WHO'S MINDING THE ESD 4 STORE?

Who’s Minding The ESD 4 Store?

    ESD 4 Engine 407                                                                   ESD 4 Brush Truck 407 

In the late morning of Thursday, September 8^th, I am returning from a short fire ground survey of the Pedernales / Spicewood fire with a colleague and who do we pass, on Hwy 71 West, on their way to the Pedernales fire apparatus staging area, but the very ESD 4 engine, followed by its brush truck station counter-part assigned to the ESD fire station on City Park Road that provides my neighborhood and the surrounding area with 9-1-1 fire and medical protection.  

What struck us as odd was both of these fire vehicles are some, if not, the BEST of the ESD 4 fire fighting fleet.   They are front line units and they had apparently been pulled off their primary fire protection mission to help contain a wild fire that was no longer out of control, in fact, the fire line was spot firing and smoldering, had no lives at risk, no structures in harms way and there were 2 STARFlight helicopters and one contract Forest Service helicopter actively and systematically working what remained of the fire line.  For all practical purposes the fire was a mop-operation, nothing more.

 

 For the record, I have no problem with ESD 4 wanting to help another fire department, but ESD 4 is not your typical county fire department, in fact, some in the local fire community would say ESD 4 is a fire department in name only and as I noted in post 1, I certainly agree with that assessment.  ESD 4 has only two response areas, one East, and one West.  Each has just one station with an engine, a crew of 3 and a brush truck they can switch into for wild fire response.  Supporting these two stations (supposedly) is a Chiefs truck, with a Battalion Chief and a driver, located near North Lamar and Braker Lane.  The problem is nether station is close enough to support the other.  They are 17 miles apart and can’t possibly respond fast enough to the others area to offer any meaningful support.  Essentially each station is a mini fire department on to itself.  The Chiefs truck offers no help either because of the distance it has to travel to reach either response area.  Adding to this problem is the fact ESD 4’s West station, on City Park Road, is smack in the middle of what the Texas Forest Service considers the most lethal wild land fire area within the state.  When I worked for the Austin Fire Department, in the early 90’s, I participated in a city-county wild fire evacuation study on how residents could be moved quickly to safety during a catastrophic wild fire.   One of the area’s we looked at closely was Long Canyon because of its single entry / exit and potential for  high property loss and casualties.  I flew several missions over the neighborhood plotting out the threat potentials and assessing how fire crews could manage a fire and an evacuation simultaneously.  The American Statesman recently highlighted this same threat after last weeks wild fires and referenced both the Texas Forest Services wild fire categorization and a fire threat report by a colleague of mine, Kevin Baum, former Austin Fire Department Battalion Chief, who wrote his masters thesis on the area’s explosive potential for a wild fire to destroy property, injure and kill under the right conditions.  Those “right conditions” are what we are experiencing now in Austin.

To get a better perspective on this issue, I placed calls to several friends who have their fingers on the pulse of the local fire community to find out what they might know about ESD 4 sending its best resources to a mop-up fire operation.   I was told the Emergency Operations Center County Fire Resource Coordinator asked ESD 4 if it could provide some manpower and fire fighting support at the Pedernales fire.  Now the operational astute and experienced fire manager, aware of ESD 4’s severe operational limitations in providing even most basic fire protection to its two separate response areas and the fact the western jurisdiction is considered the MOST PRONE to DEVASTATING WILD FIRE IN THE AUSTIN AREA would probably have had the common sense to beg off the assignment entirely or offer to send in a contingent of off duty or volunteer staff and perhaps a reserve fire fighting vehicle.  But ESD 4’s management did just the opposite and sent their best fire vehicles from the City Park Station and back filled with a “reserve” engine, Engine 410 and a Brush Truck 401 from its East Travis County Station.  

For the uninitiated, back filling with a “reserve” fire engine might seem reasonable but for experienced emergency fleet managers, back filling with a reserve unit is a last resort and always has lots of unintended operational consequences.

The problem with “reserve” vehicles, especially for the small resource thin fire department like ESD 4, is they are not front-line quality apparatus. They were moved off of active duty because of their age, mileage and mechanical reliability.  The small fire department retains these vehicles because it’s the only option they have for a backup vehicle. Basically it’s either no back up or a back up vehicle with limited capacity and some backup is better than no backup. The vehicle can still pull limited duty, very short run but because they are older and more work worn they have a tendency to breakdown at the worst possible moments during an emergency. That’s exactly what happened the following day for Engine 410.  During a wild fire support operation with Austin Fire Department Brush Truck 31 reserve Engine 410 had a pump failure during a simple water transfer (about a minute and half into the operation). And this was the ESD 4 fire engine assigned for fire protection to my neighborhood, an area considered the most prone to destructive and catastrophic wild fire.  As a ESD 4 taxpayer, you would think I would benefit from and have priority for the best, most reliable emergency fire vehicles, since I am paying for the services, but in ESD 4 the taxpayer is not considered important in the framework of how operational decisions are made (reference post 2 about my encounter with the ESD 4 Board President)

In similar fashion, reassigning the brush truck from ESD 4’s East Travis County station to the City Park Road station in its Western jurisdiction was a rob Peter to pay Paul scenario.   It essentially took away the wild fire protection available to ESD 4’s eastern jurisdiction and for what reason?  To help mop-up a smoldering fire in another fire district, not even adjacent to ESD 4?  Help me Jesus!  Now they did eventually back fill the brush truck they moved to City Park Road, with a loaner from Manor, but again, why all the shuffling? Why not just let Manor send their extra brush truck and back fill with off duty staff or volunteer staff from ESD 4?

Given what I know about ESD 4’s limited operational abilities, and the high fire threat area we live in, this rob Peter to pay Paul approach struck me as terribly short-sighted on the part of ESD 4’s management.  If a wild fire begins in the area, and the wind is like it was during last weeks fire, I want to know ESD 4 has the best and most reliable vehicles on the front-line, not the reserves.  Time is everything in a fire; especially a fast moving wild fire and any delays because of a faulty vehicle will cost property and potentially lives.  My neighbors and I can’t afford for the fire-fighter’s we depend on to have any delays because the vehicle they are using does not perform as well as their front-line vehicle. ESD 4 taxpayers deserve the best in fire-fighting vehicles and equipment, not second best as we have now. 

NOTE: As of today Monday, September 12^th, we still have the problem of second best protecting our neighborhood:  Engine 410 (reserve) and Brush Truck 401 were still at ESD 4’s City Park Road Station 7. 

Bottom-line: ESD 4 would be better off getting out of providing fire protection altogether and instead contract for those services with the Austin Fire Department.  Austin Fire has generously offered to take over ESD 4’s services on more than one occasion for just the existing taxes, nothing more.  And what most do not know is that Austin already provides ESD 4 with over $315,000 in unreimbursed fire response annually.  For reasons only the ESD 4 Board can explain, they refuse to allow any formal dialog with Austin Fire.  Why the ESD 4 Board is so dismissive towards such a discussion can be explained by one word: INCOMPETENCE.  ESD 4 can’t touch what AFD would provide in services FOR THE SAME TAX DOLLARS!  AFD offers immediate improvement in service quality and would reduce homeowner insurance rates substantially because AFD has a much better ISO rating.   It’s time the ESD Board start representing the interests of the taxpayers and stop pretending its F troop operation can deliver the same services other fire departments can. It can’t!   Red fire trucks do not make a fire department.  It takes seasoned management with lots of common sense, the latest in fire resources and lots of them, quick response times, well trained fire-fighters and support services, none of which ESD 4 has now or ever will have in the future. 

Note: My next post will discuss why Travis County needs to either create a metro approach with the City of Austin for fire services and consolidate all city and county fire operations into one metro department WITH professional fire managers, or unify all ESD operations under one or two Super ESD’s using ESD 2 and ESD 6 as the day to day Super ESD managers.   These two ESD’s have exceptionally well managed fire departments with will trained staff, good equipment and career paths for its employees that includes health and retirement benefits (no one else, not even West Lake’s well funded ESD offers that type of comprehensive management structure). Travis County must get away from the unnecessarily expensive duplication of service with its 13 ESD’s (13 paid chiefs, 13 paid administrations, 13 paid command staffs), variable levels of training and service levels and eliminate once and for all the petty fire department fiefdoms managed by vain and self-serving personalities and incompetent oversight boards that plague a number of the County’s current ESD’s. Either way, the taxpayers will be better served and the quality of those services will dramatically improve.  

The Personal Cost of Taking A Stand Against BAD ESD OVERSIGHT

It appears my questions about our local fire protection has made me enemy #1 with the ESD 4 board president and neighbor Art Maples.  Below is the letter I wrote him after he questioned my  presence at a county-wide ESD Board meeting... all the ESD Boards and TC officials and two TC Commissioners (Huber and Echardt) were gathering to decide how to deal with all the existing problems (that's an understatement) with ESD's.    He was pretty hostile and rude.  Several days later he called to apologize but it really wasn't much of an apology though I thanked him and accepted it.  I felt  sorry for the man and appreciated his efforts, even though they were more mechanical than heart felt.   But I decided a follow-up letter was needed to document our discussions, my concerns and as a placeholder should further problems arise with this ESD (and they will). 

My Letter to the ESD 4 Board President
Subject: A few follow up thoughts and comments about our telephone discussion

Art,
I regret you see me as some nefarious opponent for raising very legitimate issues about  ESD 4's operational ability to meet its core fire protection responsibilities.   But my concerns are factually based and validated by my open record request for information.  I make no apologies for asking the hard questions about the services I receive.  From where I sit, our community could do far better with a real fire department that actually has the capacity for managing the day to day fire and medical protection duties.    Most disappointing is that in your position as ESD Board President you categorically find nothing wrong with ESD4's capacity and performance.    For those of us who have to pay the bills, including higher insurance premiums, and get anything but the most minimal of fire services, its not such a great deal. in fact it's a pretty bad deal. 

An ESD Board has one fundamental responsibility: to be an advocate, a fiduciary,  for the the taxpayers it serves and rigorously insure their interest comes first all the time.  The mechanism for such oversight is best described as an  arms-length relationship with the ESD fire department management.  When an ESD Board loses that ability and assumes the role of defender of the organization, its has lost its abilities to fulfill its fiduciary duties to the taxpayer.   Eventually,  someone like me, who knows something about emergency services,  will stand up and start asking questions because that is the way its done in our society.  I (we) have a right to know about the things  I (we) pay taxes for and a right to challenge actions that are not in my (our) best interest. 

Your efforts to insinuate I am driven by some "hidden agenda" is a tried and true political combat tactic to discredit the legitimacy of my right to ask questions and your responsibilities to give me fair hearing.   I still stand by my offer to answer any of your suspicions about my motives.  Characterizing me as an some "operative" may help you justify your unwillingness to engage with me on a fact for fact basis but you and whoever else at ESD 4 thinks I am on some insidious mission to unjustly discredit ESD 4 is totally without merit.  Any thoughtful person who looks at this dust up can quickly figure out I have only one interest and motive: better services.   Granted I do have my preference for who I believe could provide better fire protection, Austin Fire Department in this case,  but there is no hocus pocus involved, its straight-forward point by point comparison of who offers the better services.   Comparing fire-fighter experience, training, station locations,  response time, resource capacity (bench depth), cost for service (same as ESD 4's fire department) and impact on my insurance premiums ($750 savings annually), its pretty easy to find the better choice for the $$$'s.  Why the ESD 4 Board can't do this simple comparison is beyond me but its clear given what we pay both in taxes and in the insurance penalty, where the best choice is.  

This is not rocket science, the simple math is this:  ESD 4's  eight (8) on-duty staff, spread out between three locations that are from 15-25 minutes apart in travel time,  cannot effectively and safely manage anything more than a very small slow burning wild fire, dumpster fire or car fire.  House fires of any substance,  commercial fires (like the flea market debacle) or moderate to large wild land fires are completely outside their abilities.   And consistently leaning on the good will of other fire departments to back fill what ESD4  can't do and should be able to do themselves is an unethical way to conduct this critical public safety function.  Yet that is how your agency functions everyday and you appear to endorse and approve it. 

Remember the 3 alarm flea market fire in your district in August, 2009?  That should have been the wake-up call something was amiss.  ESD 4 was suppose to be the lead agency yet only one engine  and a  "acting" ESD 4 Battalion Chief  responded.  None of ESD 4's executive command participated in the management of the fire, not one.   If AFD had not thrown in all it's resources including on-scene command, it's any one's guess what the loss of lives and property would have been. 

Your claim ESD 4 has "auto aid" with Westlake Fire- ESD 9 as some justification your capacity is at the level required to manage the variety of fire responses real fire departments are able to handle themselves is erroneous on two fronts.  First, ESD 9  offers zero relevant help to the problems ESD 4 has in its ability to manage any call of real substance.   ESD 9 is simply too far away to be able to help in the required timeline for effective fire fighting.  Second,  in my discussions with AFD Command, as recently as yesterday, they reaffirmed they will not allow ESD 9 to enter into an auto aid with ESD 4 unless they are ready to give up their agreement with AFD and I am betting that won't happen.  Unless something has changed over the past 24 hours, ESD 4 does not have auto aid with ESD 9.  Additionally, AFD has indicated they are not inclined to extend Auto Aid to ESD 4 because the ESD 4 fire department offers them no quid pro quo.  Its not an equal relationship which is the premise for auto aid agreements.  (I'll be happy to share the AFD comments they gave me on this topic if you are interested). 

With regard to ESD 4's  recent ISO rating change from a 6 to a modified 4, I am familiar with the ISO process and as much as you are trying to suggest this reaffirms ESD 4's capacity to serve, I have to throw the caution flag.  Much of the rating has to do with elements of fire protection that is outside of ESD 4's direct efforts.  For example,  water availability (40% of the rating), and integrated 9-1-1 communications process and common fire ground radio frequencies (10%) , none of these are the result of ESD 4's direct efforts or abilities, they are supplemental and represent what others have done to improve critical support services that impact fire-fighting capacity for the region.  All of these improvement were done by the City of Austin, Travis County, Municipal Utility Districts, to name a few.  ESD 4's ISO adjustment is because it co-exists within a urban / suburban infrastructure that is improving, not because the fire department has achieved great strides in overall performance.  I'll be generous and give ESD 4 credit for some improvements (like its commitment to 3 person minimal staffing, a kudo and a new brush truck, another kudo), but we all know given the ESD's financial health, those improvements are not likely sustainable.  So again, the drum banging about ISO is another rather shady and disingenuous  way to imply something that really isn't as substantive as it appears.  

From a business standpoint, ESD 4's fire department is in financial distress and fast approaching financial failure.  Your own Auditor states that in his 2010 audit introduction.  ESD 4 has been mortally wounded by city annexations and any claims it can indeed spring back from this death spiral is sheer fantasy.   Of course it can continue to exist as a shell operation as long as there are financial reserves to off set the annual deficit but that's not the way to run any business, especially one involved in life-safety.  To presume the ESD can still provide effective fire protection is nothing less than managerial vanity and arrogance that borders on gross ignorance of the facts.  More importantly its an abdication of responsibilities for appropriately serving the taxpayers.  The only responsible choice is to either merge with or contract out the direct services of fire response to a more capable and qualified fire department and its my professional opinion the Board should have been actively seeking that remedy several years ago (certainly after the 2009 Flea Market Fire).
Here's the bigger reality for any and all ESD's that co-exist next to a growing city like Austin.  Their collective future is not growth, because there is no where to grow, but decline due to city annexation.  ESD 4 is just the first of many casualties in this natural evolutionary process.  The responsible ESD Board would be actively seeking ways to either join with other ESD's to maximize services and manage cost or developing a transition plan with the city to takeover direct fire protection responsibilities.  ESD's that get lost in the vanity of identity and see their role as defenders of the past, are on a road trip to no where.  While it might buy time for the ESD employee's, the issue should never be about the staff but about those being served.  Considerations about staff are indeed valid but not when that is prioritized over what is best for the customer.

The answer to your question about why I was present at Saturdays all ESD meeting?  I was asked to attend by Travis County,  but invite aside,  I am a taxpayer and with or without such an invite I  have every right to participate in these gatherings.  I also have every right to be heard and treated with fairness and respect. 

I have never been your critic, in fact I have repeatedly represented you as a kind, big hearted man who I felt always wanted to do what was right.  When the AFD Union told me their exchange with you left them with a much different impression I told them that was not the Art I knew.  After our recent exchange I'm realizing my characterization was perhaps too generous.  Your efforts to minimize and deny any and all of my concerns, and then grossly exaggerate the capabilities of the ESD 4 fire department in spite of the facts, is pretty disappointing.  In fact, I am still stunned with your reaction.  I never expected that from you.     

Let me wrap this up with one last comment and standing offer.  I find no enjoyment battling with a neighbor and I regret this palpable rift between us, but understand you drew this goofy battle line, it's not my choice or doing.   I would have and still do prefer a different course of action, one where we acknowledge how we both seek the best for our neighbors and friends and any differences are opportunities to better understand each others views.  In turn we use the differences to guide us toward  solutions that compliments and strengthens what each seeks for family and friends and the institution we rely on for our fire and medical safety.  It's the less common path taken and is never easy because it requires a wisdom and belief in the honorable intentions of others and a willingness to put all the issues on the table and be open to change.   Done right, however, the approach is very constructive for resolving differences and finding beneficial solutions.   Should you ever decide you'd like to end this unnecessary and life draining feud in a more positive, constructive manner,  just give me a call.  My preference is peace and friendly co-existence over the hurtfulness of an ugly tit for tat war of words.   

Sincerely, 

Gordon Bergh
ESD 4 Taxpayer