HAPPY VALLEY — One of Santa Cruz County’s smallest fire districts is set to resume administrative control for its agency at the end of next month, after nearly six years with Scotts Valley Fire Protection District at the helm.
Branciforte Fire Protection District, serving about 1,700 residents across nearly 9 square miles, is a hybrid volunteer agency, supplemented with three paid full-time fire captains and about 13 volunteers. For decades, district leaders have flirted with the idea of consolidating with neighboring fire organizations, officials say. Shortly after a Santa Cruz County Grand Jury issued a report critical of the agency’s precarious financial position, the Branciforte Fire board of directors authorized the district to hire Scotts Valley Fire to run the agency’s administrative functions — including staffing its fire chief role.
The Scotts Valley administrative contract, initially effective Oct. 1, 2015, was designed as a stop-gap solution at the time that ended up being extended over the years, officials say. This spring, Scotts Valley Fire District notified Branciforte Fire that it did not intend to renew the contract agreement, come Sept. 30, officials said during a Branciforte Fire Protection District board meeting Aug. 19.
“During the past year, our board has not been inactive. We have been researching our options since 2020,” said Board Chairman Pat O’Connell, Branciforte Fire’s most immediate past fire chief. “Our main goal was to prepare to return administrative services, administrative responsibilities, back to the Branciforte Fire Protection District. We are prepared to resume administrative services on Sept. 30. We are in a sound financial position.”
Preparing for a change
Santa Cruz County First District Supervisor Manu Koenig said constituents had reached out to him with concerns about the expiration of the Scotts Valley Fire Protection District contract with Branciforte Fire. Koenig said the issue prompted him to set aside time for a virtual town hall-style meeting focused on the issue, scheduled for 6 p.m. Wednesday.
“At the end of the day, what matters is the service level that’s provided to members of the Branciforte fire district,” Koenig said. “The most important thing is getting back to two firefighters staffed at the Branciforte fire station –that’s required by state law, and I know a goal of the Branciforte directors, as well.”
Scotts Valley Fire Chief Ron Whittle, who also serves as chief for Branciforte Fire, said discussions between the two districts about a future partnership stalled over staffing concerns from both sides. Scotts Valley Fire policies would require at least firefighters at the Branciforte fire station, located at 2711 Branciforte Drive, to maintain three firefighters on site, 24 hours a day, or to be shuttered and operated out of a Scotts Valley fire station. The Branciforte station generally has one guaranteed fire captain on staff daily, officials said. Whittle described efforts to improve the fire district’s financial outlook and efforts to remodel its fire station. The district’s financial reserves carried over from the previous year, when Scotts Valley stepped in during 2015, was around $62,000, Whittle said. The coming year’s budget, approved at the same meeting, is closer to $697,000, he said.
“I think we’ve done our due diligence to bring Branciforte from where they were to where they are now,” Whittle said.
A pending review of 13 fire service districts in the county by the Local Agency Formation Commission of Santa Cruz County recommends that the fire district come up with a detailed plan on how it plans to meet its statutory requirements with little to no administrative support, to hold community meetings on the topic of merging with Scotts Valley Fire or look at a larger merger of several fire protection districts. A draft copy of the report was provided to the Branciforte Fire board, though its recommendations proved untenable for Branciforte leaders.
Volunteer recruitment
More than 60 people attended the live-video board meeting, several eager to share stories of gratitude for the district and others raising concerns about the two districts parting ways. One speaker was Angie Lackey, who said her husband had been a firefighter with the district for the past 23 years. Lackey questioned the board on their plans to improve firefighter staffing numbers and on its reliance of neighboring fire districts in responding to 911 calls.
According to the LAFCO fire district report, Branciforte Fire had 159 calls in 2020, of which almost 40% were first responded by an outside agency.
“I would like to know what reassurance this board can give me that my husband will have the support that he can come home to me at night and that he will have the support from the volunteers, other than the recommendations you gave — which have been tried and have failed — that when he shows up on a call, he will not show up alone,” Lackey said.
O’Connell said the board had plans to make the district even better than it had been before, including increased volunteer firefighter recruitment at area high schools, community colleges and the fire academy. He also listed opportunities to seek staffing grants and consideration of reviving a duty chief and sleeper incentive programs. The board voted at the same meeting to make a job offer to a new part-time fire chief, who went unnamed, to take over when the Scotts Valley contract expired. The pending new chief, whose hiring remained conditional on ongoing negotiations and background test results, has an extensive work history with Cal Fire, O’Connell said.
“We only have a small number, just a few hires every year, is the problem. But we need to build up the numbers and anticipate that they’re going to be, some of them, hired by career departments,” O’Connell said. “Almost 30% of the city of Santa Cruz Fire Department firefighters started at the Branciforte fire. We need to embrace the concept that we will lose volunteers to career departments and celebrate their hiring and support them, and thereby it supports us.”
IF YOU GO
• What: 1st District Supervisor Manu Koenig town hall meeting.
• When: 6 p.m., Wednesday.
• Where: Online, via Zoom at bit.ly/b40fire.
• At issue: Branciforte Fire Protection District’s future.
Pending Branciforte fire district operations shakeup sparks debate - Santa Cruz Sentinel
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