Pinole Fire Study Part One

Pinole Fire Study Draft Report

Part One.

The link to the draft report presented last night at the City Council Meeting is below.

The report was highly anticipated, as it will serve as a guideline for the City and its citizens to address the future of fire services in Pinole. This report was undertaken not only to evaluate our current services but to gauge the future needs for Fire Services in our city.

Pinole's Fire and Police Services "Public Safety" have recently been characterized as understaffed.

Pinole Police Chief Neil Gang recently presented an update and the report stated that there has been a 12% increase in crime in a 12-month period.

The Fire Study report concludes that Fire Services for the City of Pinole is also understaffed.

We learned that our fire department is responsible for covering areas outside the city limits. The "Sphere of Influence" area includes sections of Tara Hills and Alhambra Valley. We also discovered that there had been an agreement between the City and other entities to pay the City for these services. We were told that an agreement had been in place until 2016. While that agreement was in place, the City was being reimbursed approx. $500,000 per year for that service. No explanation was given by the City as to why the city was still covering these areas yet not being reimbursed.

This is a major question, why and how did this happen?

If we are asking our citizens to tax themselves then as citizens we should ask why this agreement has been ignored.

In effect our Fire Department is not responsible for the 19,000 folks who reside in Pinole but for approx. 24,000 people.

This question must be asked and answered since this took place in 2016 under the old City Council and the current City Manager.

There were many interesting and varying points of view stated by both the public and the council.

Clearly, the City's finances and revenue streams have impacted the services they are able to offer its citizens.

Therefore, it is now time for the public to make the decision.

This is not the decision of our elected officials, because it is their duty and responsibility to protect its citizens. And they must abide by our wishes.

The two sales tax measures previously passed by Pinole voters to help sustain our Public Safety Services are not directed only to Public Safety, some of those funds go into the General Fund for other Budget Items.

Those Measure S funds alone will not provide the staffing resources needed to improve Public Safety Staffing or the re-opening of Station 74.

There is a high demand in many cities in California for Fire Fighters. That makes our staffing trained and qualified fire fighters that much more difficult.

Now the question becomes, what are Pinole residents willing to pay for the services they want and need? What is palatable? What is fair? What will we get in return?

Several options were presented and discussed last night. More discussion is needed and the Council has agreed to poll the community. Community input is critical and I am happy to see the community has become engaged and involved in this process.

As soon as the video of this meeting is available it will be posted by P4FG.

This is the first in a report from P4FG to the community on this critical topic.

We will be polling our followers and the community at large, on this FB page and on our website, www.pinoleforfairgovernment.org.

Stay Tuned.

Link to Fire Study Draft Report

https://www.ci.pinole.ca.us/Us...