Firefighters to Seek Voters’ Help on Funding : Services: Ballot initiative would force the county to give the department part of an expected $26 million in sales tax revenue.

Ventura County firefighters decided Wednesday to ask voters to overturn a Board of Supervisors decision denying Proposition 172 funds to the county Fire Department.

The board of the Ventura County Professional Firefighters’ Assn. voted unanimously to begin an effort to place an initiative on the November ballot that would force supervisors to give the department a percentage of an expected $26 million in special sales tax revenue.

The percentage will be decided before firefighters begin circulating petitions to put the initiative on the ballot.

Firefighters need 18,753 voters’ signatures by June 24 to get their proposal on the ballot.

“I don’t think that we will have any problems at all getting the signatures,” said Ken Maffei, president of the union. “Most of the people we have talked to are outraged with the actions the board took.”

But Bruce Bradley, the county’s assistant registrar of voters, predicted that obtaining that many signatures will be difficult. “The firefighters certainly have a good chance of getting the signatures by June because they are all over the county,” Bradley said. “But that will not be an easy job.”

The union’s move follows the county supervisors’ decision last week to give nearly all the Proposition 172 funds to law enforcement.

Board Chairwoman Vicky Howard said she does not object to the initiative but that the firefighters could accomplish their goals through different means.

“I don’t think it is necessary for them to put an initiative on the ballot,” Howard said. “The fire district will receive funds if they submit a strategic plan and explain what their need for money is.”

A county audit last year found the Fire Department is top-heavy with managers, spends too much on overtime and is lax with sick leave.

Supervisor Maria VanderKolk did not want to comment on the firefighters’ decision, and Supervisors John K. Flynn, Maggie Kildee and Susan K. Lacey could not be reached.

The next step for the firefighters is to draft a proposed initiative, which would be submitted to the county counsel for review.

Once such a proposal is approved, the firefighters would have 180 days to circulate petitions and obtain the necessary number of signatures.

Once on the ballot, the initiative would require a majority of votes to overturn the supervisors’ decision.

“We recommend that they obtain at least 20% more signatures than they need,” Bradley said. “Only 80% of the signatures on petitions (usually) are good.”

Often, Bradley said, people who have moved out of the county sign petitions. “When we check the signatures, we discard the signatures of those people who no longer live in Ventura County.”

If the firefighters do not meet the June 24 deadline, they would have to wait until June, 1996, unless they could obtain enough signatures to force a special election, Bradley said.

A special election would be called if the firefighters manage to get 37,506 voters’ signatures, Bradley said. Such an election would cost Ventura County about $350,000.

Although still in preliminary a state, the firefighters plan to specify in the initiative the department’s need to create a paramedics program, Maffei said.

Maffei said firefighters arrive on emergency scenes before ambulance service 90% of the time. “It is unacceptable to us that our training is so minimal in providing first aid,” he said.

Maffei said the firefighters are prepared to do whatever is necessary to obtain the signatures. “If it comes to the point in which we have to set up tables in front of grocery stores and the malls, that is what we will do,” he said.