Future regional fire department in the Tri city area?

Saturday, April 18, 2009

Future regional fire department in the Tri city area?

Tri-City area Fire Department one day?

Some interesting information in a Newark staff report for next week’s council meeting.

Newark has given up on combining fire departments with Union City. Too expensive and unpopular with the unions, according to the report.

But it still can’t afford to keep its own department of very well-paid firefighters without some help so it has turned to other options including Fremont. Here’s where it gets interesting:

In accordance with this direction, Citygate (the consultant) focused their efforts in Phase II by contacting the City of Fremont to determine their level of interest in participating in regional fire protection and refining the information provided by ALCO. Fremont staff indicated that they were interested in discussing scenarios that may be in the best interest of all involved parties. As a result, discussions occurred between the City Managers of Newark, Union City and Fremont, as well as a series of facilitated meetings and discussions among the Fire Chiefs from Newark, Union City, Alameda County, and Fremont.

The Phase II analysis and the operational discussions focused on the possibility of a fire service model for the City of Newark that shows the potential to reduce current fire service costs while providing Newark with the means to meet SOC level staffing. This model involves a contract for fire protection with the Alameda County Fire Department with a “fee for service” contract with the City of Fremont for the use of a fire company (e.g., truck, engine, and/or Battalion Chief).

Reading the entire staff report, it looks like Newark is going to try to contract with the County Fire Department and Fremont, not form a regional fire department like they have in San Mateo County. But it’s interesting that that all three cities have been talking about fire. Fremont and Union City still have bad blood from their fire department divorce several years back. Newark City Manager John Becker would have to do his best Anwar Sadat impersonation to ever get those two cities back in bed together.

Source: Tri-City Beat - Link

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Saturday, April 18, 2009