Proposed Mendocino County fire funding ballot measure nixed by judge

A proposed ballot measure aimed at enhancing funding for struggling Mendocino County fire districts infringes on the county Board of Supervisors’ authority and must be rewritten before it can be placed before voters, a Superior Court judge has ruled.

“The proposed initiative in its current form interferes with the board’s legislative responsibility for fiscal management,” Judge Jeanine Nadel wrote in her ruling this week. The ruling supports the opinion of Mendocino County Counsel Katharine Elliott, who sued the initiative’s proponents and asked to be relieved of her obligation to prepare the ballot title and summary for the measure.

Attorney Chris Neary, who represents the proposed measure’s backers - members of four rural fire district boards - said he expects to seek an appellate court review of the ruling but has not yet met with his clients to make a final decision.

The proposal would have required that county supervisors consider giving the county’s nearly two dozen fire districts a 30 percent share of a half-cent public safety tax approved by California voters in a 1993 initiative, Proposition 172. Fire departments were initially included in the list of advertised beneficiaries, but Mendocino County excluded them from its list after the initiative was passed. Statewide, most fire departments, including those in Sonoma County, do not get a share of that tax.

Prop. 172 last year generated more than $7 million in Mendocino County. The funding currently is divided among the Sheriff’s Office, District Attorney’s Office, jail and probation department.

Neary disagrees with this week’s ruling. He said the proposed measure doesn’t force the county to fund the fire districts. It simply requires that the county consider funding the fire districts by including a line item in its budget, and to hold public hearings if they decide not to fund them, he said.

You can reach Staff Writer ?Glenda Anderson at 462-6473 or glenda.?anderson@pressdemocrat.com.