You already know that there is an issue before the Black Diamond voters to replace an expiring public safety levy. Proponents say that the levy is critical to maintain the necessary levels of emergency services in the city. They speak about how we need to support our police, fire and medical services. However, should the levy pass, it is apparent that all the revenue will, as always, be funneled directly to the police department. Verbiage already in the proposal states that the objective is to increase police staff. Don’t get me wrong, I am not opposed to adequate police protection. But while I appreciate the hard work that the Black Diamond Police Department does, I would like to put some perspective on the expenditure of Black Diamond’s “public safety” funds.

First, it has been many, many years since Black Diamond has invested any capital into fire services. There has been an extremely minimalist operating budget from year to year and there has been no capital investment whatsoever in staffing, equipment or stations. The fire department operates with 30 year old trucks while the city replaced its fleet of police cars just last year. Black Diamond’s own guidelines call for a fire staff of six career fire fighters to be on duty 24 hours a day, seven days a week for the present population. There are, in fact, two career fire fighters on duty 12 hours a day, five days a week. This is a far more serious under staffing situation than the police department.

The national average of police coverage is 1.5 to 2 officers per 1000 residents. Black Diamond currently has 9 officers for a police presence of 2.1 officers per 1000. The stated city goal with this lid lift is to have 12 officers for a police presence of 2.9 per 1000.

Records show that the average response time for the fire department within Black Diamond is seven to nine minutes although national standards set the acceptable response time to four minutes. Keep in mind that a cardiac patient who has stopped breathing has just four to six minutes for resuscitation to begin. Also, fire spreads very fast; consider the following facts on fire growth rates: at four minutes a typical fire is still contained in the room where it started and there is 10 percent damage to the structure. At eight minutes into this fire it leaves the room of origin and the entire structure is 50 percent destroyed. This is the average time of arrival of our fire department and in most cases they will not have enough firefighters on board to enter the building due to safety regulations! At 16 minutes the structure is 100 percent destroyed.

As to safety regulations, a brief explanation of firefighting regulations is in order. There is a reason that Black Diamond has put guidelines in place that require staffing of six career firefighters. When firefighters are entering a fire structure, a minimum of two firefighters at a time are required. Regulations state that there must also be two firefighters standing by outside of the structure, ready to enter and rescue their fellow firefighters should something go wrong. These are state and national standards and are not subject to modification by Black Diamond. If you, your spouse or your children are trapped in a burning building in the city of Black Diamond, the fire department will be unable to attempt rescue for greater than 16 minutes, in most cases. This is due to the current staffing level of only two career firefighters, 12 hours a day, five days a week.

The long response time is partly due to there being only one staffed station within the city. And though the city has a policy of all developed property being within 1.5 road miles of a fire station, there are large sections of the city that fall well outside of that. This is especially true if you consider that the 58 year old fire station at 3rd Avenue and Baker Street is unstaffed and all calls are run from the Lake Sawyer station. It is four miles from the Lake Sawyer station to downtown Black Diamond and the elementary school. This is nearly a 10 minute drive.

The Washington State Rating Bureau is an agency that sets risk ratings for the insurance industry. One of their functions is to rate fire protection in communities. Insurance companies then use these ratings to set their home insurance premiums. The risk is set on a scale of 1 to 10 with one being the best fire protection that you can have. Property within Black Diamond rates no better than six and large areas of the city fall to a rating of eight which drives up insurance costs and gives an indication of the state of fire coverage in Black Diamond.

Lest there be any mistake, while we are talking about performance statistics of the fire department, I want to be clear that I hold Fire District 44 (who operates the fire services in Black Diamond) and all of the fire staff in the highest regard. They do a great job and are doing the absolute best they can with what they have been given – which just isn’t enough.

Let me share some budgetary figures. In recent years the Black Diamond Police Department has operated on a budget of approximately $1.7 million annually while the fire department operates on a mere $500,000. Last year even the Black Diamond Community Development department was budgeted $400,000 more than the fire department. Over and above the operating budgets, Black Diamond last year enhanced its police department with $30,000 of new weapons, a $56,000 boat, $100,000 in new technology, new cars totaling $80,000, and a police records system at a cost of $250,000. The city spent $0 for fire department enhancements. They did put $1,000 into the fire equipment reserve fund. At this rate and today’s costs it will take 500 years to buy a new fire truck. In addition, at a recent City Council meeting, Fire District 44 reported that they are planning to purchase a few new fire engines and offered to lease one to the city. The city declined that offer and instead asked about the purchase of a used engine instead. Which begs the question: when is the last time the city purchased a used police car?

Fire services and planning are not the responsibility of the fire department. They are – by state law – the responsibility of the city. The same national standards that call for a four minute response time also calls for a municipality to constantly examine and monitor its performance against these standards. When these standards are not being met, steps are mandated to be taken to close the gap. This has not been done in the past, is not being done currently, and there appears to be no desire by the city to address this. This is concerning because expansion of fire services to meet the needs of today and tomorrow requires a very proactive approach. Predicting needs, developing sites, constructing fire stations and purchasing expensive apparatus cannot be done in the short term. It must be considered in the long term and planned far in advance, which is not being done. This means that as our city grows and expands, fire services will lag further and further behind.

Let me reiterate that I do not hold anything against our police department. Our nationally known speed trap brings $300,000 a year into city coffers. What I am saying is that if you choose to support the lid lift you will not be supporting fire and medical services that we so desperately need. Our fire services are in a much more abysmal condition than the police services. I would absolutely support this levy if there were at least some funding set aside for the fire department. As it is written it will not. The fire department deserves more than they are getting. Educate yourself. Study the present and past city budgets which are on the city Web site. Talk to your council members. Make yourself heard.

Ron Taylor

Black Diamond