Long-discussed fire merger talks coming to a head


SAN DIEGO - After two years of intense study, much backstage worry, and a modest amount of public input, leaders of a state agency are finally poised to vote May 7 on whether to merge up to 20 rural San Diego County fire agencies, in what could eventually be a two-phased process.

San Diego County is the largest urban county in California without its own fire department, relying instead on a collection of more than 60 unevenly funded agencies.

Proponents of combining the agencies into one fire department have said for years that such a merger would improve fire and paramedic service, especially in such large emergencies as the widespread wildfires of 2003. They say it would unify command, training and communications, and give firefighters more financial clout to buy equipment.

However, skeptics worry about losing local control of their fire services and about who would end up paying the millions of dollars to cover the cost of a unified department.

San Pasqual volunteer department Chief Gilbert Turrentine, who remains dead-set against a merger even though his agency would be part of it, summed up much of the small - and volunteer - agency angst back when merger talks heated up in 2004.

Turrentine said then that backcountry chiefs had worked hard to create their agencies, "And we don't want someone at 1600 Pacific Highway (the county administration center) telling us what to do."

Even as the Local Area Formation Commission board - the agency that must bless all local government reorganizations - gets ready to meet May 7, there are questions.

It's not clear exactly what a merger would look like. The commission's staff is not expected to publish its recommendation until the middle of this week. The possibilities range from an agency with paid firefighters to one with a mix of paid and volunteer crews.

Nor is it clear who would pay for the merger - which has always been the biggest single hurdle to merger talks.

The commission's estimates suggest that unifying the agencies would cost $17 million to $48 million more per year than the $23 million the agencies now spend annually. Officials say the increased cost is necessary because the merger would improve now-inadequate or nonexistent fire and paramedic service. A possible funding plan authored by county Supervisor Dianne Jacob and sponsored by Sen. Dennis Hollingsworth, R-Murrieta, won't be debated by state legislators until 2008.

Some of the rural agencies that would be merged say that they don't want to be part of the plan.

And, finally, no one is sure if voters in the affected areas will have to give their OK for the merger to take place - although more than 80 percent of unincorporated voters said they liked the idea of merging rural agencies in a November 2003 advisory vote.

Despite the questions, the mere fact that the commission and San Diego County's fire community are ready to vote on a potential merger marks the most progress the oft-discussed issue.

The fire community doesn't have any role in the vote on whether to merge, other than to lobby the commission's board members. Discussions about merging fire agencies, meanwhile, have been held almost since the county "abandoned" fire service in the 1970s, but were rekindled in the aftermath of the 2003 firestorms that burned out of control in San Diego County's backcountry into urban areas.


