A standing room only crowd at the Twentynine Palms Water District tonight as Citizens came to ask the Board to suspend the decision to transfer Fire Protection responsibilities to the County.
Councilmen Mintz, Corbin and Councilwoman elect Heiser attended.
Cactus Thorns was well represented with Steve Urban, Ben Holstum, Kim Ortamond, Herman Platze, Pam Shannon spoke and Steve Spear had a letter read into the record (If I forgot anyone I am sorry) all to save the Fire Department and keep it local.
The Board heard the voice of the people and put the transfer of the department on hold until we can all as community figure this thing out.
We are not saying this is going to be easy. We need to stop kicking the can down the road. We need to stop with the clashes of personalities and do what John Cole says “What is right for the whole community.”
Good job readers and fellow citizens you’ve done more tonight than others have failed to do for years. Glory to the People.
After dodging the fiscal bullet for 25yrs the City hoped to quietly pass off their public saftey responsibilities to County Fire before any residents were the wiser. Since that didn’t happen and the cat-is-out-of-the-bag about how much LESS fire safety this town will be getting from County NOW would be a good time for two of the CURRENTLY serving Council members to make a motion to fund the Dept through the end of the year and revisit how the City can help the Dept stay under local control.
Personally I think funding the Fire Dept can be done without having to increase the Fire tax or cut into City services. Simply cut the pay of a couple of top City positions, spend a little less on art crap and spend a lot less on out of town law firms that have no vested interests in the City beyond a paycheck.
Why do we have a City Manager getting $200+K which is more money then a lot of State Govenors make??? Why is there at least one other position that makes $100K? Both of these inflated salaries are in a town where the median income is only $32K.