Lompoc Interim Fire Chief Brian Federmann is well aware of the health risks that his job carries. But seeing those risks impact one of the Lompoc Fire Department’s own made it all a bit more real.
“Cancer has become quickly one of the No. 1 killers in firefighting,” Federmann said. “It used to be heart attacks, and cancer is growing with the carcinogens that we breathe.”
Firefighters inhale carcinogens while putting out fires but also from diesel exhaust that comes from fire engines. It has become an industry standard to implement a diesel extraction system into fire stations, but Lompoc doesn’t have one yet. In 2019, one of Lompoc’s firefighters was diagnosed with work-related colon cancer.
“Diesel soot is a known carcinogen to cause cancer, and specifically colon cancer,” Federmann said. “Having known that this is a growing concern in the fire service as a whole, but then seeing it impact one of our own brings it close to home. I think anybody in the community can relate to that, because we all know somebody who has been diagnosed with cancer.”
This isn’t the only instance of work-related cancer to come out of the Lompoc Fire Department: former Fire Chief Linual White died of cancer in 2017, which was believed to have been contracted on the job.
Federmann asked the City Council to consider funding diesel extraction systems for their fire stations at a May 20 special meeting. It was among a few key improvements that Federmann said the Fire Department desperately needs, such as additions to their vehicle fleet and a seismic evaluation of Fire Station 51.
He was hopeful that funding from one of the federal stimulus bills could be used to budget for these needs, but confusion around what American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) money can be used for is creating more questions than answers. City officials want to find room in the general fund to get the extraction system in the budget, but this is just one of many capital projects identified as priorities by the city’s public safety departments.
“When we first got the ARPA, we were told it was going to be, ‘You can use it for whatever you want,’” Lompoc Management Services Director Dean Albro said at a second special meeting held on June 3. “And then when we got the guidance we realized that that’s not really the case. So there’s a lot of capital improvements that we were planning on funding through the ARPA.”
What adds to the uncertainty is that this guidance is only interim. The U.S. Treasury is currently collecting feedback from cities and other stakeholders, which can be submitted until July 16 and may change what’s eligible in the final guidance. This leaves cities like Lompoc, which needs to pass a budget by the end of the month, in the lurch.
When the interim guidelines were released, city staff “were in the final throes of producing the budget book, and had hoped to just plug in this additional money to accomplish some things we haven’t been able to accomplish for a while,” Lompoc Mayor Jenelle Osborne told the Sun. “So it created, unfortunately, instead of clarity, more confusion.”
Santa Maria is in the middle of its two-year budget cycle. So although the city doesn’t have to deal with passing an entire budget while also navigating the Rescue Plan, the lack of clarity is affecting Santa Maria, too.
“ARPA is not considered as part of the 2021-22 revenues because those are one-time funds and there is uncertainty about eligible projects,” Santa Maria Public Information Manager Mark van de Kamp told the Sun via email. “Although ARPA legislation intends to address impacts of the coronavirus pandemic and bolster the economic recovery, the U.S. Treasury guidance on eligible uses is far more limiting than anticipated.”
Luckily, van de Kamp noted, Santa Maria has resources to figure it out.
“City management staff are actively evaluating possible projects that will meet ARPA eligibility requirements,” he said. “Back in May, the City Council approved receipt of the funds, as well as approving the hiring of temporary personnel to oversee some of the funded projects. As staff secures accurate guidance, updates will be brought back to the City Council.”
Lompoc Mayor Osborne said that when the temporary ARPA guidance was released, it was overwhelming for the city’s limited staff.
“In our finance department, we’re down about 50 percent of our personnel,” she said.
Plus, Lompoc doesn’t have any reserves to fall back on, which Osborne said makes it difficult to commit to funding a public safety project with ARPA dollars: If it turns out the federal money can’t be used for this, then the city would need some extra money lying around to backfill the cost.
“If I had [money] sitting in a reserve fund, and we went out and bought a new fire truck with it, and they said, ‘Oh no, the fire truck doesn’t qualify [for ARPA],’ then I wouldn’t feel so bad because I could go to that reserve,” Osborne said. “We unfortunately aren’t one of those cities.”
Lompoc Councilmember Gilda Cordova acknowledged that a lack of excess general funds isn’t city staff’s fault. But, she continued, Lompoc needs to find a way to bring in more revenue if it ever wants to fund everything in the capital improvement program report.
“At the end of the day, we are never going to solve any of these issues if we don’t start bringing in more money,” Cordova said. “The cannabis tax was one of the things that hopefully will pan out the way we all expect it to, and that can start coming in.”
Lompoc City Council recently voted to hold a special election on Aug. 31, where residents will get to decide whether to increase taxes on the local cannabis industry. If it passes, Osborne said it would help tremendously with getting capital projects done.
“It would absolutely for me—and by the sounds of the rest of council—it would be a very high priority,” she said, “to tackle a lot of the shortfalls in our public safety department.”
At the end of the June 3 special meeting, Councilmember Dirk Starbuck made a motion to get the Fire Department’s diesel extraction system in the budget.
“They have a lot of things they want in here, but this appears to me to be a safety issue, probably above the structure [earthquake evaluation] at this point,” he said.
The motion passed 5-0. Chief Federmann said the vote was an encouraging start.
“Councilmember Starbuck brought up adding the diesel extraction systems … so it looks like those are going to get into the proposed budget that will be brought forward on June 15,” Federmann said. “We’re very hopeful that they will be included and that they will be adopted. That will be a huge, huge improvement for the health and safety of our members.”
As for some of the other capital improvement projects that the Fire Department and other divisions are hopeful for, the City Council will have to wait and see how the ARPA guidelines get hammered out.
“With respect to the ARPA funding, like every division in multiple communities, everybody’s just trying to figure out what the rules of engagement are,” Federmann said. “We understand there’s a lot of needs throughout our community. Just hearing the council trying to address a couple of them to the best of their ability right now with a limited budget—we’re encouraged.”
Send Staff Writer Malea Martin your story ideas at mmartin@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Jun 17-24, 2021.