Special Tax Districts May Help Pay for Fire Services

The Los Angeles City Fire Department is exploring a plan to set up special tax districts to pay for more paramedics and upgraded services in the city’s remote canyon and hillside regions where it is now unable to provide its fastest emergency medical help.

“There are parts of the city that cannot be adequately covered by paramedics,” city Fire Commission Vice President David Fleming told a San Fernando Valley business group Thursday.

“We can’t get to you in time,” Fleming said, describing the Fire Department’s inability, for example, to reach heart attack victims in places such as the West Valley, Sunland-Tujunga and the Pacific Palisades, within four minutes of receiving an emergency call.

But because many of the affected areas are middle class or affluent, the Fire Department is considering a plan, once deemed politically unpalatable, to offer residents the opportunity to vote to set up benefit assessment districts to pay for faster services, Fleming said.

Fire Chief Donald Manning could not be reached for comment Thursday on Fleming’s remarks. But Battalion Chief Roger Gillis, the department’s spokesman, acknowledged that city paramedics cannot respond as quickly in some areas of the city. “Our response times are longer in the canyons and hillsides,” Gillis said.

Still, Gillis insisted the times meet state Department of Health Services criteria. The Los Angeles County Fire Department has used benefit assessment districts to improve its services, he added. Such districts could only be created by a vote of affected residents.

Fleming disclosed the department’s review of how it serves hard-to-reach remote regions in remarks he made at a conference of the Valley Industry and Commerce Assn. He told the business leaders the situation was a “major problem.”

Later, Fleming said Manning had brought the issue to the Fire Commission’s attention at a recent board meeting. “I told Don we should visit this issue and see if we shouldn’t take it to the council,” Fleming said. “I think the commission will recommend that we do this. We don’t want L.A. to become like Mexico City where you can get into trouble and you can’t help.”

Fleming said he had learned that the department had quietly considered and finally shelved a similar proposal several years ago because it was seen as a potential political hot potato. “It was taken off the table because it was seen as too sensitive,” Fleming said.

Critics have said providing special services to the city’s wealthier areas could be viewed as discriminatory. “But that argument is not true,” Fleming said. “We want to give equal service to all parts of the city. People would have the right to decide if they want to pay for it.”

Money raised from assessment districts would be used to buy more ambulances, hire more paramedics and to build or lease new paramedic stations, the fire commissioner said.

Because of the recession, the department cannot correct this service gap with its existing resources, Fleming said.

“It really bothered me that we’ve got a paramedic system that can’t get to you right away,” Fleming said. “If you’re having a heart attack and you aren’t being treated in six minutes, you can just about forget it.”