“It’s a state fire engine,” Cal Fire Battalion Chief John Ferreira said. “It’s a several-hundred-thousand-dollar engine and needs to be housed appropriately indoors.”
The engine is now kept in a temporary shelter without doors, storage areas or a concrete floor, Ferreira said.
A garage would cost about $80,000 to build, Ferreira said. It would allow the engine to be secured in a space where operators could store equipment and crawl under the engine to maintain it.
However, some members of the Bonny Doon community are opposed to Cal Fire setting up a permanent garage at the station.
“From our perspective, we find the whole thing pretty bizarre, because they will be there on a temporary basis,” said Rob Caldeira, a Bonny Doon Volunteer Fire and Rescue board member.
Bonny Doon Fire will present a case against the Santa Cruz County Local Agency Formation Commission on Sept. 27 regarding the commission’s denial of an application last year to create an independent fire district in Bonny Doon.
The case will be heard in front of the Santa Cruz County Superior Court.
Caldeira said the volunteers are worried about how Cal Fire will be funded in Bonny Doon in the future because of budget cuts at the state level.
Ferreira said Cal Fire does not plan to stay permanently at the station near the corner of Felton Empire and Empire Grade roads, but moving is expensive, and financial challenges have slowed the process.
Cal Fire established the Fall Creek station in 2009 and keeps crews at the station year-round.
Ferreira said Cal Fire is looking into several sites farther north along Empire Grade Road for a permanent station.
It is no secret that this is really a gymnasium.
Shame on you Cal Fire
http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/localnews/ci_15798764
Go get 'em!
"You have free fire protection right now"
Please explain your statement about, "free fire protection".
There is no free lunch, and no free fire protection. The goal is effective and cost efficient fire protection.
Public discourse has been and remains the favored method of instituting change for the betterment of the community.
More light needs to be shed on the operation and future plans of "County/Cal Fire".
This is not just a Bonny Doon issue, but important to to all those who pay the taxes for County Fire, aka County Service Area 48.
When Cal Fire proposed coming to Bonny Doon, they said the cost of an engine shelter would be $40,000. For the shelter they now demand the taxpayers provide, the cost is over $125,000 - $25,000 for design fees and a low bid of $100,000 for construction before cost overruns are included. Two and one-half times what they promised.
Just put doors on the engine shelter that is there now, and send the $100,000 savings back to the taxpayers.
For goodness sakes, it is just supposed to be a temporary garage, to be torn down in a couple of years. Cal Fire get real.