Belmont City Councilman Dave Warden Speaks Out

On Thursday night, sancarlos.patch.com published a story addressing the end of the Joint Power Association agreement between Belmont and San Carlos regarding fire services, and San Carlos' plans for the future.

Now, Belmont city councilman Dave Warden has spoken out against the article and the abolished partnership.

"The decision was made?" asked Warden in an email. "San Carlos made the decision to abolish our fire department!"

According to Warden, Belmont wanted to end the relationship in 2004 "because we were paying 50/50 for a department when our San Carlos neighbor was 20% larger with 10% more people, and had many more calls for service."

He went on, "I spent two years (along with Matt Grocott on the San Carlos Council) trying to put the department back together again, and we came up with
a very reasonable funding formula that was approved by both City Councils
at the time.  And life was good again, albeit for a short time."

Emails sent to San Carlos councilman Matt Grocott were not immediately returned. 

According to records and interviews with San Carlos assistant city manager Brian Moura, the original JPA agreement changed and San Carlos was paying 53 1/2 percent. The additional costs and the lack of freedom to make decisions led San Carlos to issue a termination letter of their own.

"There have been a number of issues in which the councils just do not agree," said Moura. "With a different system, whether it be one with the county, or another city, or whatever it may be, we would have a more 'a la carte' areement, to use a food reference, in which we could say, "Ok, we want a little bit more of this, or a little bit less, depending on our needs."

But Warden sees it a different way.

"They gave us the bird, and now they want the State of California to run 
their Fire Department. Two years later, a new bunch comes on to the [San Carlos] Council and wants to re-write all the rules and change everything.  They have two brand new people on the Fire Board.  They didn't "ask for the relationship to end," they sent Belmont an unequivocal notice of termination. Good luck to them."