Fire bond has problems; consolidation is the solution.

Good Morning Leona,

I apologize if it seemed that I was correcting you. I should have been more clear about how much I appreciated your comment. You described something using “hypothetical” that was actually happening, and I appreciated that. It is actually happening because WRFPD repeatedly says that it is Hailey that does not want to consolidate. So, I used your comment as a springboard to explain to the readers a little more about that meme from WRFPD that it is Hailey’s fault. Your comment was very thoughtful, especially the second part where you say, “then does WRFR and their stakeholders have to assume the burden of inadequate facilities for their effective and efficient delivery of service”.

To the readers of this comment…..The point that Leona brings up is so very important. Most folks in Hailey do not know that the HFD does not have the same firefighting capabilities as WRFPD. The HFD firefighters are clearly capable, but the staffing structure for Hailey does not include having any full-time 24/7 firefighters, like WRFPD does. WRFPD has two firefighters in the station at night. That is why WRFPD can respond to a fire more quickly than HFD, especially at night.

If there is a confirmed fire anywhere in the valley, ALL the departments roll their trucks (even Ketchum and Sun Valley will roll to a fire in Hailey). This is called mutual aid. All the departments in the valley get called out if there is a confirmed fire anywhere. So, if there is a fire at 3:00 am in Northridge Subdivision, it is highly likely that WRFPD is on scene first. They are the closest geographically and they can put two firefighters in the truck very quickly. But it is important to know that just two firefighters cannot put out a large fire without other on-call/volunteer firefighters arriving on scene. Those first two can do some very important things, like getting some water on the fire, and in certain circumstances can do rescue of people trapped in the structure.

The point I think Leona makes (and correct me if I am wrong Leona)….is that the Mayor of Hailey and its city council knows that their department is not really meeting the needs of its citizens. But those leaders can sleep at night because they know, through the mutual aid agreements, that WRFPD will respond immediately. And that is all well and good, until the taxpayers of the WRFPD begin to develop ill will towards Hailey for taking advantage. I personally live in the WRFPD, and I do personally feel very much that Hailey is taking advantage of us. At one point I contemplated whether WRFPD could say ENOUGH! We are not going to keep building bigger and better services so you leaders in Hailey can sleep well at night. And I wondered, what if we refused to come to their fires. But of course, that is RIDICULOUS thinking on my part. One must put out their neighbor’s fire, it is the right thing to do. We cannot get away from it.

I do believe, that if citizens realized how this all worked, and if they would read the 2011 Consolidation Study, they would be outraged at how their leaders are handling this (and I mean Hailey and WRFPD and Bellevue). I think the citizens would push hard to get the consolidation done. People want to pay their fair share for a service the community can be proud of. That consolidation study showed what the current cost (in 2011) of fire protection in each community. Bellevue was 26.7 cents per $1,000 of assessed value. Hailey was 41.5 cents. And WRFPD was 59.9 cents. This is all on page 190 of the study. The study then looks at multiple types of consolidation and give costs of each. The proposed full consolidation of all three communities resulted in a cost of just 27.9 cents per $1,000 of assessed value for everyone. This is on page 224. That is an incredible value. Only Bellevue goes up by about a penny per $1,000 of assessed value (that is five bucks more a year on a $500,000 house). Hailey and WRFPD go down substantially. And the service is BETTER!!!!!

I will try to put a link HERE. Folks, it is a very dense study, but it is very worth your time to read the Executive summary in the beginning. And look at page 190 and 224 at the very least. We have to educate ourselves to fix this problem.

Makes too much sense!

Leona, The City of Hailey has the buildings down by the senior center and they all need to be rebuilt. If the fire departments don't consolidate we will be hit with a second bond for Hailey's Fire Dept. Can the two fire departments work together ?

Hello Leona,

We have to be careful not to blame Hailey for having “no interest”. They were extremely interested in February 2020. Look at the minutes on the Hailey website for the “Joint Fire Board” meetings. I thought it was a done deal. Then in August the minutes show continued interest and a meeting was set up at the home of Martha Burke. Something happened in that meeting that the public will never know because there are no minutes published. That meeting made the consolidation effort go up in smoke. I am told that they are still interested but that Wood River would never give Hailey the budget numbers. Wood River says that Hailey did not want to give up the history of a 100-year-old department. Couldn’t we just consolidate and call it “Hailey Fire”? Nothing wrong with that name if it is so important to them.

The leadership will get back in the room, and hammer out a deal, under one condition. That will be when the citizens of Hailey and Wood River wake up and realize they are paying an exorbitant amount of money for fire protection in which we have a complete duplication of fire services. Our community would be safer through a consolidated approach.

For perspective….a $1 million house (I hate to say that it is not hard to have a $1 million valuation these days.) in rural North Blaine County pays under $200 for fire protection. The same valuation in the rural South Blaine County pays $840 for the same service right now. If the bond passes they will pay another $743 to get to a total of nearly $1,600 a year. That is eight times what it costs if you lived in East Fork or north. And it is unheard of anywhere in the nation.

Some of that can be attributed to the total assessed value of each district. The Wood River district has a total assessed value of about $1.4 billion. North Blaine County has about $3 billion total assessed value. So, North Blaine can distribute it among more valuation. But that is not the whole story. If you just look at raw budgets, the North Blaine County gives fire protection for $700,000 per year. WRFPD is costing about $1.2 million per year and with the bond will cost ANOTHER $ 1 million to total about $2.2 million. Incredible. WRFPD also handles the ambulance contract for the south county. That costs another $1.2 million, but that is paid for entirely by the Blaine County Ambulance District so don’t be misled by that.

Yes, the citizens in the south county are getting hosed (please forgive a little pun). It has to stop. The citizens deserve a series of open house meetings by Hailey and Wood River so they can get educated. Most folks have no idea which fire department they belong to and they don’t care. They just want good service at a good price. We need to vote this bond down and do the consolidation and then build a station that is suitable for all.

Do you citizens reading this realize that Hailey, Bellevue and WRFPD all chipped in and paid $48,000 to a consulting firm in 2010 to find out how to provide fire service? The report released in 2011 concluded: “Based on our analysis, ESCI concludes that the preferred long term strategy is to integrate the

three fire departments into a single entity. Local desire, motivation and political will are factors

that determine when and how this vision will be achieved. This report identifies strategies and

offers guidance for policy makers to move forward.”

I think that sums it up. The leadership AND the citizens need to get this done.