Firefighters and residents brought their fight to bring back Rescue Unit 3 to the Vancouver City Council on Monday night, as Fire Chief Don Bivins justified his decision to cut the medical response vehicle as his only option.
Bivins said his choice was to get rid of Station 3’s medical rescue unit or shut down an entire engine company. The loss of the unit, done through voluntary retirements of four firefighters, cut the remaining $425,000 Bivins had to trim from his department’s budget.
“There aren’t good alternatives to eliminating Rescue 3,” he said, noting that the station, in Vancouver Heights, will not close. A fire engine remains at the station, which is the busiest in the city. “It’s the least bad of all the decisions before us. It has the least impact to the community of all the options we could consider.”
To close Vancouver’s slowest station, Station 7 in the Glenwood area, would mean 11,000 residents would not have a station that was within the city’s goal response time of five minutes, Bivins said.
Still, he said, the loss of the city’s last medical rescue unit brings the department down to pre-2002 service levels, when the council and citizens identified “significant gaps” in service and pledged money to fund public safety.
Station 3, at 1110 N. Devine Road, has an engine that now handles all medical calls to the area; the rescue unit served as a needed responder to thousands of calls the station receives every year. In 2008, the rescue unit covered 2,844 calls, while the engine responded to 1,718.
Bivins outlined the effects the loss of the unit will have:
• Station 3’s Engine 3 will be dispatched to a projected 3,803 responses, 80 percent of them medical, in 2010.
• Of those calls, Engine 3 will be able to respond to 72 percent, meaning engines from surrounding stations will be called in to cover the remaining 28 percent.
• As a result, an estimated 843 calls will receive response times that are an average of 3.5 minutes longer in Vancouver Heights. The department tries to reach 90 percent of calls within five minutes.
The loss of the unit has reverberated throughout the community.
Members of the local firefighters’ union have rallied and picketed at the station, and are amassing a lengthy petition signed by residents.
Richard Sohn, who is one of the 27,000 people who live in the neighborhood covered by Station 3, told the council Monday he had been a “lazy citizen” until he heard about the loss of the unit.
He recounted an incident 10 years ago when he suffered a stroke as the result of a surgery, and Vancouver fire responded within three to four minutes, Sohn said.
“It’s very possible if they weren’t there quickly, I’d be a quadriplegic today,” he said, noting that instead he only has tingling in his fingers. “Rescue 3 is a vital part of our neighborhood.”
Members of the council said they were not happy with any hits to public safety.
“I’m convinced the voters, if given the choice,” would approve measures to support fire and police, Councilor Pat Campbell said.
They also called for a close look at the city’s priorities and how resources are allocated, a process they will begin next month in crafting the city’s 2011 budget, which has a projected $10 million to $12 million shortfall.
City Manager Pat McDonnell explained that fire and police had to shoulder some of the burden this year, as the other city departments have absorbed $14.2 million in cuts since 2001.
In fact, he said, the city has added 70 new police and firefighters between 2001 and 2008 that have increased city costs. About 53 percent of the city’s $131 million general fund goes toward public safety.
“There are no other departments that can pick up those deficits,” he said.
