Anilrgowda

VISTA ---- Seeking to reduce emergency response times, officials with the city and the neighboring fire protection district say they are preparing to make significant investments in new fire stations.

Vista, anticipating an influx of new revenue from a voter-approved sales tax increase, is already in the design stages for two new firefighter outposts: one in south Vista's Shadowridge community and the other in the north-central portion of the city.
Meanwhile, the Vista Fire Protection District, which oversees fire and emergency services for more than 17,000 people in a 19-square-mile area on the outskirts of the city, is hunting for a suitable location for a station of its own.

"We have several feelers out right now," said Margarette Morgan, one of five directors on the fire protection district board, which contracts with the Vista Fire Department for service.

Except for some preliminary talks, the agencies are working on projects independently, officials said this week, but the timing is fortuitous and there may be opportunities to save money by collaborating.

"The hope is to get some economies of scale and put all these projects together," said Vista Fire Chief Gary Fisher. "I don't know if it's going to work out, but it's what we're shooting for."

A sales tax promise

After Vista voters approved a half-cent sales tax increase in November, the city solicited architectural firms interested in designing its fire stations. Twelve submitted qualifications, and a panel of city staffers recently whittled the applicants down to five, said Aly Zimmermann, assistant to the city manager.

The City Council could award a design team contract as early as February, Zimmermann said.

The city has four fire stations, and firefighters and paramedics work to reach their destination within 6 minutes, but they succeed only about half the time, Fisher said.

The National Fire Protection Association, a nonprofit organization that publishes fire and building safety standards, recommends a 6-minute response 90 percent of the time.

"It's aggressive," said Conrad Kristensen of Oregon-based Emergency Services Consulting Inc, which analyzed 10 North County fire agencies from 2004 to 2006. "But is it reasonable? Yes. It's the national standard. If somebody dies in a fire, that's the standard that's going to be trotted out."

A 2005 report from consultant Citygate Associates shows that 90 percent of the time, Vista's fire department arrives in 9 minutes or less "which is acceptable only for moderate emergencies. ... This would not be the case with more severe emergencies."

For incidents involving oxygen deprivation, "we need to be there in that 5- to 6-minute window to give folks a chance for survival," Fisher said. "In 9 minutes, you're long since passed away."

Fisher said response times in Vista aren't likely to get better when construction ends this year on the Sprinter light-rail line, which cuts across several heavily traveled thoroughfares.

Adding two stations ---- one on each side of the rail line ---- would "make a huge improvement" in response times, he said.

One station is planned for a city lot at the corner of South Melrose Drive and Green Oak Road. The other will be built near the core of the city, and officials recently identified a potential site adjacent to Wildwood Park, where a community center is located.

Funding will come from the millions of dollars in extra revenue that should start flowing into city coffers after the higher sales tax takes effect April 1.

That money can be used for any governmental purpose, but city officials have listed several spending priorities, including a $39.8 million civic center; a $5 million upgrade to the Moonlight Amphitheatre; a $15 million city park; and the two fire stations totaling $10 million to $13 million.

Staffing for the fire stations is expected to cost an additional $1.5 million a year, according to city documents.

The city hopes to complete the design work this fall and complete construction by December 2008. The stations would be immediately operational, Fisher said.

Outside city limits

Progress is moving a bit slower on the outskirts of the city, where Vista Fire Protection District board members are searching for a suitable location for a fire station at the north end of the district while preparing a cost analysis for the project.

"We're in the preliminary stages of absolutely everything," Morgan said.

The station is on the district's wish list because response times in some of the areas it serves are in the 10-minute range, Morgan said.

Residents and fire officials have long worried about the dangers posed by a catastrophic wildfire around rural neighborhoods, where thousands of people live on tangled dead-end roads.

Several months ago, the district's board sent out a request to property owners in the hopes that someone would come forward with a suitable property for a fire station.

East Vista Way, a busy north-south thoroughfare, is "the axis point that we've been working from," said Robert Fougner, a district board member on the site location subcommittee.

"Clearly, that's the most challenging area for the city's current facilities to serve because of the distance and also some of the issues posed by the infrastructure: limited roads, clogged intersections, that kind of thing," Fougner said.

Fougner said the fire protection district will pay for construction out of its reserve funds and will likely work the operating costs into its contract with the Vista Fire Department.

"We're not planning on any new tax in order to fund this," Fougner said.

Fisher said that the fire department has tentatively agreed to staff the station.

Having a station up north would enable the city to close Station 3, a 43-year-old building on Old Taylor Street. That station's coverage area would then be picked up by the district station and the new central Vista station, Fisher said.