Oakland fire stations fully staffed ahead of fire season

OAKLAND, Calif. (KRON) – Rotating closures of fire stations in Oakland are a thing of the past. 

It was a cost-saving measure due to budget cuts. Now, Oakland fire stations will be fully staffed ahead of this year’s fire season.

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Oakland Fire Department 2020 Highlights

Check out your Oakland Firefighters in action inside and outside the fire house.

Oakland scales back controversial plan to shutter fire stations

San Francisco Chronicle

Oakland will deactivate one fire station instead of three to help offset the city’s budget shortfall — a compromise after firefighters and neighboring communities that contract with the city for fire protection criticized the earlier plan.

The decision announced Friday comes after discussions between the city administration and the local firefighters union. It will go into effect on Wednesday and last until June.

“Obviously, we think that the fire department should be at full strength. This is not something we take lightly, but we are happy that the city backed off their plan to close three,” said Zac Unger, president of Oakland Firefighters Local 55. “We understand the budget realities being what they are, no service is going to stay whole, although we wish it would.”

The temporary closure will be scheduled for six days at a time and will rotate through each fire station in the city. The new plan will save about $1 million.

Oakland has 25 fire stations, each of which operate with one engine. The only station that remains unaffected by the closure is at the Oakland International Airport.

The initial plan was to deactivate three fire engines for six days at a time in an effort to save $5 million. County leaders and neighboring cities widely criticized the plan and asked Mayor Libby Schaaf to reconsider the closures.

Last month, the city’s finance department said Oakland is facing an “unprecedented fiscal challenge.” The city ended its 2019-20 fiscal year in June with a $30 million budget gap. Now that’s grown to $62 million.

The overspending came primarily from the Oakland Police Department exceeding its budget by $32 million over the past fiscal year, wrote Margaret O’Brien, the interim finance director, in a report presented to the City Council last month.

In December, city administrators said they would cut $29 million to address the financial crisis — $9 million in general spending through a hiring freeze, $20 million from the police department and $4.3 million from the fire department.

On Tuesday, the city council’s finance committee will vote on a plan proposed by Vice Mayor Rebecca Kaplan to help close the city’s budget deficit. Kaplan’s plan transfers $10 million from the Coliseum Authority to the city.

Kaplan proposed transferring some of those funds to the city’s fire department to avoid closures.

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Oakland’s neighbors, firefighters see red over plan to deactivate engines, shutter stations

Oakland’s neighbors, firefighters see red over plan to deactivate engines, shutter stations

San Francisco Chronicle– Oakland will begin deactivating some of its fire engines and shuttering stations temporarily on Thursday in a budget-cutting move that drew criticism from firefighters and neighboring communities that contract with the city for fire protection.

The fire department will deactivate three engines for six days at a time over the next five months, effectively closing three of the city’s 25 stations, each of which operate with one engine. The only station not affected is at Oakland International Airport. The move is expected to save $5 million.

Local officials and firefighters criticized the move and threatened to take legal action to prevent the closures. Some firefighters say their work now is more crucial than ever as they are often the first responders during the COVID pandemic.

“You have the domino effect that ends up emptying the city of fire engines because they’re all covering for each other’s calls,” said Zac Unger, president of Oakland Firefighters Local 55.

“Not only do we respond to fires, but we respond to all COVID emergency calls in the city. If anybody is having difficulty breathing, they call us and we respond. I don’t know of any other city that is reducing emergency response capability at the height of the pandemic,” Unger added.

Last month, the city’s finance department said Oakland is facing an “unprecedented fiscal challenge.” The city ended its 2019-20 fiscal year in June with a $30 million budget gap. Now that’s grown to $62 million.

The overspending came primarily from the Oakland Police Department exceeding its budget by $32 million over the last fiscal year, wrote Margaret O’Brien, the interim finance director, in a report presented to City Council last month.

In December, city administrators said they would cut $29 million to address the financial crisis — $9 million in general spending through a hiring freeze, $20 million from the police department and $5 million from the fire department.

The closures have also sparked criticism from county officials and neighboring cities.

In a letter to Mayor Libby Schaaf, Alameda County Supervisor Nate Miley said closing the fire stations will disproportionately affect Black and brown communities who use the Fire Department as “their medical provider of both first and last resort.”

Miley asked Schaaf to reconsider the closures and provide an opportunity for public comment in the process. During fiscal crises, the city administration can make cuts without approval from the City Council.

In a letter to staff Friday, Interim Fire Chief Melinda Drayton said the proposed plan is “likely to have an impact on emergency response.” The standard response time, as defined by the National Fire Protection Association, is four minutes.

“We consistently utilize a risk management-based decision approach, and we intend to navigate this challenging fiscal crisis with the same degree of focused attention to minimize any gaps or delays in response,” Drayton wrote.

One of the three engines that will be deactivated will be replaced with a two person medical squad made up of a firefighter paramedic and a fire officer in the Oakland hills. The paramedic from each deactivated engine will be moved to a fire station in East Oakland, which receives the bulk of the city’s calls for service.

The Oakland Fire Department responds to nearly 55,000 emergencies per year.

Miley also noted that Oakland fire crews provide service to neighboring cities.

“The loss of quick response from Oakland will start a cascade effect, leaving other cities without the fire protection they need,” he wrote.

Emeryville Mayor Dianne Martinez sent a letter to the Alameda County Fire Department expressing her frustration with the closures. The Oakland Fire Department provides service to Emeryville through a contract with the Alameda department.

“Without any information on which stations will be closed by Oakland and when, nor on the cascading effect of closures, my community is left completely in the dark about the effects of these brownouts,” Martinez wrote.

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Firefighters’ union will seek to block Oakland plan for fewer fire engines

OAKLAND, Calif. – Oakland city leaders are fine-tuning a plan to have two to three fewer fire engines able to respond to emergencies each day. The reason: Budget cuts due to COVID. Firefighter union leaders say it’s a dangerous idea.

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Oakland fire stations may close due to budget deficit

Zac Unger, president of the Oakland firefighters union, is calling on Oakland residents to contact the city and ask that fire stations be exempted from budget cuts.

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Oakland mayor says more painful cuts ahead in new year as city faces $62M budget shortfall

OAKLAND, Calif. (KGO) — The City of Oakland begins the new year still having to cut more than $30 million from its budget to head off a projected $62 million shortfall.

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‘No good options:’ Oakland leaders grapple with cuts to services as $62 mil budget shortfall looms

OAKLAND — The City Council on Wednesday approved a small set of measures to reduce the $62 million budget shortfall that Oakland is facing, but some cautioned against other cuts announced by the city administrator.

Tasked Wednesday with approving just one emergency ordinance that would authorize the city administrator to postpone scheduled pay raises for the fire and police chiefs in 2021 and impose on them 10 furlough days — saving about $85,000 for the year — the eight city councilmembers unanimously approved the measure.

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COVID Cuts: Oakland Leaders Face Heat Over Fire Station Cutbacks Amid $62 Million Deficit – ‘We’ve Never Closed Three At A Time’

OAKLAND (KPIX 5) – Due to the pandemic, the city of Oakland is facing a huge $62 million budget deficit this year. So far, one of the proposed cuts drawing the most heat is to the Fire Department.

With all the revenue it’s lost during COVID-19, Oakland has some difficult choices to make.

Mayor Libby Schaaf and City Administrator Ed Reiskin sent a letter to city employees last month saying without massive cuts, “…the General Purpose Fund will be insolvent before the end of the fiscal year… Even the City’s emergency reserve will be completely exhausted.”

So, in a long list of cuts, city staff is proposing three of the city’s 25 fire engine companies be put out of service. That represents 15% of the city’s firefighting force.

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