City heads off Aldarra issue in EFR conflict
October 22, 2008
By J.B. Wogan
Eastside Fire & Rescue board members addressed the elephant in the room at their Oct. 14 meeting. The issue was the possible annexation of the Aldarra neighborhood into Sammamish.
“We could have some difficulty with the Aldarra folks if somebody else tells them that they have inferior service.”
The neighborhood is adjacent to Sammamish and some residents there want to become part of the city, but their fire service is provided by District 27.If Aldarra were to become part of Sammamish, the district, which serves Fall City and nearby areas, would suffer a significant loss in revenue, or so many board members thought.
Sammamish Mayor Lee Fellinge assured his colleagues that his city had another plan in mind, one that would allow Fall City’s fire department to keep collecting revenue from Aldarra, which sits just outside Sammamish’s southeast city limit by Duthie Hill Road.
The potential annexation of Aldarra is one component of a larger discussion among EFR board members and staff about inviting Fire District 27 to become an EFR partner. City partners such as Sammamish, North Bend and Issaquah have voiced concerns that adding Fire District 27 as a partner would result in higher costs to taxpayers without improving fire service in their respective areas.
EFR Fire Chief Lee Soptich has said he believes costs would not go up, and convinced the board Oct. 14 to authorize a study on the financial impacts of that potential partnership.
At a Sammamish City Council meeting that same evening, City Manager Ben Yazici spoke to the council again about the Aldarra issue.
“I think it’s critical to meet with the District 27 staff to tell them that our intent is not to take away their revenues,” Yazici said.
Fire District 27 Chief Chris Connor estimated that Aldarra brings in between 20 and 22 percent of the department’s revenue each year. The loss of that neighborhood and its financial support to fire service in the Fall City area was a concern to him and his department, Connor said.
Yazici suggested that in the event that Aldarra became part of Sammamish, the city would set up a contractual agreement with Fire District 27, allowing them to still be the fire service provider for that neighborhood.
The looming problem with that scenario is the obvious disparity that would exist between Aldarra and every other neighborhood in Sammamish. Fire District 27 has a minimum standard of two-person fire stations, whereas EFR mandates that its stations have three-person stations.
“We could have some difficulty with the Aldarra folks if somebody else tells them that they have inferior service,” Councilwoman Kathy Huckabay noted.
Councilwoman Nancy Whitten added that there seemed to be several ways in which the city would be forced to elevate fire service to the neighborhood in the future.
But Yazici disagreed with the notion that all fire stations must have the minimum three-person standard to be effective.
“There’s hundreds of fire districts in the state with two-man stations. I don’t personally buy into this concept that we have to automatically go to a three-man station,” he said.
Yazici said Fire District 27 was a perfect example of a department that offered quality fire service without meeting EFR’s three-person mandate.
But Connor said there were times when the increased manpower could pay dividends in his fire district.
“We would prefer to have three people,” he said. “We are very limited in our ability in what we can do with two people as opposed to three.”
In the case of house fires, motor vehicle accidents and any of the more serious medical calls, a three-person station is more desirable, Connor said.
As for the city’s suggestion of a special contractual agreement between Sammamish and Fire District 27, Connor said he couldn’t comment on the option yet.
“We have not met yet directly with the city. I’m not at a point that I can say one way or another,” he said.
Reporter J.B. Wogan can be reached at 392-6434, ext. 247, or jbwogan@isspress.com.
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