_{Thumbnail photo courtesy of Crescent City Fire & Rescue}

Though two members of the public, including a Del Norte County Supervisor candidate, criticized the additional expense, Crescent City councilors authorized a moving incentive of up to $10,000 to recruit a new fire chief.

That incentive will be split between Crescent City and the Crescent Fire Protection District, Human Resources Manager Sara Barbour told councilors Monday. It will be paid to the new recruit as a reimbursement for their moving costs, she said. The cost to each agency will be about $5,000 maximum, Barbour said.

In response to county resident Sam Strait and District 4 Supervisor candidate Margaret Sargent, who asked why the community should pay for the new fire chief’s move, Mayor Pro Tem Candace Tinkler said such assistance is standard practice for her previous employer, the federal government.

“This is one of the most important positions in our county, frankly, when the proverbial stuff hits the fan,” Tinkler said. “You could have both fires and natural disasters and what have you and we need the most professional, most experienced person possible who will dedicate themselves to this community and its safety. Ten-thousand dollars is a very small price to pay for getting the best we possibly can.”
Tinkler and her two colleagues Steve Shamblin and Ray Altman approved an updated job description and recruitment flyer for the fire chief position along with the relocation assistance benefit.

They also approved increasing stipends for Crescent City Fire and Rescue volunteers effective July 1. According to Crescent City Fire and Rescue Interim Fire Chief Bill Gillespie, the stipends help offset fuel costs for volunteers to respond to an emergency.

“If you’re responding from the north or south end of the jurisdiction, responding to a station, and you maybe make that trip back and forth four, five or six times during the day, it starts hitting the fuel tank,” Gillespie told councilors. “It starts hitting the pocket book to the point where they may (say) they can’t do it anymore.”

Stipends haven’t been increased for four years, according to City Manager Eric Wier.

Mayor Isaiah Wright and Councilor Jason Greenough were absent.

Gillespie returned to Crescent City as its interim fire chief in December upon the resignation of the agency’s previous leader, Kevin Carey. 

On Monday, Barbour said Gillespie and Crescent City Fire and Rescue Administrative Specialist Vanessa Duncan spent some time gathering input from staff and volunteers before creating a job description for the fire chief position. The reason for the moving stipend is due to the requirement that the new recruit live within the agency’s jurisdiction, Barbour said.

The Crescent Fire Protection District Board of Directors approved the relocation assistance benefit of up to $10,000 at a special meeting April 28.

Barbour said the city hoped to advertise the job opportunity on Tuesday.

“We plan to do about a 30-day recruitment,” she said. “Chief Gillespie has quite a few recommendations from different fire associations to help reach a pretty wide audience to get some good candidates applying. After that, we will have a two-phased interview process, a community panel and a local officials panel. There’s also a supplemental questionnaire required with the application process that will help us sort through the applicants we receive.”

According to Wier, Crescent City Fire and Rescue and the Crescent Fire Protection District serve about 20,000 people. He noted that the fire chief will lead a department that includes three paid fire captains as well as five volunteer battalion chiefs and volunteer firefighters and EMTs.

“These volunteers are asked to do a lot now — it’s not, just show up when the tone goes off,” Wier said. “There’s training requirements. There’s certifications. There are all these things that the chief has to then try to manage as well as reporting to the city manager and the district board.”

The fire chief also acts as a backup to the three paid fire captains, which work 48-hour shifts before having 96 hours off, Wier said. The fire chief will also be asked to be on call for two nights a week.

“That’s why it is important for them to live in the district,” the city manager said. “They won’t have to go on every call, but they will have to be ready to go as needed.”

In addition to approving an increase in stipends, the Crescent Fire Protection District Board approved a station staffing plan, requiring volunteers to staff the fire station for a 12-hour period. Those volunteers would no longer receive a per-call stipend, but would receive a $75 stipend for the 12 hour shift they work at the station.

An apparatus or an engine operator or a volunteer captain staffing one of the stations will receive $95 for those 12-hour shifts, Wier said. They would help the paid fire captains leading those shifts, he said.

The department’s five battalion chiefs will receive stipends of $200 to staff a fire station during a 12-hour shift. According to Wier, the battalion chiefs will handle seven 12-hour shifts and the fire chief will handle the other seven 12-hour shifts.

“They’re being the acting chief at that point,” the city manager said of the battalion chiefs. “They are the ones ultimately responsible for that incident and the safety of the volunteers and the captains.”

The total cost to both Crescent City and the Crescent Fire Protection District to increase the stipends will be about $30,000 a year, Wier said. Since about two-thirds of the calls for service are outside of the city limits, the Crescent Fire Protection District will be responsible for about two-thirds of the cost associated with the stipend increase, he said.

In response to the new fire chief’s moving incentive, Sargent questioned why the successful candidate wouldn’t be able to afford relocating to Crescent City.

“Why does our community have to pay for that move?” Sargent asked. “I understand people are needed, but to pay them to come, I would have to say that’s just kind of questionable.”

Sargent is running against incumbent Joey Borges and Del Norte Indivisible member Lisa Cundall for the Del Norte County District 4 supervisor seat.