Santa Ana Fire Department Reduced to Fliering to Save Itself

By Gustavo Arellano Tue., Jan. 10 2012 at 1:30 PM

Pity the SanTana Fire Department, an agency with a 128-year-old history of serving the needs of the county seat. Times are tough around in all municipalities, but especially in SanTana, where the city faces an eight-figure hole due to an inept city council and the bureaucrats it's hired over the decades.

One of those bureaucrats is interim city manager Paul Walters, who's also SanTana's long-serving police chief. The fire and police department understandably take up a big chunk of the city's annual budget--so which one do you think Walters is thinking should be dissolved and outsourced?

Because of that, the Fire Department is fighting for its life, fighting against the city outsourcing them to the Orange County Fire Authority--but they obviously have yet to hear of the 21st century. Nothing else can explain their campaign to raise public support for itself: leaving fliers around town, as seen above. No Facebook page, no Tumblr, no Twitter--not even a pinche website. Even the flier listed above has no phone number, no email for those possibly interested in saving the department to contact and sign up for the cause. All that it says is to attend the next SanTana city council meeting Jan. 17. Um, okay...

Meanwhile, the SanTana police department has a well-oiled publicity machine and their man with the power to swing the axe onto the chopping block. Bye-bye, SanTana fire :-(...

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Chiona

Paul Walters and the PD will be the last standing Eagle Scouts surrounded by a whole new group of FF Boyscouts. At least the SA FF's semi cared for its semi citizens. The Boyscouts only care about surround and drown, and Girlscouts.

Steve

The real, hidden cost of public safety is their PERS benefit. What are they? 3% @ 50? Those contributions are never late.

Paul

A 50-page proposal by the OCFA states that if Santa Ana were to agree to contract out its fire services, the debt-ridden city would save more than $10 million in its first year of implementation. New reports state that the savings could be as high as $14 million. Sorry Santa Ana Firefighters ... its just business!!

gustavoarellano

Yeah, like anyone takes seriously OCFA's "report"...it's as self-serving as Walters.

909Jeff

This reminds me of a few years back when the state seized control of LAUSD because the LA school board couldn't manage their way out of a wet paper bag... Perhaps the state can seize control of the fire dept and put them under the control of Cal-Fire and when the SanTana City Council removes their cabezas from their culo's and the fire dept realizes that no one is immune to budget cuts then maybe city can have their toys back.

mitch young

"where the city faces an eight-figure hole due to an inept city council and the bureaucrats it's hired over the decades."

Or maybe due to the fact it is for all intents and purposes Mexico.

gustavoarellano

What about Detroit, racist pendejo?

909Jeff

Were you tolling for a racist comment when you threw Detroit out there?

mitch young

I think Jeff got it in one.

gustavoarellano

...which is bullshit, since there's enough Mexicans up there (and have been since the heyday of that Nazi Ford) to constitute a Mexicantown. Meanwhile, can't explain that one away...

mitch young

Picking on Detroit is like shooting fish in a barrel. Imagine a place so crappy even the Mexodus refuses to settle there.

909Jeff

All i'm saying is you lobbed a softball up there for a guy whose name rhymes with "itch"

909Jeff

As of the 2010 Census, there were 713,777 people,. The census reported that the city had 82.7% Black...

gustavoarellano

How so? Detroit has next-to-no Mexicans, and was the capital of American industrial might.

DanTheMan5156

The city "might" save some money but I guarantee the service will definitely not even be close to as good.

Bullnose10

Your incorrect Dan. The service will be better. Medics will be on scene sooner and OCFA will save at least 15 fireman's jobs.

keepdapeace

Considering they would hire over the SA FFs and turn over all the equipment to OCFA along with the stations, what makes you think service would suffer?

junior

What would you suggest as alternative options to filling that 8 figure deficit hole?

keepdapeace

That's because they don't really care who their boss is. Regardless of whether OCFA takes over, the firefighters will continue to have jobs with the same pay and benefits. So, why fight when it doesn't matter?

DanTheMan5156

It would be un-American to not fight for what some people believe is right....

Where is SanTana? Whoever wrote this article has exposed themselves as a uniformed non local journalist. The author can't even get the name of the city they are writing about. It is SANTA ANA. Really????

gustavoarellano

SanTana is in SanTana—you can look it up!