EDITORIAL: City slouches toward a dismal future

Published 1:45 pm Wednesday, June 8, 2022

Baker City’s Fire Department is slouching into an unfortunate and dismal future, and the City Council seems unwilling to prevent this ignominious fate.

Baker County, which, as City Manager Jonathan Cannon has emphasized, is legally responsible for ensuring there is ambulance service within the city, is trying to fulfill that obligation.

Two private ambulance companies — Metro West Ambulance of Hillsboro, and Victory EMS of Boise — responded to the county’s request for proposals by the June 3 deadline. On Wednesday morning, June 8, commissioners approved the recommendation from an advisory committee to accept Metro West’s proposal.

The sad reality, however, is that county commissioners didn’t of their own volition start courting private firms interested in replacing the Baker City Fire Department as ambulance provider within the city and for about two-thirds of the rest of the county.

The City Council, prompted by Cannon, left commissioners with no alternative but to solicit a successor. The Council on March 22 notified the county that the city intended to curtail ambulance service Sept. 30, 2022.

Councilors have shown little interest in the ensuing two and a half months in trying to preserve the dual-role fire department that has served city residents, and many who live outside the city limits, for the better part of a century.

There was a brief period of optimism when, on May 10, councilors voted 7-0 to direct Cannon to prepare a response to the county’s solicitation. That vote came after 18 residents, among a capacity crowd at City Hall, implored councilors to have the fire department retain its ambulance service and, in so doing, avoid cutting the department from 16.25 full-time equivalent positions to 10.5.

But councilors wasted that opportunity two weeks later, voting 4-2 to reverse the decision and not submit a proposal by June 3. Both Councilor Dean Guyer, who suggested the city not submit a proposal, and Joanna Dixon, who voted for the motion, suggested the city could still potentially negotiate a deal with the county after the June 3 deadline.

This made little sense then, and it’s even less plausible now that the county has two proposals from private ambulance companies.

We don’t know the details of either proposal — Oregon’s Public Records Law allows the county to withhold those details until commissioners approve a notice of intent to award a contract. And although Commissioner Bruce Nichols said the county isn’t legally obligated to contract with either firm, the city, and the future of its fire department, are in an extremely tenuous position. Given Cannon’s and the City Council’s distinct lack of enthusiasm for continuing a local ambulance service, commissioners have little reason to be confident that if they reject both private proposals they could then rely on city officials to step in.

Sadly, city officials’ apathy is already accomplishing through attrition the fire department staffing cuts that will be necessary unless the City Council changes course and approves a revised budget, for the fiscal year that starts July 1, before June 30.

Three firefighter/paramedic positions are vacant. Two of those people left their jobs this spring. One, Brian Johnson, cited uncertainty about his future with the department due to looming layoffs.

Casey Johnson, a firefighter/paramedic and president of the union chapter that represents firefighters, said two other of his co-workers had interviews with other fire departments on Tuesday, June 7.

The staffing situation — exacerbated by city officials’ decision in July 2021 to move two of the three fire division chiefs out of 24-hour shifts — prompted Fire Chief Sean Lee to notify the county May 17 about the department’s struggles to respond to simultaneous calls. That prompted the county to temporarily hire American Medical Response to staff an ambulance in Baker City at least through June 10.

When city residents exercised their collective voice during the City Council’s May 10 meeting, their message seemed to resonate, albeit only temporarily.

It looks as though only passionate pleas can save the fire department in the form that we have come to expect, and to rely on.

And given the commissioners’ decision Wednesday, even that looks unlikely.

— Jayson Jacoby, Baker City Herald editor