San Carlos and Belmont 'put out the fire' on their partnership

In relationships, it is common for the fire to go out over time, for the flame to dwindle, for the heat to eventually cool down. The relationship between San Carlos and Belmont and their sharing a fire department is no exception.

"Over the years, the two cities have had disagreements on what is the best way to handle certain issues," said assistant city manager Brian Moura. 

When San Carlos city officials decided not to continue sharing fire department services with Belmont beginning in 2011, the Directors of the Belmont Fire Protection District were faced with the task of considering their options.

But a partnership was not among them.

At Tuesday's special meeting last night at the Belmont City Council Chambers, the directors discussed the future of the fire services for Belmont, favoring the creation of a stand-alone fire department, an option which would provide the greatest city control over service delivery over sharing or outsourcing services.

The separation began more than five years ago when Belmont issued a letter asking to split from San Carlos, said San Carlos City manager Mark Weiss. The break never occurred. On April 13, 2010, San Carlos issued a letter of its own asking for independence, according to records.

"Of all of the issues I wish I could see through, this is No. 1," said Weiss in a recent interview. "This has been going on for so long."

San Carlos has hired consultant TriData to research the best methods and models to help the city determine the direction they will take when it comes to fire services. The report, according to Moura, will be released sometime in October, followed by a council meeting.

Director Dave Warden said the experience of sharing services with San Carlos has lead him to conclude that striking a similar relationship with another entity was not the direction he would support.

Whether the independence sought by the city would allow it to maintain current service levels or be able to recruit personnel with the necessary skills quickly enough when positions opened given its $6 million fire protection budget was uncertain.

The Directors have retained the services of Citygate Associates LLC to help them identify the fire protection delivery model which makes the most sense.

If the city decided to create a shared services model, there is a greater opportunity to use existing personnel to fill needs, according to a presentation by Stuart Gary, Principal of Fire and Emergency Services at Citygate Associates.

Gary said contracting out services, while resulting in less overall control of policy decisions made by the provider, would result in relatively less overhead and would spread fire management costs over more stations.

A hybrid model would offer control with the targeted contracting out of certain services that made the most sense from a cost or logistical perspective, according to Gary.

The challenge, he said, would be in finding a partner that made sense and building a consensus around a shared cost and work-load structure.

In the coming months, the Belmont City Manager will be working with Citygate to identify with greater specificity the cost and benefit of the stand-alone and hybrid models.

While the directors were not in favor of contracting out the fire protection services entirely, they were interested in comparing the cost-benefit assessment versus the other options. This assessment is expected to be completed and reported back to the Directors towards the end of the year.