Santa Maria has grown by 30,000 people since 2000, and it’s still growing. In 2018 and 2019, the city issued building permits for more than 500 housing units, city Public Information Officer Mark van de Kamp said.
Keeping up with the public safety needs that come along with an increased population has been a challenge, one the city is meeting in part through Measure U—a 1 percent sales tax passed in 2018—and in part through grants. Funds generated by the measure make up roughly 38 percent of the Santa Maria Fire Department’s budget this year, according to a public safety assessment on fire presented to the Santa Maria City Council on Jan. 21.
“If we didn’t have Measure U, that would be a significant hit to our budget,” Santa Maria Fire Chief Leonard Champion told the Sun. “Measure U is critical, I guess, in keeping public safety at its current level. The community just appreciates that. That’s what they did when they voted in 2018 for that measure. They believe public safety is our No. 1 priority.”
On April 10, 17 new firefighters will graduate from the Santa Maria Fire Department’s in-house fire academy thanks to Measure U. The very next day, Santa Maria’s downtown Fire Station 1 will add a second engine company with three full-time firefighters to its ranks, bringing its total firefighters on duty in the city to 19.
“It will provide more coverage when there are multiple calls going on,” Champion said. “It’s our busiest station.”
Station 1 often gets multiple calls coming in at once, and having two units will help the department respond more quickly to those second and third calls. Starting in April, District 1 won’t have to wait for a station farther away to respond to that second call.
Increasing the number of long-term permanent firefighters on duty and adding another engine to the department’s fleet were included as one of the goals in the fire safety assessment. Although Measure U funds helped, Champion said garnering grant funding was key, as well.
Without those two additional sources of revenue, the fire department wouldn’t be in the position that it’s in, he said.
“Our fleet, the citywide fleet, is still recovering from the 2008/2009 recession,” Champion said. “It was one of the things that didn’t get funded the way it should of been because money was going to services that were needed to just keep going.”
The city first passed Measure U in 2012 as a quarter-cent sales tax. It funded staffing at Station 5. When Measure U passed in 2018, it kept that staff in place and helped replace a 20-year-old wildland brush fire truck at the station.
Without that funding, Champion said, the city would be having tough conversations about the existing staffing for Station 5. And with the costs of pensions, salaries plus benefits, and general operations creeping higher and higher, there might also be a conversation about Station 4, he added. And, the department certainly wouldn’t be talking about new equipment.
Plus, funds from the measure are one of the reasons the city was awarded a $1.6 million SAFER grant for training and staffing. The grant gives the department 75 percent of the funding for the additional response unit the first and second years, and 30 percent for the third year. After that, it’s up to the city to provide for the cost of those positions.
With Measure U expected to generate up to $19.3 million a year, according to the safety assessment, the money is also going to fund a brand new position below Champion’s, a deputy fire chief who started on Feb. 3; more office staff; and two new fire inspector positions for the fire prevention bureau side of the department.
The administrative office has had two staffers for the past 30 years or longer, and in that time the department has more than doubled its call volume, Champion said. Every new plan and building needs to be inspected by the city fire marshals, as well, and as the city has grown, the fire department has struggled to keep up with the workload.
“They’ve got a lot on their plate and they weren’t always able to meet those needs because of the short staff,” Champion said. “Now we’ve been able to do the things that we haven’t been able to do over the years.”
City Councilmember Etta Waterfield, who is the executive director of the Santa Maria Police Council, said residents passed Measure U again, and increased the sales tax, because the city kept its promises from 2012, spending the money on public safety and not other things.
“We’re just staying true to the 90 percent going to public safety and the other 10 percent going to other needs and the youth task force,” Waterfield said. “We’ve increased police officers … constituents have seen exactly what we’ve been doing.”
The city has also been smart with its money, Waterfield said. Through those grants and a savings account to fund capital projects, the city hasn’t racked up any debt as public safety services have grown. So the funding coming in from Measure U goes directly into the departments, not to pay down debt.
Now that the Santa Maria Airport is bringing flights back, the fire department will be staffing the airport as well, Waterfield and Champion said. The more activity at the airport, the higher the pressure will be on the fire department to provide service there, Waterfield said.
“Santa Maria is just growing by leaps and bounds,” Waterfield said. “It’s not going to stop anytime soon … . It’s all good, you know, these are the pains of a growing city.”
Reach Editor Camillia Lanham at clanham@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Feb 6-13, 2020.
