City Moves Forward on New Fire Department Command Staff Structure

The South Pasadena City Council held a study session Wednesday night to get an update on negotiations underway with the City of San Gabriel to provide fire department command staff on a contractual basis.

“The first and most important thing we want our residents to know is that the City of South Pasadena is not compromising safety in any way,” City Manager Sergio Gonzalez told the council during an hour-long special meeting held just before the council’s regularly scheduled bimonthly meeting at 7:30 p.m.

The negotiations to get command support from the City of San Gabriel fire department is limited only to the battalion chief rank, Gonzalez said, adding that the new model under discussion would allow for quicker response time “based on the fact that the system dispatches fire engines and ambulances that are closest to the scene [of a fire] regardless of their city of origin.”

For example, Alhambra fire personnel would be dispatched to parts of South Pasadena adjoining or closer to Alhambra than the South Pas Fire Department, Gonzalez explained.

South Pasadena no longer has battalion chiefs because it successfully offered retirement packages to three chiefs—two of them just last month and one in 2012—in an effort to move to a new and arguably more efficient command staff structure.

“Moving to a new fire command staff model is something I’m working on in response to the charge council has given me,” the city manager said, adding: “I am looking at all city departments to make sure they are operating efficiently and are implementing best-practices whenever possible.”

In the long run, the city will experience significant savings with the new fire command staff model, Gonzalez said.  “Also, if we’re successful in negotiating a tri-city agreement, fire operations will be even more efficient because we have moved to a borderless system and our firefighters regularly train with their counterparts in San Gabriel and San Marino.”