilwoman Melba Bishop will be recalled. The firefighters association, angry that the Bishop-led council majority has ordered the budget cutbacks, is working to remove her from office.

In recent days, the association has sent out flyers to targeted neighborhoods in the city, notifying residents that they live in “dead zones” that are, they claim, under-protected against fire and medical emergencies.

The flyers show the areas that can be covered by the city’s five fire stations in a five-minute response time. Areas outside those neighborhoods, including large tract developments and mobile home parks, are in the “dead zone” where response time can be nine to 15 minutes, they claim.

The Oceanside Firefighters Assn. is also mad that the city has reverted to a traditional emergency medical response program in which two paramedics each are assigned to a fire department ambulance. In the most severe medical emergency, according to association president Wayne Mounts, two additional firefighters from another engine must accompany both paramedics to a hospital--one to drive the unit and another to assist paramedics, leaving their firetruck essentially out of commission with just its driver.

Fire Chief Jim Rankin said he is concerned by the reduction in minimum staffing. “But my position is, the City Council has the right, the constitutional right as well as according to the California Government Code, to determine what kinds of services to provide the city, and what level to provide those services.”

Rankin said his overriding concern is that the city is in need of three new fire stations to cover areas of recent growth in the city

At 29 firefighters on duty citywide at all hours, each fire station has an engine company with a crew of three and a two-paramedic ambulance unit, as well as four firefighters at one of the stations to respond in either a rescue truck, a ladder truck or both.

Previously, if firefighters were sick, injured or on vacation, the city would pay overtime for replacements to keep the level of 29. Last year, according to Assistant City Manager Dana Whitson, the city spent about $650,000 in overtime firefighting salaries.

Under the new plan, the city will only bring in off-duty personnel at overtime expense in order to maintain at least 26 firefighters on duty. The move should cost the city only about $194,000 in overtime costs, the city figures.

The shortage of up to three firefighters will be at the expense of the rescue vehicle and ladder truck. Officials say that, with 26 firefighters, there’s one who can drive either the rescue unit or ladder truck to the scene of an emergency and, once it’s there, firefighters from other companies can be assigned to it as needed.

Mounts points out that, when a furniture store recently burned virtually to the ground, the station nearest to it responded with five units: the battalion chief, the two-man paramedic ambulance, a fire engine with two firefighters, a ladder truck driven by the third fire engine crew member and the rescue truck with its sole driver. “We had seven firemen out there in five pieces of equipment,” Mounts said.

Whitson said that she sympathizes with the firefighters’ concern, but that their plight is unavoidable.

“When the city discovered last year that our budget was going to have to be $9 million lower than the previous year, cuts had to be made throughout the city.”

Whitson added, “The Fire Department was reduced less than virtually all other city departments.”

Mounts said he figured seeking arbitration would be futile. So instead, the association went to court to seek an order to compel the council to reverse its decision.

The judge said Thursday that he would not do that because the association still hadn’t exhausted its administrative remedy--arbitration.