CARLSBAD
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The Carlsbad Fire Department will use an outside evaluator to tell the City Council how firefighters are doing their jobs and how they might do them better.
Fire Chief Kevin Crawford has been seeking a study on the department's operations and facilities for two years, and he told the council during a workshop yesterday that the report would help with long-term planning.
He called it “a report card on your fire delivery system . . . an examination of the fire department from stem to stern.”
The Fire Department became a political flash point in 2006, when the firefighters union sought a meeting with Mayor Bud Lewis to discuss what they perceived as department shortcomings.
Lewis, who was running for re-election at the time, invited reporters to the meeting, saying the union was politicizing the department.
Relations between rank-and-file firefighters and council members turned sour, and the union backed Lewis' rival, William D. Griffith, in the 2006 election. It did not support incumbent council members Matt Hall and Mark Packard.
Union members have complained that the department is understaffed, some fire stations are old and cramped, and future stations will not meet future needs.
Like the firefighters, the chief has wanted a study to evaluate the department's facilities and performance. Oceanside, Vista and the Fallbrook-based North County Fire Protection District have conducted similar examinations, Crawford said.
“The call volume is rising significantly . . . with each passing year,” Crawford told the council yesterday. Staffing increases have not kept pace.
“Post-9/11, your fire department is completely different. We're in the all-risk business,” he said. “What's required of the fire department just by expectations of the community and legislative requirements” has expanded, he said.
Council members expressed skepticism about such a study's definitions and aims, although they agreed that a request for bid proposals should be drafted.
“You can make a study go any way you want,” Lewis said. “It's all based on economics.”
Hall said the biggest threat comes from outside the city in the form of brush fires, and he said he doubted that Carlsbad is being reimbursed for the full cost of responding to fires in the backcountry.
Packard questioned applying “industry standards” used in most studies to the city's situation, saying such standards are relative.
“If you ask a cow how much beef people should eat, you get a much different answer than if you ask a chicken,” Packard said.
Crawford said the study could address nearly all the council's concerns and serve as a long-range planning tool.
Councilwoman Ann Kulchin said the time had come to do it.
“There's a lot the fire department does we don't know about,” she said. “Their responsibilities have increased. . . . I want an objective report from people who are paid to do it.”
The firefighters association has backed Kulchin for re-election this November.
Carlsbad Firefighters Association President Rick Fisher said yesterday he was pleased that the study will be conducted.
“As disappointed as I am in how long it took,” Fisher said, “I'm glad it's finally going to move forward.”
Michael Burge: (760) 476-8230; michael.burge@uniontrib.com
