San Diego's hopes of adding more fire stations may wind up blowing away in the winds of politics.
While rebuilding jobs and long-delayed projects finally are getting started, a larger construction program faces serious challenges.
A consulting report that's already six years old identified 19 major gaps in the Fire-Rescue Department's vast coverage area.
Right now, the average response-time goal of seven and a half minutes is being met on only 70 percent of the calls, instead of the targeted 90 percent.
“For us to get to that 90 percent, we're going to need to close those gaps,” says Fire-Rescue Dept. Chief Brian Fennessey. “Whether they're fire stations and some other "flex-type", adaptive response type model, whatever that is."
After years of inaction stemming from the city’s pension crisis and Great Recession, money is available in capital improvement programs to rebuild many decades-old firehouses such as Station 17 in City Heights.
And, to put up new ones in areas such as Mission Valley, where lack of funding delayed the process and kept fire fighters and their rigs in temporary double-wides.
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But since the "CityGate" consultants' report in 2010 , there's been virtually no progress on the building boom that was recommended to close the 'coverage' gaps.
Some may just need small quick-response units, and time-management assignment of crews to otherwise uncovered gaps.
Either way, city officials have been talking about a $205 million November bond issue for construction purposes.
Which would require a two-thirds majority vote, and face a slew of other propositions.
"We should be exploring all these other options and trying to reduce our response times, and do whatever's needed with the funds that we currently have available,” says Jesse Conner, board member of the rank-and-file San Diego Fire Fighters Local 145. “However, that does not address the long-term issue that we're all aware of, where the fire stations are not being built of have not been built."
The City Council was scheduled to vote Tuesday afternoon on sending the bond measure to the city attorney to prepare for the ballot.
But David Alvarez was taken ill, winding up in urgent care, and his fellow Democrats weren't sure the resolution would pass without his presence.
So the measure is expected to return to Council on July 11th -- still a political question mark.
