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District stymied by city council's decision against new fire station
District officials miffed after years of planning
Mayor calls for bond issue
By Oakley Brooks
Shortly after the votes had been cast to stop the Saratoga Fire District's plan for a new station, a detailed model of the proposed building sat atop a trashcan outside the city's civic theater. It was there for only a minute--representatives of the project later walked away with it--but it was an ironic placement given the city's rebuff of plans that had been four years in the making.
A 3-0 vote Sept. 5 by a pared-down city council denied the fire district a permit to build a new 13,000 square-foot facility. That reversed a planning commission approval made in late June.
The council's vote came with a clear call from Mayor John Mehaffey that the city quickly consider a bond measure to fund a new public service center that would combine a new fire station with U.S. Postal Service and Santa Clara County Sheriff's substation facilities on the corner of Saratoga Avenue and Saratoga-Los Gatos Road.
An exploratory committee has been discussing that plan for nearly a month and financial consultants estimate that the city would have to spend between $8 million to $18 million to complete such a project.
"I'd like to put that on the agenda for the next meeting," Mehaffey said of a bond measure. "The future is now."
Council members used reasons other than the public service center to explain their vote, stressing that the planned station was oversized and its layout did not solve a chronic parking problem in the station's immediate area. They also wondered about the ability of the station to accommodate two new fire trucks the district will soon acquire as part of a recently signed boundary drop agreement with the county fire department.
Councilman Stan Bogosian played the safety card in questioning why district officials would continue to force firefighters to stop traffic on Saratoga Avenue in order to back fire trucks into the new station.
"I've never seen such a half-ass situation," said Bogosian.
But the desire to see a different fire station built as part of a new public service center was apparently the driving force behind each council member's vote.
"The current fire station is designed to the confines of a very specific piece of property," said Vice Mayor Nick Streit. "Today it appears that there are other options."
Fire district officials and their consultants were visibly upset by the decision--architect Chris Ford cupped his bent head in one hand as the council's intentions became clear and Fire Commissioner Jay Geddes walked out of the civic theater in disgust just before the vote.
A day later, Fire Chief Ernie Kraule said the council had been given bad information about the alignment of fire trucks in the new station by the Firefighter and Citizen Task force, which brought the design appeal before the council.
Kraule said the council also didn't adequately grasp the urgent need to replace the current station, which he said is violating health and safety codes and is seismically unsafe.
"We started this process way before these people came on the council," Kraule said, referring to station discussions that started in 1994.
"It's almost like Monday morning quarterbacking," Kraule said. "We're the experts."
Kraule reluctantly agreed to go along with city plans to study the public service center; he and other district officials are pushing to have a center plan done in four to six months and they would like to have the fire station slated as the first stage in the project.
"The city's also got to play ball with the district and provide a highly expedited review process on a redesigned station," said Fire Commissioner Hugh Hexamer.
Right now, the district has no choice but to comply with the city's wishes, despite a belief some city officials and planning commissioners held in the last several months that the independent fire district could override city land-use decisions.
City Attorney Richard Taylor announced Sept. 5 that he could find no section in state law that would allow special districts other than school, water or sanitation bodies to bypass city mandates.
That, among other revelations in recent weeks, led two planning commissioners who had voted in favor of a new fire station in June to call for a reversal of their decision. Commissioners Erna Jackman and Cynthia Barry said they had also been influenced by limited knowledge of fire district options to exit fire trucks on Saratoga-Los Gatos Road and build underground parking.
Jackman and Barry said they were unaware that the U.S Postal Service might sell its adjoining property, which it has considered doing in recent weeks, potentially allowing a reconfiguration of the new station.
"I strongly urge you to set aside our decision," said Barry, the chairwoman of the planning commission. "I believe it's moot."
That announcement overshadowed the arguments of station architect Ford that his design allowed expansion into future public service center because the station's eastern wall would be easily removable.
The council even overstepped the recommendation of Community Development Director Tom Sullivan, who said the bulk of the proposed two-story station was necessary given the confines of the fire district's land and its need for expanded office and firefighter living space.
In the end, the council could not see the proposed design as an appropriate longterm solution.
"It has to be there for the next 40 years," said Vice Mayor Streit. "It's not in the best interests of the city of Saratoga as a whole."
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Saratoga, California Since 1955
