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WWW.THEPRESS.NET
MAY 22, 2020
Opinion EDITORIALS, LETTERS & COMMENTARY
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East County leaders must step up to the plate to fix fire, emergency services Although I usually don’t respond to calls from unknown phone numbers, I did happen to answer a call several days ago. It turned out to be another survey regarding ECCFPD, our East Contra Costa Fire Protection District. The district board is getting uest us ready for the comment fix the fire chief was alluding to at the Brentwood Council meeting a few nights ago. The gist of the call was to seek community feedback about a special assessment in an upcoming mail ballot to be sent to every property owner within our fire district, including Brentwood, Oakley, Discovery Bay, Byron, Knightsen and Bethel Island. The special assessment will run for 15 years. When calculated for my residence, $432.18 will be added to my property tax bill each year to resolve the fire district’s revenue problems. By now, we should all be aware of the lack of adequate fire and emergency services provided to the 120,000 residents living in the
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249-square-mile area within the fire district’s jurisdiction. The revenue problems inherited by the current chief have left us with only three stations and nine firefighters, unable to meet national standards for response times. The lack of sufficient revenue today is the result of tax allocations set by law almost 40 years ago, without any provision for updating the allocations as needs changed. In 2002, the county consolidated the three volunteer fire departments in East County into a single, paid firefighter district, ECCFPD, as the jurisdiction went from a primarily rural area to communities with exploding populations and housing developments, accompanied by growing businesses. With all due respect to the chief and our firefighters, this proposed taxpayer assessment to resolve ECCFPD’s dire revenue situation is not the solution. The last three efforts to turn to the taxpayers for relief each failed. The message from the taxpayers is simple: we are taxed enough. NO MORE NEW TAXES! Public safety is government’s highest priority and should be adequately
to the
Think of your local workforce first
Editor: The Oakley City Council and city manager should all be ashamed of themselves after patting themselves on the back at the CC Logic Center-Amazon groundbreaking. They were either clueless, stupid or asleep at the wheel. They totally forgot about the thousands of East County building trades men and women who would have loved to work on this project. They turned their backs on local hire and apprenticeship opportunities with East County’s
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tax money used. But Brentwood leaders have not chosen to do so, citing uncertainty in the budget outlook, as a result of the economic impact due to COVID-19. That’s understandable but not acceptable. Faced with the same economic outlook, are the taxpayers in a better position to shoulder the load with increased taxes? Once again, nothing is done, and public safety suffers. Our government entities are responsible for sorting out needs and wants, yet fail to make the hard decisions they were elected to make. It’s way past the time for the leaders of Brentwood, Oakley and Contra Costa County to step up to the plate and fix the issue of inadequate fire and emergency services in East Contra Costa County, once and for all, with a permanent, guaranteed, sustainable solution. In the meantime, if you get a survey call from American Directions Research Group (279-399-2101), you might want to answer and give them your thoughts on the subject. Patricia Ziobro Brentwood
Editor
Future Build program. Even worse, they forgot about our men and women from the military who depend on the Helmets to Hardhats program for good paying construction jobs. But they didn’t have a problem giving the developer and general contractor from Missouri (a right-to-work-for-less state) the red carpet treatment. The sad part is I think the city council and manager were so desperate for anything that they would have even approved a brothel if it would generate tax dollars. Hopefully, in the future, they will all take the time to look out for all citizens and local jobs! Greg Feere Antioch
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provided with the taxes government already receives. Fund the needs of the community first, then the wants. Legislators and government officials in a position to fix the problem have refused to act over the years, as the situation worsens. The cities of Brentwood and Oakley account for more than 88% of the population within ECCFPD’s jurisdiction, while the remaining 12% of the fire district’s population lives in the unincorporated communities of East County. A nonpartisan citizens’ petition to bring the issue to the fall ballot in Brentwood, requiring Brentwood to spend additional funds from growth in sales and property taxes — not new taxes — was forced to be suspended when there could be no more signature-gathering because of COVID-19 mandates. Likewise, the petition for Oakley, which was planned to follow the Brentwood petition, was stymied. The Brentwood Council could have decided to take the bold step to put the petition on the ballot, as is, or fine-tune it to meet any legal requirements, and thus, let its citizens decide how they want their
GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS City of Brentwood City Manager and City Council City Hall 150 City Park Way Brentwood, CA 94513 Phone: 925-516-5440 www.brentwoodca.gov City of Antioch City Manager and City Council City Hall 3rd and H streets Antioch, CA 94509 Phone: 925-779-7000 www.ci.antioch.ca.us
City of Oakley City Manager and City Council City Hall 3231 Main St. Oakley, CA 94561 Phone: 925-625-7000 www.ci.oakley.ca.us Town of Discovery Bay Town Manager and Community Services District 1800 Willow Lake Road Discovery Bay, CA 94505 Phone: 925-634-1131 www.todb.ca.gov
County Supervisor, Dist. III Diane Burgis 3361 Walnut Blvd., Ste. 140 Brentwood, CA 94513 Phone: 925-252-4500 Fax: 925-240-7261 dist3@bos.cccounty.us County Supervisor, Dist. V Federal D. Glover 190 E 4th St. Pittsburg, CA 94565 Phone: 925-608-4200 Fax: 925-427-8142 district5@bos.cccounty.us
State Sen. Steve Glazer Seventh Senate District Capitol Office: State Capitol, Room 4082 Sacramento, CA 95814 Phone: 916-651-4007 District Office: 420 West Third St. Antioch, CA 94509 Phone: 925-258-1176 Fax: 925-258-9982 Cell: 925-963-1611 http://sd07.senate.ca.gov Assemblymember Jim Frazier 11th Assembly District
Capitol Office: P.O. Box 942849 Sacramento, CA 94249 Phone: 916-319-2011 District Office: 150 City Park Way Brentwood, CA 94513 Phone: 925-513-0411 Fax: 925-513-3511 www.asmdc.org/members/ a11 Gov. Gavin Newsom State Capitol, Suite 1173 Sacramento, CA 95814 Phone: 916-445-2841 Fax: 916-558-3160
www.gov.ca.gov U.S. Rep. Jerry McNerney 9th Congressional District Washington, DC Office: 2265 Rayburn HOB Washington, DC 20515 Phone: 202-225-1947 Fax: 202-225-4060 Antioch Office: 4703 Lone Tree Way Antioch, CA 94531 Phone: 925-754-0716 Fax: 925-754-0728 www.mcnerney.house.gov
