07/25/2024
Community Notice
At our recent KMPUD July board meeting, Kirkwood Volunteer Fire Department (KVFD) Chief Rick Ansel summarized the current status of KVFD:
The situation remains dire. Last month over 20 of 120 staffing slots went unfilled, mostly on weekends, when the need is greatest. Many shifts have just one person on call. Previous increase to the stipend has had limited success. When we’re not staffed, the calls come to me at home in Gardnerville, almost an hour away. And this happened twice recently, one call at 10 at night and another at 1 in the morning to which KVFD could not respond. Instead, the calls were covered by Eastern Alpine Fire Department and the Alpine County Sheriff’s office. Managing fire and emergency calls remotely is very difficult and unsustainable.
KMPUD recognizes the challenges facing the KVFD and is writing to provide an update on our progress since the December 2023 community meeting and February 2024 survey, where survey respondents expressed 73% support for some increase in level of service in order to have at least some paid firefighters and 77% supported an increase in our KVFD assessment (currently $0.04 per combustible square foot per year). Because the survey results indicated a desire for some increased service and funding, KMPUD Staff, at Board direction, has (see pages 316-324 of this Staff Report for more details):
1. Solicited proposals for, and recommended to the Board, a consultant to facilitate the legal procedures, including determining the benefit received for services, to increase funding to the KVFD.
2. Determined organizational options for hiring professional firefighters, finding that we could either hire under our current structure or create an entity separate from the KMPUD, with the latter likely being more cost effective.
3. Researched “assistance by hire” (outsourcing), options with other agencies. Staff determined that CalFire would be cost prohibitive, but conversations with Alpine and Amador Counties continue.
4. Investigated additional resource options, including conversations with Kirkwood Mountain Resort, updating our mutual aid agreements, researching grants, and seeking additional transient occupancy tax (rental tax). None of these have yielded additional funding yet, but Staff will continue to investigate.
Over the next several months, KMPUD Staff will develop the following for Board review:
1. A detailed cost proposal for directly employing our own professional firefighting staff.
2. The feasibility and cost of contracting with neighbor fire districts in Amador and Alpine counties to provide a Kirkwood-based firefighting staff. Staff will develop cost scenarios for any feasible option that emerges.
3. Work with our consultant to develop scenarios for allocating any potential new fire assessment to each Kirkwood property, which, under California law, must be proportional to the benefit received.
As we learn more, KMPUD will convene a series of community workshops and discussions before proposing a direction. This could result in a vote by property owners.
In summary, things cannot stay the same. Our KVFD Chief believes, and the Board concurs, we cannot continue to operate as an all-volunteer fire department with a volunteer fire chief and volunteer crew, most of whom live not in-valley but up to an hour away. We’ll need to decide in 2025 whether to increase the fire assessment fee and move to a paid, professional staff (whether our own or one supplied by a contract partner), augmented by volunteers, or dissolve KVFD and depend on existing Amador and Alpine fire services to drive, up to an hour, to Kirkwood to respond to emergencies.
KMPUD wants to make sure the community has all the information it needs to make this decision. It’s Kirkwood property owners who vote who will have the final say.
To learn more, and stay informed, please visit https://www.kmpud.com/kirkwood-volunteer-fire-department-future/, and you can view the July board discussion on here starting at minute 51:00). If you’d like to sign up for our newsletter to receive updates from KMPUD for important topics like this, you can register (new user) or log in (existing user) and edit your profile to update your newsletter preferences. Attend KMPUD Board meetings (virtual and in-person) every 1st Friday of the month at 2 pm. If you have questions, please email [email protected] or call (209) 258-4444.
Thank you,
Kirkwood Meadows Public Utility District
P.O. Box 247, 33540 Loop Road
Kirkwood, CA 95646
