Photograph by Kathy De La Torre
Firefighter Beau Rahn greets a passerby at the Saratoga Fire District union firefighters booth during Celebrate Saratoga! Saratoga Fire District union firefighters talked to citizens about their desire to merge with the Santa Clara County Fire Department.
Union firefighters take crusade to street
By Kara Chalmers
The Saratoga Fire District union firefighters, who are pushing for the district to contract with the county fire department, are trying to find ways to spread their message to the citizens of the city.
Besides staffing a booth at the Celebrate Saratoga! street dance on Sept. 23, they are trying to organize meetings with neighborhood and homeowner groups, according to union president Capt. Bill Morrison. In mid-October, they are planning a meeting with the residents who live on or near Bohlman Road.
Saratoga is served by two fire departments. The SFD and the Santa Clara County Fire Department split the city in two. The SFD union firefighters think a merger with the county department would benefit the firefighters and the citizens. The SFD administration disagrees.
Morrison said it seems that some citizens aren't aware of the firefighters' wishes to contract with the county and have not been following the news on the subject. He said the firefighters want the public to know that there are two different fire departments serving the city and that the union believes citizens would get better service from the county department.
During Celebrate, union firefighters from the SFD and the county department were available to answer questions one-on-one at their booth, and provided photos and written comparisons of the two departments. At last year's Celebrate, the firefighters did the same thing. Around that time, the union announced its desire for the two departments to merge and threatened to withhold its support of a $6 million bond measure for a new fire station on which the commissioners had voted. The SFD administration then decided to fund a study of the SFD's level of service, so the union supported the bond, which passed in April.
The consulting company the SFD hired to do the study, DMG Maximus, is working on the second phase of the study now, but there is no date set for completion of that phase.
The consultants recently finished the first phase of the study, which profiled the district. Morrison, after viewing the drafts of the profile, said he still believes the SFD should contract with the county department.
While the study has taken longer than the district expected, SFD Chief Ernie Kraule said he would continue to push to get the study completed in a timely manner. There is no date scheduled for the next committee meeting on the study.
A development that Saratoga's planning commission recently approved has added yet another element to the rift in the SFD. Local developer John M. Sobrato received approval on Sept. 13, for a 10-home subdivision at the site of the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur complex at 14800 Bohlman Road.
As one of the conditions of approval, Sobrato promised to pay to widen the narrow Bohlman Road to a width that would make it easier for cars to pass each other, per the city's request. However, it is up to a yet-unorganized task force or the Public Safety Commission to make a final decision on whether widening the road is the best alternative to improve the safety in the area.
Many residents who live on or near Bohlman Road do not want the road widened, since trees will be removed. Also, if the road is widened, the number of cars speeding on the road could increase, some neighbors say.
The section of Bohlman Road in question is used by many residents of the hillside as their only ingress and egress. In an emergency, people have to be evacuated from the hillside and emergency vehicles have to get up the road. Some of these residents saw the development as the best time to resolve the safety situation, by requiring that Sobrato turn the existing Novitiate driveway into a second road parallel to Bohlman that hillside residents could use.
But Saratoga City Attorney Richard Taylor has said it would be difficult legally to justify requiring the developer to put in the second road.
The union supports the Bohlman Road neighbors on the concept of needing an additional road somewhere, so that residents would have a second way to get out of the hillsides in case of a fire. Morrison said he believes that even if Bohlman Road were widened, there would still be a need for a second road. But he has no suggestions as to where a road should go.
This is counter to what Fire Chief Ernie Kraule has suggested throughout the city's planning process for the development. According to Kraule there is a 25-30-foot-wide fire road that is accessed by a locked gate, which is driveable only in the summer. The road opens and ends on Highway 17.
"It's an excellent access, exit and entrance for us, and exit for folks; we used it on two occasions when we had fires ... ," Kraule said at the Sept. 13 planning commission meeting.
Also, according to Kraule, the minimum requirements of the California Fire Code say that a 20-foot road is needed in order for emergency vehicles to pass safely.
Saratoga, California Since 1955
