Last seen, she ran into a white truck with “Adelfio’s” on the side and jumped in and they drove away.

This means that the city council has failed the city. In desperate need of adult supervision, the City Council members on the Joint Fire commission have been combative with Belmont.  So,  unable to keep a decent relationship with Belmont’s government, they (Belmont’s representatives)  are unlikely to want to join forces with San Carlos to keep a local police presence.

The major regional newspaper has referred to San Carlos as “the broke city” and you were at the head of the ship when that happened.  Massive failure.

The City of Good Living?  What a joke.

As always, White Oaks Neighborhood Organization is AGAINST outsourcing.

Read the article.

The Chronicle describes the plan as “all but unheard of move of dissolving police force, outsourcing duties.

The men, wearing a neon Comcast vest over otherwise casual clothes, went door to door inquiring about service, implying that they were conducting a survey. They carried clipboards, as if these were customer records, but seemed not to know which service packages were in place with each home.

We contacted both Comcast and San Carlos Police Department, and here’s the story:

The men, according to Comcast regional officials in Livermore, work for a contract firm that Comcast uses for door-to-door upselling. They are not Comcast employees. Essentially, they’re trying to find out if you have Comcast and, if not, encourage you to take the service. If you already have Comcast for one or two services, such as cable TV and Internet, their mission was to suggest that you add telephone service as well. They might offer a special promotion.

What makes these door-to-door roamers appear less credible is that they don’t dress like Comcast service workers, who wear logo shirts and hat, carry Comcast identification badges and drive Comcast trucks. These subcontractors either drive unmarked cars or are dropped off by a manager.

The problem, say police, is that they do not have a city permit to solicit. Comcast feels they may not need one because of Comcast’s contract with the city to provide cable service. In any case, police say that residents should contact the department if they show up again and officers will check them out.

Police said the daylight robbery, at 11:15 a.m. on Monday, involved several suspects, described as Hispanic and between the ages of 20 and 30. After tying up the occupant, the suspects ransacked the entire house before fleeing, they said. The victim received minor injuries but required no medical treatment.

Police are investigating.

According to detective Sgt. Marti Overton, San Carlos investigators distributed still photos of the gunman to Bay Area law enforcement agencies. One detective noticed that the suspect resembled a man in a wanted photo from another jurisdiction, for a different crime.

San Carlos officers then obtained a $1 million arrest warrant and the suspect, Anthony Byrd, 24, was arrested at his East Bay home on Sunday by Hayward Police. San Carlos detectives searched the residence and found numerous pieces of suspected stolen electronic items, including flat screen TVs, computers and gaming consoles, said Overton.

On the evening of Dec. 29, the robber entered the Best Buy store at San Carlos Marketplace on Industrial Road, loaded a cart with selected items from the shelves and headed for the rear exit. When he was confronted by a store employee, the man brandished a handgun and made his escape.

Faced with a 25 percent rise in major crimes in the city during 2009, San Carlos Police have chalked up a series of key arrests lately. The department has a clearance rate of 75 percent for violent crimes – nearly twice the California average. And just a few weeks ago, police cracked what they believe was a highly organized burglary ring after a house in the Oak Creek area (upper Eaton) was entered and $30,000 worth of goods was stolen.

These successes come as the city council is considering a city staff recommendation to dissolve the police department and outsource all law enforcement functions to the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Department.

FINALLY, San Carlos residents are beginning to understand what’s at stake if the city outsources the police department to the San Mateo County Sheriff and the fire department to CalFire. Overwhelmingly, speakers at Monday’s city council budget session criticized city manager Mark Weiss’ recommendation to dismantle the departments, and some council members felt more options were needed to solve a $3.5 million budget deficit. Weiss had offered what he called his “Two Paths” approach: farming out all of public safety or slashing parks and recreation, including the possible closure of the Youth Center.

Despite the concerns of residents, a majority of the council seemed to espouse the parks-at-any-price option and instructed the city staff to further explore outsourcing police and fire. The proposals from the sheriff and CalFire may soon be joined by a proposal from Redwood City, which could offer a contract for services or some type of consolidation. It’s not known whether this would be limited strictly to police functions or might also include the fire department, which is shared jointly by Belmont and San Carlos.

If the city thought that few people cared about public safety, Monday’s meeting was a revelation. The council might also want to consider the fact that an online petition against outsourcing that we’ve started at Change.org is approaching 200 signatures. They might want to consider that a group of Central Middle School youngsters, concerned about the fate of their firefighters and police officers, have collected hundreds of signatures from fellow students urging the council not to break up the departments. And they might want to consider that an online poll from fellow blogger Chuck Gillooley (www.whiteoaksblog.com) is running two-to-one against outsourcing.

There is no escaping the fact that this issue is convulsing our city, perhaps as never before in its history. Just look at the media circus this has caused, with three Bay Area TV stations, local newspapers and even The New York Times covering the story. San Carlos has become the embarrassment of the Bay Area. So much for “The City of Good Living.” Our image is going down in flames.

Police and fire protection represents the foundation, the bedrock of city government, and for anyone to speak of these dedicated men and women in terms of numbers and costs is hard to swallow. Nothing personal about this, insists the mayor and some council members, it’s only business.

I’ve got news for them. It’s VERY personal.

These officers and firefighters had a choice of where they could work, and they chose San Carlos. The motivation for entering public safety professions is rarely just a paycheck, since no amount of compensation can replace an officer or firefighter who dies in the line of duty. Here in San Carlos, where public safety salaries are among the lowest in the region, the performance of our employees has consistently been outstanding. The police department has one of the highest crime-solving records in California. The fire department has such an esprit de corps of training that it has been entrusted with running an elite hazardous materials unit for all of San Mateo County. In case of a chemical spill or a terrorist attack, they would be the first responders. And how dangerous might that be?

Further, 10 years of staff cutbacks in these departments have created mounting frustration and often long hours of overtime, especially with the police department. We’re supposed to have four officers and a sergeant on duty during the weekdays, and an extra officer on weekends. But, in fact, we often don’t hit those levels because of sickness, court duty and vacations. This means that just one major incident – an armed robbery, a bar brawl or an injury traffic accident – can quickly overwhelm the small force and require calls for backup from neighboring police departments. To be honest, our officers are putting on a game face, but they are approaching burnout.

The same is true with the fire department. A bare-bones contingent of 6-7 firefighters staffs our two fire stations, and there is neither enough equipment nor sufficient manpower to send to even a modest structure fire. Again, help is often requested of neighboring jurisdictions.

So, the men and women of these departments have been doing a lot more with less, year after year. They have stretched themselves for our community, gone the extra mile to solve a crime or rescue someone from a burning house. Officers chase burglars, stop vehicles with gang members, remove drunk drivers from the streets to keep them from killing someone, and talk to our troubled youth.

And now they might be sent packing. If you were in their shoes, you might well be asking: “What kind of thanks is this?”

Many of these public safety employees live in our community, have kids who go to our schools and enjoy a picnic in our parks just like anyone else. Frankly, because of the high cost of housing on the Peninsula, living here is often beyond the range of affordability for public safety employees. Since many commute long distances from out of town, we should be grateful for the ones who are here.

Not personal? Here’s what will happen if these departments are tossed aside like a broken puzzle:

• Folding the police department into the Sheriff’s Department will result in immediate demotions because of an incompatible organizational structure. Chief Greg Rothaus, whom many regard as one of the finest law enforcement professionals anywhere, will be bumped down to Captain, and the San Carlos Police Station will become a “substation” of the county. Our two commanders will be demoted to lieutenant or sergeant, since there is no comparable position within the sheriff’s department. Our five sergeants – who make up the front line of supervisors on our streets – could be reassigned to East Palo Alto or some lonely mountain beat or even to the County Jail. How’s that for building a career, for getting hard-earned promotions, for honing your skills with advanced training? Here’s your new assignment and see ya later!

• CalFire, an agency with a runaway budget that moves faster than a wind-whipped forest fire, would quickly set off an exodus of our firefighters if it takes over in San Carlos. The reasons? Lower pay, longer hours and deployment that can move people anywhere in the state. The firefighters who have come to know every street and business and school in San Carlos could be packed off to Paso Robles, or anywhere that the state has a wildfire emergency. CalFire hiring standards are lower because the agency does not perform background checks. Also, there are questions about whether CalFire has the same depth of specialty training on areas such as hazardous materials and emergency medical support. When CalFire was brought in to service the Coastside Fire District over on the San Mateo County coast, most of the existing firefighters there – one estimate is 75 percent – quickly left.

Not personal?

No matter what the city council does, this city government is already sucking the life out of our police and fire professionals. Many of them have had it with this place, and they want nothing more but to move on. We’ll see the departures of key supervisory people soon – those who created the pride and professionalism of these two departments. Losing our seasoned and experienced supervisors will leave a huge hole, and our community will suffer for it.

On top of that, the fire department, which has a preponderance of young and highly-skilled firefighters, stands to lose many of them to other departments. And what kind of waste of tax dollars is it to train these people and then push them out the door? Does this impact the safety and security of our community? Even if we were to get the same staffing levels and the same vehicles through an outsourcing scheme, what will be left of our departments? Not much, I suspect. Once we go down this path, how difficult would it be to put the genie back into the bottle if we ever changed our minds?

I can envision a scenario in which, if these departments are broken up, the city manager and some council members might shake hands with these professionals and wish them luck. Kind of like the layoff specialists from the movie, “Up in the Air.”

After all, it’s just business. Nothing personal.

– Ken Castle

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Note from Administrator

We will not be kind: we are vehemently against this proposal.  It is a BAD idea, and we do not want this implemented in our city.  We are prepared to take action to stop this.

There is little doubt that regionalism in public safety is becoming a trend. Just this week it was announced that Burlingame and San Mateo are taking the first steps toward a merged police department. Millbrae and San Bruno are in talks to do the same thing. As cities struggle to find solutions to their budget challenges, consolidations look very tempting, especially if the savings are substantial.

In San Carlos, the city needs to close a $3.5 million budget gap, and Weiss has presented a “Two Paths” plan; with one option that drastically cuts all city departments — including Parks and Recreation — and another that pulls all of the savings out of public safety by outsourcing police to the sheriff and the San Carlos portion of the fire department to CalFire, the state agency.

The way that the city staff is embracing the outsource concept, Two Paths are looking more like One Track – and a fast one at that. In the first council budget session last Saturday (the next one is this Monday, March 22, at 6 p.m. in city council chambers) , the city management put up rosy numbers that would purportedly save millions on the outsource option – and provide the city with a fat surplus, to boot. Officers would drive around in the same cars that say “San Carlos Police.” There would be no loss of jobs. No closure of parks and recreation programs. All of the fun stuff in town would continue. And we all live happily ever after!

What could be wrong with that picture?

The devil, as they say, is in the details. First, this community, which has had an excellent fire department (with our partner, Belmont) and a police department that consistently exceeds statewide averages for solving crimes, deserves more than “Two Paths” and a rush to judgment in remaking the structure of our city government. Is public safety no longer the sum of men and women with commitment and dedication? Is it just a commodity?

Here are questions that ought to be asked – and answered – before the city unloads public safety and pops the Champagne corks:

Talking with Other Cities

1. Why hasn’t this city done the most obvious thing much earlier – talk to Redwood City and Belmont, or even other nearby cities, about merging police departments? We’ve known since early November, when Measure U failed, that options were needed. Why is it that we’re just hearing about other possibilities now?

We learned, just last week, that Redwood City would consider submitting a proposal if it felt that San Carlos city council members were serious about reviewing one. How proactive has our city been in reaching out? Is the overture something like, “Let’s roll up our sleeves and collaborate!” or is it more like a tepid invitation along the lines of, “We might be interested in entertaining a proposal”?

Outsource Other Departments Instead

2. Why should police and fire be the only departments under the “outsource” prism? Why not consider ALL city departments? For that matter, how much would we save if we outsourced everything and just became an unincorporated ward of the county?

The city says that giving police functions to the sheriff could save between $2 million and $3.5 million a year, maybe enough to offset the entire deficit right there! How did the city arrive at those numbers? And how can the county provide the same level of police services to our city for so much less?

San Carlos is normally staffed with four officers and one sergeant per 12-hour shift during the weekdays, and typically five officers on weekends. The sheriff’s bid proposes to have three deputies and one roaming South County sergeant for all shifts. How would the sheriff proposal not represent a significant decrease in staffing?

Since the sheriff’s department patrols widely scattered and mostly rural areas – places such as Woodside and Portola Valley – how can it effectively deploy deputies quickly if San Carlos needs them? And if we have to continue relying on mutual aid from police in Belmont and Redwood City, would those cities charge us for those calls?

Sheriff’s Impact on San Carlos

3. What impact would there be on our police department and community by allowing the sheriff’s department to absorb our command staff, demote our chief to a captain, demote our experienced commanders to sergeants, and perhaps send one or more of our five sergeants to other corners of the county? How does San Carlos benefit by having fewer supervisors on incidents that take quick-thinking and deep experience?

How Would Priorities Be Set?

4.  When the sheriff’s proposal talks about having one full-time detective assigned to San Carlos – as opposed to our existing investigative team of three detectives and a sergeant – how does that translate into following up and solving crimes? Do we gain feet on the ground — or lose them? How would priorities be established for following up on property crimes such as burglaries, thefts, vandalism and larceny? How much of the sheriff’s investigative infrastructure would be utilized in San Carlos?

San Carlos officers rely heavily on the unsung heroes of the department – the four Police Service Technicians (PSTs) and three Commmunity Service Officers (CSOs) – who assist in many day-to-day functions that allow the officers to spend more time patrolling the streets. Since the sheriff’s department proposes to keep only the CSOs involved directly in San Carlos and to reassign the PSTs elsewhere, what impact would that have on local police services?

How Would This Impact Quality of Services?

5.  How many of our veteran officers and command staff would simply leave with a sheriff’s department takeover, and how would that affect the quality of police services in our city?

The San Carlos Police Association has issued a statement calling the sheriff’s proposal “vague.” It says: “The reason they are saving the city $3.5 million is because they are cutting the police services by almost half. The proposal assigns a total of 14 deputies to the City of San Carlos, which is down from the 27 officers San Carlos now uses to police the city. The City of San Carlos currently has the lowest police officer ratio per capita in San Mateo County and is well below the national average, and the Sheriff’s office is proposing to cut that in half?”

So, if we compare apples and apples, are we getting half a barrel? And if we kept staffing levels the same as they are now under a sheriff’s department takeover, how much of the so-called “savings” would evaporate?

The residents of San Carlos deserve answers to all of these questions before the city council makes a decision that would be difficult or impossible to undo in the future. Maybe we’ll hear more on Monday at the next council budget session.

– Ken Castle

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ALARMS are going off everywhere – except, apparently, in City Hall — over a proposal to outsource the San Carlos portion of the Belmont-San Carlos Fire Department to the state-run CalFire agency.

A report issued yesterday from City Manager Mark Weiss’ office suggested that the city could save $1.2 million to $2 million a year by turning over all firefighting functions to CalFire, formerly known as the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CDF). The idea is to help offset an expected $3.5 million budget deficit for the next fiscal year.

The San Carlos City Council will review the proposal, starting with a Saturday, March 13, budget work session that will be held from noon to 5 p.m. on the second floor of the library, with the public invited to attend. See the full city staff report.

In the context of these deliberations, there has been ongoing strife between San Carlos and Belmont over the cost-sharing formula for running the jointly-managed Belmont-San Carlos Fire Department. Reportedly more heat was generated this week at a meeting of the fire board, which includes two council members from each of the two cities.

Also, San Mateo County supervisors may have concerns over what might become of the department’s hazardous materials response team, which is responsible for serving the entire county. As the county’s designated hazmat unit, the department receives nearly a half-million dollars a year from the county. The team includes a vehicle, special equipment that can deal with toxic leaks as well as terrorist attacks, and special training for firefighters.

But there’s more – much more – that the city council is not getting from the city staff report, which was prepared by Assistant City Manager Brian Moura.

Apart from taking a hard look at the accuracy of CalFire’s numbers, or the city staff’s mathematics, there are major issues swirling around the operations of CalFire, its relations with communities that have contracts with the agency, and skyrocketing cost increases to the state government that have drawn attention in Sacramento and could well have repercussions for any community with a CalFire agreement.

Weiss is familiar with CalFire. Before becoming San Carlos city manager five years ago, he was assistant city manager in La Quinta, the desert resort town 120 miles east of San Diego, and city manager in Half Moon Bay, just over the hill. In press comments (The Daily Journal, March 8), Weiss pointed to La Quinta as a sterling example of the workability of outsourcing fire services to CalFire. Fire trucks bore the city’s name and, according to Weiss’ comments in the Journal, “To the outside it looked like nothing had changed.”

But, if he were to revisit his former place of employment, he might discover that things aren’t exactly rosy with CalFire. La Quinta’s fire services are provided by the Riverside County Fire Department, and it is that agency with the contract. CalFire bills the county for its services, and right now there’s more smoldering going on in the SoCal desert than a five-day-old forest fire.

The spark came from a Riverside County Grand Jury report that urged Riverside to dump CalFire and form its own locally-controlled fire district.
The reasons? Little ones like this: CalFire has been piling on huge increases in its fees to the county – in fact, more than double. “Over the last six years, state administrative charges have increased from a low of $5.5 million in fiscal year 2002-2003 to a high of $12.5 million in fiscal year 2007-2008,” said the grand jury report. Yet another fee hike was tacked on for 2009-2010.

Can we expect more of the same here if we get in bed with CalFire? Would it be like those lovely “teaser” rates the banks offered on mortgages before jacking them up the second year?

Another issue identified by the Riverside Grand Jury: CalFire does not have mandatory background checks on its new hires, meaning that people with criminal records might get on board. With the Belmont-San Carlos Fire Department, there are strict background checks on all potential firefighters, so that no one with, say, a burglary record, would have access to homes during fire or medical emergencies. Said the grand jury report: “Background checks are neither mandatory nor a requirement for CalFire applicants.” Really? Isn’t that something the public should know about?

Other issues cited by the report: missing county equipment under CalFire’s watch, and holding back the deployment of vehicles during calls so as to save money by summoning volunteer firefighters instead of sending the paid staff. The report said this latter practice could put people and property at risk in a major emergency. The grand jury recommended that the county explore the creation of its own fire department, just as San Bernardino County did 12 years ago when it voted to show CalFire the exit door after a similarly unhappy relationship.

Is there a pattern here, and should the city management have known this?
There’s more. Things aren’t exactly harmonious in Half Moon Bay, either. That city is part of the Coastside Fire District, which stretches north to Montara. A few years ago a dispute over fire services between those two communities – does that sound familiar? – led to the breakup of the locally controlled agency and the hiring of CalFire. But now, there’s a growing chorus of discontent with CalFire. Those towns might now be looking to find other partners – maybe even on this side of the hill.

Comparable to San Carlos’ hazmat squad, Coastside had developed an elite surf rescue team, another unique and localized service that is frequently needed when people get into trouble in the ocean. But, according to one coastal fire official that we spoke with, “CalFire’s idea of surf rescue was to back a truck to the edge of a cliff and toss a cable over the side.”

Also, when CalFire came aboard on the coast, well-trained local firefighters quit en masse, with one estimate putting turnover at 75 percent. And where did they go? Several of them came to – guess where? – the Belmont-San Carlos Fire Department.

Now, San Carlos faces a similar exodus of highly-skilled firefighters – people who know every street and every person who needs frequent emergency medical help – if CalFire is admitted into the city.

It gets worse. While the city manager report claims that neither of San Carlos’ two fire stations would be closed – with Station 16 on Alameda de las Pulgas the most vulnerable – don’t bet the farm that CalFire would be able to hold to that promise for very long.

Here’s the kicker: The State Legislative Analyst – the government watchdog office that peeks over the shoulders of state agencies – says that CalFire is not only spending too much money at a time when state finances are bordering on bankruptcy, but that the agency is straying from its core mission of fighting rural and remote wildland fires. It calls CalFire’s expansion of services beyond this as “mission creep.”

The report had plenty of criticism for how CalFire conducts business: “Our analysis indicates that CalFire’s budget for its core mission of fighting wildland fires has increased substantially due to the occurrence of large fires, increased labor costs, and the development of more housing in fire-prone areas. In addition, CalFire spends considerable time and effort responding to non-wildland fire emergencies. Because the department’s accounting system does not track the costs for these non-wildland fire calls, we cannot quantify the cost of these noncore mission activities. However, in 2006, department personnel spent about 30 percent of their response time on calls not related to wildland fires. We are concerned that the costs of expanding the mission of CalFire – a phenomenon often referred to as mission creep – are significant.”

And how does the Legislative Analyst believe that CalFire could reduce its costs? Among other things, by “closing low-priority fire stations,” that is, stations that are not used enough for wildland fire fighting.

So, if CalFire were running San Carlos fire services, since more than 50 percent of the calls to the Alameda station are non-fire medical emergencies, would this put the station into the “low priority” category? Would CalFire come back a year from now and say, oops, sorry, gotta close that station because we already have one on Cordilleras (in the Edgewood Canyon area)?  And what would that do to our fire insurance premiums, with help being 8 minutes instead of 2 or 3 minutes away? What would the Legislative Analyst say about CalFire soliciting high-density suburban communities – like San Carlos — for contracts?

And when the San Carlos city manager talks about a 19.5 percent increase in city fire service costs over a four-year period from 2006 to the present – costs that are largely the result of retirement and medical benefits approved by past city councils – how does this stack up to CalFire?

Guess what? CalFire’s costs to the state general fund have more than tripled in 10 years, rising from $307 million in the 1998-99 year to $967 million – just shy of a billion bucks – in the current year. “Over the same time period,” said the report, “the General Fund base budget alone has increased from $267 million to more than $530 million – an increase of almost 100 percent in the same decade.”

Is this the kind of agency we want to get in bed with?

And there are many questions our council members should be asking: Why hasn’t the city explored cooperative arrangements with other neighboring cities, where fire departments have comparable high standards and operations? Is it because our feud with Belmont makes us untouchable? And if so, who is responsible for burning those bridges?

If a deal with CalFire was so economical and efficient, why aren’t other cities in the county pursuing one? The answer: They are not. They are looking to make nice with their neighboring cities, create expanded fire districts of two or more communities, and keep fire fighting local, as it should be.

In short, would a deal with CalFire be like jumping from the frying pan into the fire?

– Ken Castle

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