The Times are Changing
The demands on local fire and rescue service providers are increasing, it’s getting harder and harder to justify providing services to areas outside of the Garberville Fire Protection District boundary on a budget designed for a much smaller jurisdiction.
Like many other fire departments, the GFPD is facing growing challenges that include:
- Ever increasing mandatory requirements and standards.
- Limited volunteer recruitment and retention programs and incentives.
- Inadequate levels and types of training opportunities.
- Limited administrative capacity to address growing organizational requirements.
- Insufficient funding to cover growing expenses, including:
- The replacement of aging safety equipment and apparatus, Communication equipment and infrastructure improvements,
- Insurance and worker’s compensation,
- Training and certification for volunteers,
- Fire station maintenance and the growing need for an additional strategically placed station to improve response times.
- GFPD is also struggling under the pressure of ever-increasing training and performance demands on volunteers and an increasing volume of calls.
View an interactive property owners map here where you can find a parcel and see what its tax rate would be.
A quick look at the facts
Garberville Fire Protection District resources are routinely called upon to respond, on a goodwill basis, to emergencies within this area outside of its jurisdictional boundary.
Approximately 56 percent of the population and over 90 percent of the land area to which GFPD resources are dispatched as a primary community fire and rescue responder, is located within this goodwill service area.
Over 50% of the District’s emergency responses are to locations within this goodwill service area.
GFPD currently responds to calls in these areas but does not receive property tax or other consistent and reliable revenue for providing the service.
GFPD must often call on neighboring departments to cover the Garberville fire station or be on alert that District resources are responding out of their jurisdiction.
Because of the demand for service from outside of its jurisdiction, GFPD is proposing to annex its existing goodwill, out-of-district service area, consolidate operations with the Sprowel Creek Volunteer Fire Company, and develop an additional fire station in the Benbow area.
View an interactive property owners map here where you can find a parcel and see what its tax rate would be.
Why Is Consolidation/Annexation Being Proposed?
1.) Residential and commercial development around the town of Garberville has expanded well beyond the Garberville Fire Protection District boundary.
2.) This growth has resulted in a large area where there is a demand for community fire protection and rescue services. This out of district response area includes territory south of Garberville all the way to the County line, including the densely populated community of Benbow; commercial and residential development to the north of Garberville between the existing boundaries of the GFPD and the Redway Fire Protection District; and scattered residential development to the east of Garberville along Alderpoint Road, and to the west of Garberville along Sprowel Creek Road and near the Garberville Airport.
3.) This area is currently outside of any local jurisdiction that is responsible for providing community fire protection and rescue services (jurisdictional “noman’s-land”.
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