Pomona : Fire Dept. Transfer Protest

About 150 residents marched on City Hall on Monday in opposition to the transfer of the Pomona Fire Department to the county to save money.

“Our No. 1 priority is Pomona,” said Bob Jackson, a sixth-grade teacher at Pomona’s Simons Middle School and a member of the Support Committee to Keep the Pomona Fire Department, the group behind the protest.

“Several areas around here are already serviced by the county, and the county took more than half of their equipment out to fight the fires in the (Altadena) hills,” Jackson said. “If we had been county, half of our engines would have been gone, and we would not have been able to put out a fire here.”

The group’s protests--and more than 2,000 signatures it has gathered--have reached the City Council, which is re-evaluating its negotiations with the county over control of the Fire Department, said Councilman Willie White of the 6th District.

“We haven’t even negotiated a contract yet,” he said. “We still have to negotiate a number of fine points and then send the issue back to the council for a vote. We know a majority of the citizens are opposed to going to county.”