By Samuel Strait, Reporter at Large – May 7, 2021 It is important to understand that as time goes on and circumstances change, your local fire district is operating under those same kinds of changes. It is the District's position that the changes to be made to its current operating structure include a hybrid volunteer fire and emergency team to respond to service calls in an expedited fashion. In order to accomplish this desire, increased funding that would enable the District to cover its current operations, budget inflation and the new paid positions is necessary. Hence a targeted benefit assessment from several other funding choices available has been proposed which would encumber approximately 5,000 parcel owners within the District's boundaries and generate an estimated $421,000 per year over the first ten year cycle. The benefit, after the initial ten year period could be increased by the Crescent Fire Protection District Board by a maximum of 2% per year without further voting by the parcel owners. While what is being termed as a sleeper response team, it represents the most significant change in the ten year plan. The plan continues in an effort by CFPD to be proactive and plan for future cost increases and needs. This initial benefit of $98 total is intended to address future training needs, major equipment replacement costs, the new captains hire, inflation, and many other identified requirements for the District to maintain its current levels of service and even exceed it. The CCTimes has carefully examined the Master Plan and offered numerous questions regarding budget deficits, types of service calls, feasibility of 24 hour on site service capability with volunteers, the issue of paid employee creep which afflicts many tax funded organizations, slush funds and their accountability, percent of actual fire related calls compared to other calls. the effect of Measures S and R to the District's financial health (A big ZERO at this point) and many other citizen related questions. The Master Plan is not an end all be all road map to the District's future. There have been a number of alternate visions by those interviewed outside the fire fighter community that could be explored and as the current deficit spending seems to have been temporarily arrested, it would have been beneficial to have explored a few of those alternatives before resorting to the parcel tax. The CFPD serves about 13,000 individuals and has a reciprocal agreement with the City's Fire Department which include another fire station and 5,000 additional individuals. While service outside the boundaries of the District are rare, about 30 incidents per year (per Chief Gillespie), it does happen. According to Fire Protection data Fire calls no longer dominate the service calls in most Fire prevention systems as emergency response to medical issues has leaped to the fore. The CFPD is no exception as over 60% of all service calls are related to medical responses. Fire calls have dwindled to near 10%. The Master Plan is certainly aware of this change, but does not appear to have identified this change in the way and manner that the District responds to those service calls in the Master Plan. This over site in the plan has elicited numerous questions and complaints as to how this has happened. While much of the remainder of the Master Plan is a repeat of what has gone on before, it is refreshing to note that the District does seem to be aware of other means to attract funding and renegotiated agreements with the City have brought the budget in line for a possible balanced state for this cycle. This does not seem to be a regular practice in many government departments who often quickly resort to the taxing process as a first step before cutting unnecessary expense. The CCTimes would like the current CFPD to continue with an aggressive approach particularly towards possible grant funding in the future. With the current change in direction of the District's finances, it might have been prudent for the District to call upon its residents to pressure the County for money from Measure R prior to accepting the risk of another failure at the ballot box to the tune of another drain of $100,000 or so from the District's coffers. On to the grand finale, Part three where the parcel owners get their say. Stay tuned.