2023 May President’s Message

Sonoma County Fire RFP
AMR and the Sonoma County Fire District competed for the EOA contract in Sonoma County. The Sonoma County Fire District won the competitive bid process, outscoring AMR. The county of Sonoma issued an Intent To Award notice indicating their intent to award the contract to the Sonoma County Fire District. AMR filed a bid protest accusing the County of conducting an unfair process. The County of Sonoma has since denied the AMR protests. The Sonoma County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously on June 6 to award the contract to the Sonoma County Fire District. Additionally, on June 7, the County of Sonoma filed litigation against AMR for being in breach of contract in the current service contract. Please contact Chief Mark Heine if you would like additional information.

Website Update
CalChiefs has launched our new website!  Many thanks to our team at SMA, especially Carmen, for her exhaustive work in migrating the old site to the new. We are looking forward to not only the new features and benefits of the new platform, but to add ongoing value by eventually bringing additional content to the site. This would include white papers and our podcasts and videocasts.

We are also working to launch a new payment system for our annual dues. Our previous system has been a source of frustration for many members, and we are excited about launching a system that should greatly improve the process and experience.

CalChiefs Organizational Task Force - Update
Past President Gayk and Treasurer Peterson have been leading a Taskforce that is assessing and will provide the E-Board with recommendations related to improving the membership dues structure, invoicing process, as well as the administrative structure, by-laws, tax statuses and processes, and efficiency of the CalChiefs organization. Over the past several months the taskforce has been gathering information from all sections and analyzing the information. The analysis will be presented to all section’s leadership. They will then begin the process of identifying opportunities to become a more contemporary organization utilizing current best practices for fire department structures; to enhance and move the services provided to our members to be consistent and professional managed; to streamline common practices between the parent body, branches, and sections to ensure that taxes are paid, organization hierarchy is consistent for members and sponsors, that a succession process is implemented, and training occur annually for all sections, that our legal and fiduciary responsibilities are met, and that the organization becomes cohesive moving forward to better serve our members.

The Task Force will be meeting with all Section Presidents and leadership on June 12, 2023 in Sacramento.

Legislative

Assembly Bill 1168 (Bennett) is a priority bill seeking to overturn the City of Oxnard decision to ensure that a city fire district that had .201 rights for emergency medical services retains its authorities regarding pre-hospital EMS, if it enters a JPA or ceases to provide such services as the result of the City of Oxnard case.

Assembly Bill 277 (Rodriguez) would establish a state-federal flood operations center within the Department of Water Resources.

Assembly Bill 296 (Rodriguez) would establish a 911 public education campaign.

Assembly Bill 297 (Fong) would extend the sunset date until January 1, 2034, for CAL FIRE to advance payments for local agency grants for fire prevention and home hardening activities.

Assembly Bill 338 (Aguiar-Curry) would include fuel reduction and fire mitigation work under the definition of public works for purposes of payment of prevailing wages, if public funds are the source of the payments. 

Assembly Bill 513 (Rodriguez) would establish a grant program to provide financial assistance to local agencies, community-based organizations and individuals for costs related to providing disaster relief activities.

Assembly Bill 548 (Boerner) would require a local enforcement agency to develop procedures for inspecting multiple units in a building, if an inspector has determined a unit in the building is substandard or is in violation of state liability standards.

Assembly Bill 609 (Papan) would require a report by July 1, 2025, on new aerial firefighting technologies from CAL FIRE and Cal OES. 

Assembly Bill 700 (Grayson) would establish the Firefighter Cancer Prevention and Research Program.

Assembly Bill 716 (Boerner) is the companion measure to AB 1168 that would require Cal EMSA to annually report the allowable maximum rates for ground transportation services to avoid “surprise” bills on consumers.

Assembly 781 (Maienschein) would require a city or county to designate an emergency shelter, cooling center or warming center that can accommodate pets.

Assembly Bill 788 (Petrie-Norris) would require the Wildfire and Forest Resilience Task Force to post on its website state and federal grant programs pertaining to fire prevention funding for local agencies.

Assembly Bill 821 (Grayson) would require local agencies to approve developments that are consistent with its general plan or to make an applicable zoning ordinance consistent with the general plan within 180 days.

Assembly Bill 835 (Lee) has been amended at our request to simply allow the State Fire Marshal (SFM) to research single-exit, single-stairways in multiunit residential buildings with three stories.  The language requiring the SFM to develop such a standard was struck out of the bill. 

Assembly Bill 970 (L. Rivas) would require the Department of Insurance to establish a climate and sustainable risk reduction program especially designed for vulnerable and disadvantaged communities with uninsured and underinsured populations.

Assembly Bill 976 (Ting) would prohibit a local agency from imposing an owner-occupancy requirement on any accessory dwelling unit.

Assembly Bill 1033 (Ting) would authorize a local agency to adopt a local ordinance to allow separate conveyance of the primary dwelling unit and accessory dwelling unit as a condominium.

Assembly Bill 1145 (Maienschein) would add state nurses, psychiatric technicians, medical and social service specialists to the employee list for the existing post traumatic disorder injury rebuttable presumption law.

Assembly Bill 1185 (Gabriel) would authorize grants to a local agency or nonprofit for support to at-risk populations for vulnerability assessments, security trainings, mass notification alert systems, and lifesaving emergency equipment.

Assembly Bill 1505 (Rodriguez) would establish the intent of the Legislature to appropriate $250 million to the Residential Mitigation Program to implement a seismic retrofitting project for soft story multifamily residential buildings.

Assembly 1567 (Garcia) would enact the Safe Drinking Water, Wildfire Prevention, Flood Protection, Extreme Heat Mitigation, Clean Energy, and Workforce Development Bond Act, which if approved by the voters on the November 2024 ballot would authorize the issuance of $15.995 billion in bonds to finance the above-noted programs.

Senate Bill 310 (Dodd) would expand the definition of burn boss and revise the definition of cultural burn for application of the qualified immunity for prescribed burning.

Senate Bill 423 (Wiener) would remove the sunset date for ministerial approval of specified multifamily affordable housing projects for cities and counties that have not built sufficient housing to meet their regional housing needs.

Senate Bill 638 (Eggman) would authorize a Bond Act for the November 2024 Ballot in the amount of $6 billion for flood protection and climate resilience projects.

Senate Bill 837 (Archuleta) would require the State Energy Resources Conservation and Development Commission to consider revising the definition of “conditioned space, indirectly” to include sealed and unvented attics.

Senate Bill 867 (Allen) is the Senate version of the Bond Act set forth above in AB 1567 (Garcia) to authorize $15.5 billion for drought, flood, wildfire, et seq. programs.  

June Executive Board Meeting
At our June Board Meeting, the Executive Board took the following Actions:

1. Adopted Policy and Procedure for the New Hall of Fame Award
   
2. Adopted the 23-24 budget.
   
3. Adopted Job descriptions for President, President-Elect, Legislative Director and Director At Large.  We are working on other job descriptions.
   
4. Appointed a CalChiefs - Western Fire Chiefs replacement for Chief Gayk, who will be stepping down at the end of 2023.  The new appointment with shadow Chief Gayk for the remainder of the year.
   

Use of Fire Retardants Case
NSDC sent on June 1 a letter to House and Senate leadership as well as the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee in support of S. 796 (Lummis) the Forest Protection and Wildland Firefighter Act, for which NSDC holds an elevated-level support position. The bill would codify an informal exemption for fire agencies to apply retardants to fight wildfire without securing a National Pollution Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit (Clean Water Act).

Meanwhile, a federal judge in Montana ruled on May 25 that the U.S. Forest Service’s aerial application of fire retardants to combat wildfire violates the Clean Water Act. As the process to secure to obtain a NPDES permit could take two years, the judge will allow USFS to use retardants until a final decision is on a permit, so long as the agency provides updates to the court on its progress every six months. This particular decision applies in the Ninth Federal Circuit states of Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington.

It was critical that the U.S. Forest Service’s aerial application of fire retardant not be enjoined given the importance of its use to combat wildfires in the West, while the USFS advances its application for the permit.

CalChief President Appointments
At the June Executive Board Meeting President Tubbs made the following appointments:

1. Chief David Winnacker (Moraga-Orinda Fire) has been appointed to represent CalChiefs on the Western Fire Chiefs Board of Directors.

AMR PRA
The AMR PRA litigation regarding GEMT cost reports is still ongoing. The list of named parties has been reduced through legal actions between AMR and the named parties.  However, CalChiefs remains in support of the agencies that remain in the litigation. We are working with our legal counsel to ensure that they are properly supported. 

CALEMSA Strategic Plan
The Emergency Medical Services Authority (EMSA) is proud to announce the release of the California EMS System Strategic Plan! This comprehensive plan is the result of extensive collaboration and hard work of stakeholders across the state.

The California EMS System Strategic Plan serves as a crucial guide for our ongoing efforts to enhance and improve emergency medical services throughout the state. It outlines our shared vision, goals, and objectives, providing a roadmap for the coming years as we work towards achieving excellence in emergency care.

EMSA reports that they are thrilled about the opportunities this strategic plan presents and the positive impact it will have on our EMS system. By operationalizing the plan, they aim to enhance service delivery, improve patient outcomes, and strengthen the overall resilience and preparedness of our emergency medical services.

EMSA encourage us to take a moment to review the California EMS System Strategic Plan, which can be found here.

If you have any questions or would like to discuss any aspect of the strategic plan, please do not hesitate to reach out. Your input is vital in our continuous efforts to improve and refine our initiatives.

EMDAC
On May 4 President Tubbs hosted a meeting with EMDAC and EMSAAC Leadership, along with Chief Hamilton & President-Elect Heine, to discuss the AB1168 legislation.  The meeting did not result in position changes relative to AB1168 but did inform all parties as to the purpose and concerns related to each group’s position.  EMDAC President Dr. Kathy Staats attended and presented at the CFED pre-conference EMS Day.

PP-GEMT
Agencies participating in the GEMT CPE program recently submitted their cost reports for FY 18/19 through FY 21/22 per DHCS’ direction. Several of these agencies included for the first time, the cost of what is known in the program as “pre-stabilization services,” the cost of the fire engine personnel that is deployed to a medical emergency.

DHCS continues to assert that those costs are not allowable pursuant to the State Plan Amendment that established the program, as well as subsequent DHCS’ guidance. Agencies have received email responses to their cost report submission indicating that their “as filed” cost report will be adjusted down to account for the denial of those costs.

CalChiefs continues to feel strongly that the cost of the fire engine personnel is an allowable cost and supports the actions of agencies that decide to include those costs in their cost reports. We are working with our federal and State delegations and pressuring the State to change their policy. Meanwhile, we encourage all agencies whose costs were denied to file a formal appeal with the State and express their disagreement with DHCS’ decision. Agencies should remind DHCS that the GEMT program is a Certified Public Expenditures (CPE) program, and as such, they certify that the reported costs are true and correct and should be considered accurate until a formal audit is conducted.

EMSAAC
We have met twice with the EMSAAC leadership in an effort to open ongoing discussions about a variety of EMS issues.  Most recently the leadership from both Associations discussed AB 1168 and AB 40.  Though on these bills we agree to disagree, engaging in the dialogue and seeking to understand each other's concerns and perspectives, is helpful.  We are hoping that over time these discussions will lead to more opportunity to work together on EMS issues.  Our next meeting is schedule for June 19, 2023.

CALChiefs Emergency Management (EM) Section 
The Emergency Management (EM) Executive Board is focused on increasing member participation for our relatively new section.  Our aim is to utilize existing communication networks within the EM community, as well as the CalChiefs community.  Due to the significant number of agencies that employ non-safety / civilian Emergency Managers, the EM Section has experienced some challenges in connecting with those tasked with the oversight of these responsibilities. To increase membership, the EM Section will leverage the support from existing CalChiefs networks to assist with spreading the word and encouraging Emergency Managers to participate in the CalChiefs EM section meetings; participation is encouraged regardless of holding the rank of Chief Officer or not.  A focal point of the EM section meetings will be to provide relevant and meaningful professional development for those in attendance. 

The EM section's leadership acknowledges that time is a precious commodity for those in our profession and does not take participants' time for granted. By attending EM section meetings, one will have EM networking opportunities and a positive learning environment. For more information on the EM section please visit the CalChiefs website: https://em.calchiefs.org/

National Special District Coalition (NSDC)
“Special District” Definition Proposal- After three years of outreach, careful research, and engagement with special districts stakeholders across the country, NSDC announced its formal proposal for a federal “special district” definition. The definition reads: “Special District” – A political subdivision of a State, with specified boundaries, created pursuant to general law or act of the State, for the purpose of performing limited and specific governmental or proprietary functions, except that is not a school district, college, county, city, town, township, village, parish, borough, or other general purpose unit of government. The NSDC Advocacy Team has identified early interests among members of Congress and is working to secure champions to lead legislation placing the definition in law. NSDC is currently reaching out to national and state special districts stakeholders to build an early support coalition. Please stay tuned.

CALChiefs will continue to monitor NSP activities and work to participate in the best interest of the California Fire Service.

Podcasts
As of the writing of this monthly update, we have not posted any new podcasts in large part because of CFED and our focus on that event.  We will post a new episode as soon as we can.  Thank you for your interest and feedback on our podcasts – it is much appreciated!

Please do not hesitate to let us know of any topics of interest you may have, or if you would like to be a part of our podcasts, please let me know.

We are your Association, and your participation and feedback are critical to our effectiveness and value.  

Chris Tubbs, President