Officials meet to discuss hiring consultant to coordinate and
examine master plans
Gilroy – The boundaries between city and county could fade in coming years, at least in terms of fire and emergency medical response, as Gilroy and Morgan Hill look to coordinate services with each other and with the South Santa Clara County Fire District.
Officials have met in recent months to discuss hiring a consultant to examine and coordinate master plans for the cities and the county fire service. They hope the study will help all three agencies better deploy resources by avoiding areas of overlap.
“It doesn’t make sense for Gilroy to put a new station in the northeast corner of the city if South County Fire is planning to do the same, for example,” Gilroy Fire Chief Dale Foster said.
“The consultant would take a look at all those plans, see where anticipated growth is in each of the communities, and look at opportunities where the South County region could share, coordinate and collaborate to better provide service.”
Currently, the City of Gilroy has two fully-staffed fire stations and a third on Sunrise Drive that is staffed with a heavy rescue unit. Officials expect a fourth fire station in the southwest quadrant as 1,700 homes rise in the area over the next decade, as part of the Glen Loma Ranch Project, the biggest residential development in the city’s history.
Foster expressed hope that such regional planning would lead to greater efficiency and a possible financial savings.
He stressed that the study does not presage staff reductions in the city’s fire department or a switch to county fire service.
“We’re talking about where stations are located, where engines, trucks and equipment and staffing are located,” he said, “as opposed to looking at overall administration – how many chiefs you have, how much training you have. That is not the focus of the study.”
Officials in Morgan Hill have been the driving force behind the regional planning effort. The city has three fire stations – two of them staffed by county firefighters and a third, which offers emergency response to the south side of the city, manned by firefighters with the South Santa Clara Valley Fire Protection District, a branch of the California Department of Forestry.
As Morgan Hill’s contract for county fire services approaches a Sept. 2007 expiration date, the city has started looking outside its borders for a regional plan to rein in costs while maintaining service levels.
Morgan Hill City Manager Ed Tewes suggested that the region’s current emergency response system is too haphazard.
“The geographic area called South County has 120,000 people and may have more fire stations than it needs,” he said. “But we don’t know that. We need more creative planning.”
