Oceano needs to let the county take over fire services

July 14, 2024

OPINION by JULIE TACKER

In response to the July 11, SLO New Times commentary “Negative for Oceano” by former Oceano Community Services District Board member Karen White, she mistakenly claims she is the “immediate past president of the OCSD.”

White last served as OCSD board president on Nov. 9, 2022. Board member Linda Austin is the “immediate past president,” having served in that role from Dec. 2022 until Jan. 2024, when Charles Varni was elected to the seat.

White claims that emergency services response times were shorter when the Oceano fire station was in use. White fails to mention that since 2020, while she simultaneously served as OCSD vice president and chair of the Five Cities Fire Authority, the Oceano station was “browned out” (only used part time) because of
“staffing shortages.”

Emergency crews have been answering calls for Oceano residents from the Arroyo Grande and Grover Beach fire stations for much of the last four years.

With costs of all things on the rise, most of us tighten our belts. The Five Cities Fire Authority Board, made up of two council members from the cities of Arroyo Grande and Grover Beach apparently hasn’t tightened the belt.

In January, the fire authority held a retirement party for outgoing Chief Stephen Lieberman. While still employed as the Chief, Leiberman invited fifty-plus individuals to the party, including past board member White. The exclusive party included tacos with all the trimmings, battery-operated light-up fire truck pins as favors, room and table decorations, cake and a plaque recognizing the chief’s years of work.

While Chief Leiberman deserved a retirement party, it should not have been characterized as “public relations” and over $2,000 paid by the fire authority. Ironically, the receipts were in front of the fire authority board (whose members were also invited to the affair) for approval in April, after the party was over, and Chief Leiberman was long gone.

During the same meeting the board approved the fiscal year 2024-2025 annual budget. The budget reveals the fire authority, with or without Oceano’s contribution, is underfunded for its intended goals. (These meetings are audio recorded but are no longer available on the FCFA website).

As the divestiture of fire services concludes, Oceano will lose some of its assets as part of the divestiture, but nothing that wouldn’t go with emergency services anyway. The OCSD’s property tax allocation and public facility fees are earmarked for emergency services.

The fire station should go with the service. Once renovated (estimated to cost $2 million, which neither the county nor the OCSD has) it will come back online. As for renting the office space from the county, from a funding standpoint, that space should have been “rented” through fund transfers from water, sewer, lighting, parks and recreation contributions to the upkeep of the building all along.

The sheriff’s station, which the OCSD built and rented to the county, merely switches the responsibility and care for the station to the county or which they paid the OCSD for. Historically OCSD used the rental income to pay the debt and costs to maintain.

The loss of reserves White refers to are those intended for new flooring in the sheriff’s station. That money was going to go into the building anyway. Now the OCSD will do nothing for the county related to that property. The “losses” in the OCSD budget are proportional to the reduction in services.

White points to and blames Charles Varni for the 2020 and 2022 failures of the $180 annual per property fire tax measures for the losses to Oceano. Yet in 2014 the fire authority, with White on the board, attempted to float an assessment district at $66.00 per single family home annually, the vote included all three communities and failed miserably. Of the 4,594 ballots cast, a whopping 59.6% of those ballots opposed the assessment district, with only 40.4% in support.

Simply put, increasing taxes doesn’t excite anyone. Paying for a retirement party instead of boots and hoses just irks us taxpayers.