The Article States “the level of the fire district's reserves far exceeds those of most local government agencies”. That’s because the Fire Board, Chief and Staff believe in sound fiscal practices and principals! We won’t be asking the community for more money because we failed to plan ahead, piled up debt or we out spent our revenues!

The Fire District takes its core mission responsibilities of protecting life and property to the next level by fiscally insuring that those services are not diminished, or threatened, by poor organizational management, Board Governance or practices that harm our service to you!

The Fire District is run like an essential services business and key to that concept is Fire Boards value statements regarding oversight. Simply stated, the Fire Board has directed the Chief his staff to “live within their means”!
Expenditures cannot exceed revenues and funds must be put aside annually, incrementally and for future anticipated expenditures costs like equipment, apparatus and fire station replacement. In other words, we “depreciate” the cost over time and create a “reserve” to save for the cost of the next and future item, so the money is actually there when we need it.

Historically, the most expensive and difficult things to save for are Fire Stations and buildings. Two of the four Fire Stations targeted for replacement, based upon their 60 year plus age, have been fully funded and are almost completed. Each of these processes have taken us over ten years to complete and finish and the taxpayers of the Fire District weren’t asked for more money to build them.

We are incrementally saving to replace the other two outdated fire stations and due to the economic boom, we have been successful in acquiring additional adjacent properties and other key and strategic assets to help us meet tomorrow’s demands and future service delivery challenges.

While our tools and buildings are important, untimely, it’s all about the quality and capability of our employees. Our greatest asset is our team of dedicated professionals who serve you and the community during their worst moments of what can, or cannot, be imagined. We pride ourselves on making “house calls” and quickly helping anyone, any time, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week and 365 days a year.

We demand and expect a lot from our firefighters and support staff. While much has been made of what they are paid, what is the value of a highly trained, competent, compassionate experienced, loyal, smart and dedicated employee whom we ask to race to an emergency and put themselves in harm’s way to protect and save others?

The cost of all of our employed staff is kept within the 70th percentile of our overall budget. Backfill and overtime is used to keep our head count down and support the many projects and programs we regularly participate in. We recover allowable costs through contracting and seek cost neutrality where appropriate. We embrace innovation and technologies that make sense if it can help save lives and property.

We won’t have a “surplus” of funding because revenues in excess of an extremely conservative but measured revenue growth estimate are re-directed towards Capital Improvement projects (Fire Stations) and unfunded pension liabilities. In other words, we are saving for tomorrow -TODAY!

We won’t be asking you the tax payers to help us replace anything we can see coming, or bail us out any time soon! Isn't that the way it should be? What happened to the concept of good governance, a balanced budget, saving for a rainy day and planning ahead?

I encourage residents who are interested to attend our Board meetings and participate in the process!

$200,000 per year to hire a Q to be a director of gadgets and gizmos? This money would be better used to hire a firefighter to actually deliver services to the public. "Disruptive technology is a clever, trendy catch phrase but is this the proper role for a local fire department? Is the District in the venture capital business now? Proximity to Silicon Valley does not create an imperative to fund R&D that should be coming out of the private sector. Let the private sector fund the R&D and the District can purchase proven technologies.

The fire service is a very traditional culture and change in the fire service is both slow and difficult. For example red fire engines make no sense as red is very difficult to see at night.

Given the rapid increase in the fire district;'s served population (residents and day time workers/students) it is critical for the fire district to find new and better ways to respond to emergencies. The decrease in mobility caused by huge increases in the served population and in traffic congestion mean that every possible approach to increased mobility must be pursued.

As a veteran of the Advanced Research Projects Agency ( ARPA now called DARPA) I learned the very hard lesson that innovation does not come to you but you must seek out innovation.

Every citizen that I have talked to is an enthusiastic supporter of the fire district being a leader in innovation - particularly when most of the costs of such innovation are being paid for by the fire district's private sector partners.

While Peter and I sometimes disagree on budgeting and pay issues. We are in Sync here.

I think the use of technology to make the department more efficient, productive (not the same thing) and more importantly SAFER for the firefighters is money well spent.

The use of Drones alone has made Search and Rescue more effective and safe. It makes looking at a fire from multiple angles easier (and therefore safer for firefighters).

I am a HUGE believer in technology and it's application to solving problems. and I commend the District for it's forward thinking in this matter. Nicely done.

Roy Thiele-Sardina

Thank you Roy.

One of the innovations the Fire District is partnering on is a helmet/face shield that integrates night vision and thermal imaging and create a visual map of the interior of a structure. Using a standardized protocol MPFPD firefighters were able to locate a victim in a test structure in less than three minutes compared to almost eight minutes without the device - that will save lives!

Here is the proof of the value of the Fire District's role as a leading innovator:


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The only proof I found after looking at the web site posted by Mr. Carpenter, and the many other related sites listed below, is proof that the District did not get the memo about conflicts of interest. The District cannot use public funds (tax money) to promote the interests of a private company, in this case the Qwake company (described in a Forbes article as a San Francisco based start up). A District fire captain is prominently featured on the Qwake website as a member of its advisory board.

Using images of District owned equipment, and interviews with District personnel during work hours to promote a private commercial venture is a gift of public funds and is not allowed. How many hours of time has the District given to the Qwest company to produce a commercial product? The District has gone way beyond simply testing a product under development and has closely aligned itself with a specific company and a specific product. The ill-considered PGE videos from earlier this year come to mind.

Is the District is hiring a dedicated staff person to manage its interactions with companies like Qwest? I see the clear benefit to the private concerns, the benefits to the District are less clear.



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