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09/08/2006: "FH Council Fails To Act On Savings Proposal"

(George Johnson & Steven Kennedy (Gary Gibbons not shown) present their report to the Town Council)

At the Friday Harbor Town Council meeting on Tuesday night, there was no shortage of testimony as to why combining town and county fire departments was, at some level, a good idea. What was not as well articulated from the Council were reasons for not combining them.

Long time observers of the Town Council would not have been surprised by the lack of action on this subject, for as Councilman Rosenfeld pointed out, the idea of combining the departments "has been on the table for ten years". What was new, were some of the arguments put forth by firefighters, and fire commissioner Bob Jarman, who stressed the importance of not only maximizing administrative efficiencies, but also of the need to take into consideration the safety of the firefighters, who, they told the Council, would be best served by having one training regime that would train all firefighters in the same way; and include all of the equipment on San Juan Island, not just the equipment of each independent fire station.

Additional testimony touched on some of the potential benefits to the community as a whole, such as lower insurance rates, faster response times, more efficiency in administration, and the use of town and county equipment under one administration and training program.

The Council listen politely to the presenters, asked a few questions, but in whole seemed unimpressed by the testimony as providing sufficient argument to adopt, what a 26 page report called, a "potential to save money for both the Town and SJCFD3, while providing fire protection as good as (or better than) the current standards".

The report was from an Advisory Panel the Mayor, and a majority of the Council, had authorized to explore the "Financial Implications of Combining Town and Fire District #3", and one of the conclusions was that a combined administration of the two departments had the potential to save the Town $75,000.00 a year.

An amount some on the Council felt was not a significant amount. Councilmember Liz Illg said that "$70,000.00 is not a big deal", and by way of example stated that "I am sure we could find a way to spend that much tonight!".

Councilmember Debbie Emery responded that "$75 thousand is 30% of the budget"; and then added that "I wish we could study it more with additional information".

No one seemed inclined to add anything, so the Mayor said "The departments are operating independent and seem to be happy." And with that, the meeting came to an end.