The Hollister Fire Department will take over fire service in the county in June as San Benito County Supervisors on Tuesday approved a contract with the city not to exceed $1,106,715 per year.
Supervisors voted 4-0, with Supervisor Robert Rivas absent from the meeting, to approve the contract as is at Tuesday’s special board meeting with little discussion of the contract.
Supervisor Margie Barrios said she wanted more specific language in the contract related to potential expansion of services in north and south county areas.
“This is not as specific as we would have liked,” Barrios said. “I want to know your thoughts on it.”
Newly named Fire Chief Michael O’Connor said the city did not include any specifics until it had the contract signed.
“We will be coming back to you within a year to report where the site will be (for north county,)” he said. “We have several possibilities but we couldn’t enter into negotiations until we had the contract.”
He said Interim County Administrative Officer Ray Espinosa had also offered a few locations that could work as a north county fire station. O’Connor said Fire Station No. 1 in Hollister will serve as the deployment point for north county services until a permanent site is found.
“My intent is that it be a proactive approach,” Barrios said. “As long as we know there will be a lot of dialogue about what the plan is for north county and south county.”
O’Connor said that while there is no timeline to build a station in south county he said his agency was looking at volunteers as a potential solution for service. He said city or fire officials will be making quarterly reports to the supervisors.
“I hope the fire committee will stay on top of it and report back,” said Supervisor Anthony Botelho, who served on the fire committee with Supervisor Jerry Muenzer for the last year.
The contract with the city for fire service will run through July 1, 2015, when it will begin automatically renewing each year unless one of the parties terminates the contract. The contract states that it may not be increased by more than 3 percent, based on the consumer price index.
Supervisors gave authority to Espinosa to notify Calfire the county will not be renewing with them for the 2013-14 fiscal year. Espinosa said they moved the start date up for the negotiated contract with the city from July 1 so as not to impact services during the Fourth of July weekend or the motorcycle rally.
