Emergency Declaration as California Community Considers Fire Services

Canyon Lake has been forced to extend a local state of emergency as officials continue to try to form the fire department promised after the city’s contract with Riverside County expired.

Plans for the department, however, have not been finalized and at least one option comes in more costly than the $1.75 million the county said it could offer services for -a price tag leaders have previously said was too expensive.

“It’s difficult, but it’s getting there,” Councilwoman Vicki Warren said when asked about progress. “From the outside, it’s easy to say just do it, but you have to go through these processes, and each process has its own process.”

In the meantime, Canyon Lake must depend on emergency responses from outlying county, Lake Elsinore and Menifee stations as well as a private ambulances.

City officials initially hoped to have the new department up and running by July 31. That didn’t happen, and when the local force will materialize is not readily apparent. Almost every move the city makes on the issue is kept confidential because of the city’s legal entanglement with the county.

There is a glimmer of hope the gated city of 11,000 and the county might yet strike a compromise, which Interim Fire Chief Michael Wilson alluded to in a special council meeting Wednesday.

“None of us are happy with the current situation, and we’re trying to correct it in the short term, and then in the long term,” Wilson said.

Because of the litigation, however, officials remain tight-lipped.

“We’ve been in discussions with the county,” Councilman Tim Brown said. “That’s about all I can say.”

The county contract expired June 30 after the city rejected the supervisors’ offer to extend the terms for a year for $1.75 million. Canyon Lake officials had pressed for several years to rework the contract to lessen escalating costs eating up the city’s budget. The city eventually stopped paying its bills, leading to the courthouse battle.

When the city rejected the county’s offer, Interim City Manager Ariel Hall hired Wilson to assist in developing Canyon Lake’s department. County personnel vacated the city’s lone fire station.

At the time, the council declared a local state of emergency, under which the county continued to dispatch firefighting crews to Canyon Lake. Still lacking fire department personnel, the council renewed the declaration Wednesday.

Hall and Wilson have developed four possible budgets for a department, ranging from $1.4 million to $1.77 million.

According to Brown, the figures show it’s possible for the city to run its own fire department.

“It’s affordable and logical, but it has risks,” he said.

On the other hand, Councilman John Zaitz believes significant costs were not included and the city could wind up spending more than if it had stayed with the county.

Zaitz was a lightning rod for criticism by council members as well as the public in Wednesday’s meeting, which lasted nearly five hours and was held on a warm night when the board room’s air-conditioning system failed.

Some council members and the city attorney sharply chastised him for making controversial public statements and violating the confidentiality requirements.

In some emails sent to various recipients, Zaitz voiced criticisms of the way incidents were handled. One in particular mentioned how ambulances responded to an elderly woman who had a heart attack and later died at the hospital.

Zaitz contends that, had the city’s Station 60 remained open, emergency responders could have reach her more quickly and she might have survived.

Wilson, as well as City Attorney Betsy Martyn, said there was no evidence to support his contention.

“The city did not cause this death,” Martyn said. “The system did the best it could.”

She said Zaitz’s statements could put the city at legal risk, which Warren echoed.

“This was nothing but damaging to our city and could cause us tremendous harm,” Warren said.