Regional aerial firefighting base will remain at Hollister
Airport
The lease for Hollister’s CDF air attack base will be renewed by
the city for five more years, meaning a vital component of the
region’s fire protection is no longer in jeopardy of moving to the
Central Valley, as public safety officials feared late last
year.
The lease for Hollister’s CDF air attack base will be renewed by the city for five more years, meaning a vital component of the region’s fire protection is no longer in jeopardy of moving to the Central Valley, as public safety officials feared late last year.
A new base equipped with increased firefighting capacity will not be finished until 2005, a result of the city’s failure to negotiate a lease with CDF in a timely manner. However, CDF officials say the state’s $35 billion deficit will not delay construction of the new base further.
“Everybody’s happy with what we’re doing,” said Assistant Chief George Haines. “It looks like we’re going to be done sometime in 2005.”
But CDF has not stuck to its original negotiating plan either. Originally the state fire agency wanted a new 10-acre piece of land for around $25,000 a year. But the city wanted $92,000 and was slow in getting the land’s value appraised.
CDF officials threatened to move the base elsewhere. Such negotiating tactics have ceased for the moment, said Deputy Public Works Director Lawrence Jackson, who has handled the deal for the city.
“We had very a very agreeable cordial phone conference to extend their contract,” Jackson said.
That means CDF will continue paying $15,600 annually for about three acres of space when the current lease runs out in April. The 1960s-era air base offers fire protection for a region spanning from Alameda to Merced to Carmel Valley to Santa Cruz.
“(The new lease) has not been dropped, it’s been put off,” he said.”It’s still a possibility, but at this moment with the confusion of the state budget they don’t feel comfortable talking about that.”
A new air base is important, say public safety officials, as it would increase firefighting efficiency by about 10 percent. That means it could have launched 99 missions instead of the roughly 90 flown over last fall’s devastating Croy fire in the Santa Cruz Mountains. CDF planes have been credited on several occasions with saving San Benito County homes and property from ravaging fires by dropping payloads of red fire retardant.
The CDF now has three concrete pads on which to fuel and load aircraft with the retardant, and it takes crews about three minutes to get into the sky. The new base would be designed with faster fuel and retardant pumps and would include an extra loading pad. The new site would also have a generator in the event of a natural disaster – something lacking at the existing base.
Hollister Councilman Robbie Scattini said he is glad CDF will be staying.
“We need that here for fires and security,” he said. “It’s a valuable resource. I was concerned and I think that a lot of other people felt the same way.”
Scattini also said it’s his understanding negotiations for a new base were in fact halted because of the state’s budget crunch. However, the construction timeline gives both sides plenty of time work out an agreement for a new base.
“That’s fine, it’s not going to be overnight anyway,” he said.
Since the city failed to negotiate in a timely manner, CDF officials contended last fall the cost and time to build a new base had risen from $4.7 million to $8 million and had moved from 2003 to 2005. But they are adamant the increased cost will not force the state to rethink construction at such a fiscally delicate time.
“The funding sources have not been affected by the state’s budget shortfall,” Haines said.
