Taking a close look at Manteca’s automatic aid agreement with Ripon Consolidated Fire District is one of four major priorities this year for the city’s fire department.

The others are:

*securing a site and starting design work for a sixth fire station in southwest Manteca

*updating the fire fee charged growth to make sure new development continues to pay its fair share of department facility needs that it creates.

*getting a modernized fire communications system in place.

The priorities were delineated at a goal setting workshop last week.

The council workshop serves a precursor for developing the budget for the fiscal year starting July 1 as well as the work plans for various departments that it will fund.

Manteca’s current automatic aid agreement with Ripon Fire ends in October of this year.

Whether the agreement is being abused by being overwhelmingly one-sided and whether it should continue became a major issue during the campaign to secure passage of the Measure Q three quarter of a cent sales tax in November.

Mayor Gary Singh — in response to concerns expressed by Manteca taxpayers — indicated during the campaign that he could not in good conscience says ask Manteca residents to back Measure Q if they are essentially “subsidizing” minimum fire protection for the 22,000 people living in the Ripon Consolidated Fire District through an automatic aid agreement.

Numbers supplied to the City Council had indicated the automatic aid deteriorated into a one-way street in the past few years due to Ripon’s underfunded fire service.

Singh made his comments in June, a day after RCFD property owners rejected a parcel tax hike to fund a second staffed fire engine 24/7 to protect the 56 square mile fire district.

Other Manteca council members privately have expressed sentiments similar to Singh’s when it comes to automatic aid.

As many as three Manteca engines have responded to Ripon house fires.

Manteca is a minimum of 10 to 15 minutes away, assuming Manteca’s only available engine is not at the city’s Lathrop Road station next to the Del Webb neighborhood.

And it has gotten to the point where Manteca firefighters have to arrive on scene before their Ripon counterparts can start effectively fighting house fires.

It has led to the total loss of at least one home in a fire that likely could have been less severe.

The same is also true of other fires where the losses were severe due to having to await for a Manteca engine arrive.

A structure fire in Ripon in many cases in recent years has meant a Manteca engine company needed to show up before any firefighter can enter a burning building.

The hard-fast federal standard is two firefighters need to be in the outside when a minimum of two firefighters enter a burning building.

Automatic aid agreement

The Ripon Fire District and City of Manteca have what is called an automatic agreement as opposed to a mutual aid agreement.

It is the same arrangement the City of Manteca has with the Lathrop Manteca Fire District.

Automatic aid means the closest available engine to a Ripon incident — whether it is Manteca or Ripon — is automatically dispatched.

That’s opposed to the more prevalent mutual aid system.

For mutual aid, one department needs to request the services of another.

That adds what could be minutes to the response and dispatch time after a 9-1-1 call is received as opposed to automatic aid.

And there is always the possibility the request for mutual aid is turned down if the department being asked decides it can’t afford to do so.

Automatic aid agreements are a two-way street that balance out even though it rarely is close to 50-50.

And rarely, if ever, is that happening now.

In recent years, the agreement between Manteca and Ripon Fire has gotten to the point where close to 100 percent of automatic aid responses in a given year are Manteca to Ripon.

Manteca and Lathrop Manteca Fire, on the other hand, are in the 50-50 range.

It is to the point their coverage areas are basically seamless.

Automatic aid is driven by a desire to be good neighbors and to assure both entities have crucial back up when needed.

Back in the 1990s, when the Manteca and Lathrop Manteca Fire automatic aid was getting out of synch, elected leaders in charge of budgeting were concerned about one entity’s taxpayers subsiding those in another jurisdiction.

While the situation was nowhere close to what the Ripon-Manteca agreement has become, it did trigger consolidation talks and other options involving the City of Manteca, what was Manteca-Lathrop  Rural Fire District, the City of Tracy, and the Tracy Rural Fire District.

Tracy Rural resolved its own limited ability to respond to emergencies by consolidating with the City of Tracy and becoming the South San Joaquin County Fire Authority.

Lathrop Manteca Fire’s financial woes were settled by a one cent sales tax increase approved by City of Lathrop voters. A large share of the annual receipts are diverted to Lathrop Manteca Fire to provide emergency services within the City of Lathrop’s boundaries.

It is against that backdrop that Ripon Fire unsuccessfully pursued a parcel tax increase.

The  current property tax rate was set in 1985.

Efforts to increase it also failed in 2007 and 2018 failed as well as last year.

To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com