Don’t wait until it’s too late to pay attention

It seems like such a basic and simple expectation: you or your neighbor is faced with an emergency, 911 is called, and help is dispatched immediately. House fires, heart attacks, flooding, hazard material spills, car accidents, whatever, your local emergency services reacts as quickly as possible and help is on the way. In our community it happened 3,400 times last year and each and every time Arcata Fire District personnel responded. That’s three times the number of calls the district received in 1996 and twice the number of calls in 2006. Despite the focus on name “Arcata,” the district has now served the communities of McKinleyville, Manila, Samoa, Bayside, and Arcata for 76 years. If you live or work in one of these five communities, the district provides you with emergency services response by staffing the three fire stations: Arcata, McKinleyville and Mad River.

These highly trained professional and volunteer emergency service first responders have saved our lives, have saved our property, and without hesitation have been there to help in any way possible when our families needed them. Nothing fancy or elaborate — just highly competent and skillful emergency first response that each of us deserve and have come to depend on.

Now, they need our help. Especially in our corner of California providing such assistance is not simple or inexpensive.

It’s also now been 13 years since the district received an increase in funding and the number of emergency calls has doubled over that time. In other words, twice the demand supported by the same amount of funding. The current funding support dates to a property tax assessment first imposed in 1986 and reconfirmed by the voters in 1997 as a special tax, and an additional benefit assessment from 2006. Neither of these two assessments can increase due to inflation, cannot be changed without the support of voters, and by rule can only increase due to the infrequent occurrence of new properties being added to the county tax roll.

It shouldn’t surprise you that the cost of providing emergency services to the community has continued to grow, not unlike the cost of food, housing and other necessities, and has outpaced available funding. Only by severely cutting back critical expenditures over the past three years has the district has been able to defer the inevitable, but after this summer they will have no choice. Services will need to be curtailed and one of the three fire stations will have to close.

If we want to continue to fulfil that basic expectation of help arriving when needed, we also need to agree that it is important enough to support it financially. No one wishes taxes to increase but the need is critical. The ask is simple: support the passage of Measure R on the March ballot. Measure R will replace the 1997 tax.

To ensure the current level of service is maintained, Measure R will allow the community to keep all three stations open, retain two onduty firefighters at each station supported by a battalion chief supervisor; restore three previously frozen and vacant firefighter positions; and, allow a reserve fund to be established to pay for the repair and eventually replacement of needed fire engines and support equipment. Even if you never need to call AFD for help, maintaining adequate emergency response capabilities for our communities has a direct impact on the cost of your fire insurance. If the community loses emergency response capabilities, our insurance rates are likely to increase.

The Arcata Fire District is a single-purpose special district established in 1944, independent of the county of Humboldt and the city of Arcata and governed by a board who is elected directly by the voters. For additional information, questions or comments, please contact any member of the district board through the website: www.arcatafire.org.

No one wishes taxes to increase but the need is critical.