Knight's Landing Fire District secures parcel tax in funding fight; Ripon property owners vote it down
KNIGHT'S LANDING – The fight for funding is a tale of two California fire districts: one with a parcel tax that passed and the other with property owners who voted "no."
The volunteer firefighters that make up the Knight's Landing Fire District had something to celebrate Monday night.
"We'll be able to update, put money aside to work on getting a new apparatus at this station," said the assistant chief at Knight's Landing Fire, Mike Vogl.
Property owners in the nearly 40 square miles covered by these engines voted "yes" on Proposition 218.
That means they'll be able to hire full-time firefighters and that the station will be staffed five days a week.
"It's a relief we can look to the future, what can we do with it?" said Martin Jones, the chief at Knight's Landing Fire.
From Knight's Landing where the focus is the future and firefighting to Ripon where they may still be fighting for funding. The department said they'll be transparent about the difficult challenges ahead.
"Revenue streams that we are operating on are not enough as well as the challenges that we'll have in the future," Ripon Fire Chief Eric DeHart said.
That was the Ripon fire chief in June before the news in the last week. Property owners in the district voted down the new tax measure.
The stretched-thin resources of the Ripon Consolidated Fire District were put to the test 24 hours after they found out more money to staff a still-empty station wouldn't come from taxpayers.
Their ladder truck jumped in as mutual aid in Modesto and that left two firefighters to cover the 56 square mile district, they said.
Three more calls, including a water rescue, punted to Manteca fire came in on the same night.
The funding gap is part of Ripon's city council meeting Tuesday.
