To rectify County Fire budget, supervisors eye parcel tax - FP-5

[KW]

Thanks for that update. So seniors or others without the internet and transportation won't have the patience to do what you're doing - they won't be able to easily protest this tax. With all the prep they put into meetings, you would think they would have someone to respond to questions; plus the promise of the protest form to be included with the mailing and it wasn't, and so many answers that are missing, this should just go away. This is not being handled efficiently, which underscores my original thought that our tax dollars (wherever they are spent!) are also not being handled efficiently.

[Wrightwood]

[tcaarabians]

Update on calling 211 and obtaining a protest form. I spoke with a Fire Capt. who was very nice. These are his responses.

- They will not be mailing out protest forms. You either have to get the form off the website or go to a library to obtain the form. I told him that I wasn't going to protest the expansion but I was now and that this was a pr mistake on their part. He continued being nice.

-The % rule will be applied to the total value of the property, land & improvements. He really didn't have an answer when I pointed out that the language of the motion only said "land." He said that's how the assessor defines it. I pointed out that the assessment is for both "land" and "improvements" that equal the 'total." But, my point was going nowhere.

-You can contact them at www.sbfire.org - go to the SP5 expansion link.. there's a place there to send a message. Capt. Kyle will be 'personing" the response there today and tomorrow. Hank - I was asking about trust questions and since I didn't know your specifics I just

-On the issue of vacant lots. In the instance of a vacant lot in WW it is SBFire that will likely respond initially. If CalFire is closer - they will respond. That makes total sense to me. He did go into a larger explanation regarding protecting watershed/timber etc and the various agencies involved CalFire, U.S. Forest Service, BLM, etc.

-On my concern about the vacant lot next to me. He gave me the number for the SB Fire Marshall's office.

-I did tell him that 211 had no idea about the protest forms. He was going to correct that. How he will do that eludes me as they're not mailing out the forms. They could have just said 'go to the library' instead of putting people through hoops.

-Interesting factoid:  there are 813,482 parcels in SB County. The value is $211 billion.  I read that while I was sitting on hold. Cheryl o7o

[lwt42]

[thehallmarks]

 tcaarabians said:  Hank - I was asking about trust questions and since I didn't know your specifics I just

I would be interested in what you were planning to say about the questions you did ask

Hank

[Wrightwood]

[tcaarabians]

Clarification lwt42:  the total number of parcels is 800k+ . I believe the number of parcels in the expansion is a lot less. The total includes incorporated cities that have their own fire depts.

Hank:  Not sure if I understand your question. I told the Capt. that someone had a question about how trusts fill out the protest form. He started going into a lengthy explanation. I didn't know enough about your specific situation to ask an informed question for you. He will be at the email link tomorrow and will answer questions directly via email. I did tell him you tried that and just got a referral to the website. I did expand with him on my concerns about how the vote was being conducted. I'm positive I was polite. He is just enforcing what he was told to do. Oddly, they all say that. He was just so nice about it all... it took all the fun out of it.

I guess that the Fire Protection District with the County Board of Supervisors wearing that hat.. can qualify as 'one local government annexing territory' .. even though the territory is one and the same under the larger umbrella... and the property owners are already paying taxes to the 'Big Hat' and receiving service from the "Little Hat." As far as I'm concerned.. whoever dreamed up this process is 'all hat and no horse."
cheryl o7o

[lwt42]

Clarification lwt42:  the total number of parcels is 800k+ . I believe the number of parcels in the expansion is a lot less. The total includes incorporated cities that have their own fire depts.

That's part of why I rounded down.  If we assume that half of the parcels are in incorporated cities with their own fire function, we still have 400k parcels, and that gives a feel for the magnitude of the problem.

The necessary number of protests to trigger a vote is probably somewhere between 50,000 and 200,000.  It's not an exact number by any means, but it does give one a feel for the number of protests that it'd take to get this on the ballot.

[tcaarabians]

On the issue of the # of votes to trigger a majority vote election:  I get around 167k parcels are affected. It's the value of the parcels that determine the 25 percent.  Trying to estimate that is near on impossible. The Assessor's office likely already has that figure.  There is no noticeable campaign against this. There are social media sites and Letters To the Editor. The letter itself is about as nondescript as you can get. And, obtaining the information for a protest vote requires Internet access. This puppy is going to pass.  Cheryl o7o

[thehallmarks]

[tcaarabians]

Hank.. thanks for posting the link to the Sentinel piece. I found it very informative on the evolution of the creation of the current FP-5 and the proposed expansion.

I took away a couple of points. The Chief stated that property taxes are the major portion of the fire budget. My read of the budget is that was not an accurate statement. He also expanded that some areas do not have sufficient property taxes to offset the cost of services. He mentioned the stations in WW & Phelan among others. I'm not sure I agree with that cost/benefit analysis. The service areas seem to be designed based on what makes sense geographically. To me at least, extending that geographic analyses to budget revenues shouldn't be a determining factor. 

An initiative was also mentioned. It is not on the Nov. ballot. Reading a fuller rendition of the various Supervisor's comments was informative.  Cheryl o7o

[Wrightwood]

Just received a yearly Ambulance Subscription renewal form. It says to make checks payable to Wrightwood Fire District.
I didn't think Wrightwood Fire District still exists? 

[Jim Wilkins]

Semantics at this point....There is the Lucerne Ambulance....Lake Arrowhead....Yucca Valley ....I believe just identifies where the ambulance you use is located.  We've had it for years.  There is now also similar "insurance" for air ambulance transport that limits the amount that can be billed. 

[tcaarabians]

I was digging around in county budgets yesterday and do recall an annotation regarding Wrightwood being transferred into North Desert.  Maybe fiscal 2010-11?? I didn't make a note of it. It may be a rose by any other name. Or, it's a way to properly allocate subscriptions - which are counted as revenue - to the North Desert budget.   Cheryl o7o

[Jim Wilkins]

Wrightwood was in the North Desert Div from late 90's....maybe early nineties.  A way to break up the Department into logical geographic divisions.  I transferred back up from the Central Valley Division (called something else now) in early 90's and my BC's and DC was running the North Desert Division who I reported to.  I had five different names for the department since I joined in 1972 and as many patches and uniform color changes.

[tcaarabians]

There is reference to the formation of the various Service Districts (North Desert, etc.) as having been formed in 2008. That was with LAFCO. Whether it was just a reformation of what had been before - I do not know. I'm still looking at that. I'm doing this for my own edification. If I come up with something interesting, I'll share it.

There are some interesting stats in our Sample Ballot for the Nov. election. They're on page 62 for Prop 11. That measure addresses private ambulance companies and on-call EMTs, Paramedics. In the LAO's analysis are these stats:
-private companies operate most ambulances in CA (75%-25% f.d.);
-two-thirds of trips are for patients with Medicare or Medi-Cal;
-twenty percent are for patients with private insurance;
-the rest (14%) are patients with no insurance;
-average ambulance trip is $750 (we are a good bit higher here);
-Medicare and Medi-Cal pay a fixed amount (about $450/$150 respectively). Private companies lose money on those pts. We can likely assume that fire departments do too.;
-Average commercial insurer pays $1800.

What these numbers tell me is that there isn't a lot of room to increase revenues from ambulance services.  And, there may not be the ability to even break even. That's ok to me. It's not a for-profit service. I did find some language that seems to be in conflict. One stated that the county could charge more for out-of-county patients. Other language stated that they can only bill the cost of providing the service. I don't know which would govern those fees.

So far, I have not found anything about serving Mountain High. I do know that at some horse shows - it is required to have an ambulance present. The show pays for that. Whether M.H. does something similar - I do not  know. And, I do not know if we have any sort of agreement with LA County for the service provided by SB Fire.

(Sidenote to Jim:  I really enjoyed your pieces in NewsPlus about how it used to be in WW before the Station was built.)   cheryl o7o

[Jim Wilkins]

We respond (and have since 1972 that I know) to the Ski areas and Camps in LA County because it's a 45 minute response time on a perfect day for LA County Fire and private ambulance providers.  There was a time when we responded to the tunnels on Highway 2....Valeryermo....as well as to the top of cajon pass....blue cut down by devore...Lake Silverwood and Baldy Mesa as part of our first due area.  There may be some exchange of tax money for the LA County WW houses but not sure.  Mountain High is not required to have ambulances standby like a concert.  On busy weekends we might have sent one up there to standby for the inevitable multiple medical responses and transports.  If we were running multiple calls, LA County 79's would come up and run calls with us.  We provide initial attack for all fires/rescues on the LA side of WW and LACOFD will respond if needed or to follow up.  Much of what we do is covered by mutual aid, I would think.  The mountain and snow players has provided us with substantial income over the years which has helped fund the service.  We finally have a fully staffed Paramedic Ambulance with a fully staffed Paramedic engine.  Beats the years I would sit in the station and respond alone while the rest of our 3 man crew was down
at the hospital.

[TomM]

[Wrightwood]

Your protest forms must be mailed soon to be received by Oct 15th

Here's a link to the protest form:
http://bit.ly/FP5ProtestForm

[Nolena]

Send in your protest forms if you want to be able vote on this issue. It costs you nothing but a stamp.
To find your parcel number, put your street address in this form:

https://assr.parcelquest.com/Home