The City of San Carlos and the City of Redwood City will share each others' fire captains, firefighters, and paramedics through Jan. 31, 2013. This new arrangement, called the "Cross Services" amendment was approved at last Monday's meeting of the San Carlos City Council as a way of filling gaps in the city's fire department.
According to assistant city manager Brian Moura, this arrangement addresses the 15 retirement vacancies in Redwood City and the six positions in San Carlos that will be filled through new hires and employees in the Fire Academy.
Moura explained that next the steps are negotiations between the two city managers, Jeff Maltbie in San Carlos and Bob Bell in Redwood City, over the administrative charges involved in the cross services agreement. Specifically, the city managers will negotiate the amount of the hourly rate to be used.
Since dissolving its joint fire department with Belmont last fall, only 18 of the 24 San Carlos positions have been filled.
As reported in a July Patch article, there currently are not enough employees to maintain even a minimal staff at both fire stations in town, forcing Fire Chief Jim Skinner and Deputy Fire Chief Stan Maupin to create occasional brown outs at station 16 (located on Alameda de las Pulgas).
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