Sebastopol, after 7 years of talks, moves to merge its fire department with neighboring fire district

Sebastopol will pursue merging its 122-year-old fire department with the neighboring Gold Ridge Fire Protection District, a move that would mean a new parcel tax for property owners in the city but that would also increase public safety, according to the City Council and its interim fire chief.

The move, after seven years of study and discussion, would be a sea change for the city and its volunteer fire department, which was formed in 1902 and currently handles about 1,400 calls for service a year.

“This is super emotional for our community,” said Council member Neysa Hinton, who served with Council member Jill McLewis on a council committee that studied the contentious question of whether the department should remain independent or not and came down in favor of the merger.

“This recommendation is so that we can continue to say we are saving lives and we are moving forward,” Hinton said.

The council on Tuesday unanimously approved the committee’s and City Manager Don Schwartz’s recommendation to move forward. As candidates, McLewis and Council member Sandra Maurer had both called for keeping the department independent. On Tuesday, they each said concerns about safety drove their support for the merger.

The Gold Ridge district covers about 75 square miles of unincorporated rural areas west and south of Sebastopol. If the merger goes through, property owners in the city would be subject to a $265 a year parcel tax, said Schwartz.

The Sebastopol department has an annual budget of $1.5 million. Many of it 32 volunteer firefighters have, in the past, opposed the proposed merger, along with residents worried that services would suffer. The department’s paid employees include Interim Chief Todd Derum, a half-time administrative staffer and a fire engineer (plus a second fire engineer position whose hiring the council approved Tuesday).

Under the proposed merger, many details of which are still to be negotiated, Sebastopol would be one of eight fire stations in the Gold Ridge District, which has 20 full-time firefighters, three battalion chiefs, two division chiefs, a fire chief, three administrative staff and approximately 180 volunteers.

Volunteer Sebastopol firefighters would retain their current ranks under the merger, Derum said.

“Our intent is not to get rid of volunteers, it’s to honor them, support them in their commitment,” he said. “But we have to have the reliability, and right now it's vulnerable given the number of calls, the projected number of calls and the demands. Relying solely on (volunteer) firefighters and one or two paid staff is not adequate.”

In November, before he stepped down, the city’s previous interim fire chief, Jack Piccinini, urged the council to address staffing issues at the fire department that he said compromised public safety. He cited six incidents in two months where the department had been unable to respond to emergencies due to staff shortages.

The merger would need to be approved by the Sonoma County Local Agency Formation Commission, which regulates the creation of special districts and their boundaries. The commission’s executive officer on Tuesday told the council that at its smoothest, the process might take a year, barring public opposition.

“There’s a community outreach portion to this and it’s very sensitive,” Mark Bramfitt said. “Gold Ridge is going to be applying a parcel tax on your residents and they need to understand what they’re getting for that participation.”

He said that in the past five or six years, the number of fire agencies in the county including volunteer departments, has gone from about 40 to about 20.

“We have not seen a fire reorganization go sideways due to protests but it’s gotten a little more contentious than the first ones we did, so I would just make that recommendation” for an outreach campaign, he said.

You can reach Staff Writer Jeremy Hay at 707-387-2960 or jeremy.hay@pressdemocrat.com. On X (Twitter) @jeremyhay