Firefighters, Police Protest Proposed Merger : Oxnard: At an emotional City Council hearing, they contend that any consolidation would not save money.

Dozens of firefighters and police officers warned the Oxnard City Council on Tuesday that lives will be put in jeopardy if the city approves any form of consolidation of the police and fire departments.

In a meeting that continued late into the night, firefighters denounced a proposal by the city staff to merge the police and fire administrations and require firefighters to take some crime reports.

“We urge you not to consolidate the police and fire departments,” Oxnard Fire Capt. Michael O’Malia said. “Your firefighters are against it. Your police officers are against it. Many of your citizens are against it, and we have shown that it will not save money.”

The often-emotional and raucous hearing, which attracted an overflow crowd of 300 to the council chambers, climaxed a three-month campaign by firefighters against the proposed money-saving consolidation.

Some Oxnard police officers also went on record in opposition to the proposed merger.

Oxnard Peace Officers Assn. President Bill Lewis said “an overwhelming majority” of the department’s force oppose consolidation of management.

“We did it once and it didn’t work,” Lewis said, referring to a previous decision by Oxnard to unite the departments in the mid-1980s. “Crime being the No. 1 concern, we need a full-time police chief.”

Because of a door-to-door lobbying effort by firefighters that resulted in thousands of letters and phone calls to City Hall, the city had already backed away from an initial proposal to completely merge the two agencies. As originally planned, 80 of the city’s police officers and 50 firefighters would have been cross-trained by the year 2000.

Most fire stations would have been staffed with a single officer who would drive equipment to a fire or emergency scene and be met by other officers in patrol cars.

Under the scaled-down proposal, the departments would share a common administrative staff, while department personnel would receive cross-training in only limited areas, such as crime or fire prevention.

City officials estimated that Oxnard could save $185,000 a year by merging the administration of both departments in a new Department of Public Safety. Such a move would also allow more efficient operations in recruiting, personnel processing, business office and clerical support, Oxnard Police Cmdr. Tom Cady said.

Additional savings of nearly $500,000 could be achieved if firefighters are trained to take crime reports, investigate crime scenes and practice crime prevention, according to the staff report.

Other proposals called for firefighters to train in code enforcement inspections, while code enforcement officers would be trained to look for fire hazards.

Another proposes that the city study formation of an emergency medical dispatching program that would set priorities for the most serious calls for emergency medical care received by the city.

Originally proposed in June as part of a plan to reduce the number of city departments, a Department of Public Safety was strongly opposed by the Oxnard Firefighters Assn.

The council postponed a hearing on the merger last month after several city officials accused firefighters of lobbying against the proposal on city time. Association leaders denied the allegation.