2023 July President’s Message

Election Results
Our election results have been finalized for the President-Elect position and the Southern Division Director’s position. Chief Brian Fennessy (OCFA) has been elected for the upcoming President-Elect position, and Chief Bernie Malloy (Murrieta Fire) has been elected to serve another term as our Southern Division Director. Both Chiefs were administered the Oath of Office and sworn in at the October Annual Conference.

PP-GEMT
The PP-GEMT implementation team has been hearing that more healthcare plans have begun including the new add-on amounts on the payments to the providers. Also, we heard back this week from Fee-For-Service, the State, that they too are ready and able to begin paying the add-on amounts. Although 7 months late, this is good news.

We are thankful and pleased to announce that some more agencies that were on the non-participating list have come forward with commitments to pay their nonfederal share. Thank you all for your assistance in getting the word and education out that helped these agencies get to ‘yes.’

Sonoma County Fire RFP
The exclusive operating area contract in Sonoma County was awarded to the Sonoma County Fire District by the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors at their June 6 meeting. Final contract negotiations are underway between the County of Sonoma and the Sonoma County Fire District for the implementation of service in January of 2024 on a five-year contract with a 5-year extension provision. The County of Sonoma has filed litigation against AMR for breach of contract in their current EOA contract. That litigation is ongoing with no significant updates to report. Additionally, the Sonoma County Fire District will “go live” with its new firefighting helicopter, “Sonoma County 1”, on July 16. This is a unique public/private partnership between the fire district and REACH helicopters. REACH provides a pilot, flight nurse, and flight Paramedic. The fire district staffs the helicopter with a command officer for firefighting missions. Contact Chief Mark Heine if you would like more information on either topic.

Weekly Newsletter
You may have noticed that we recently began publishing a weekly newsletter. This is part of our effort to ensure we continually communicate with the membership, especially items of a timely nature. If you or your section has news or information that would be beneficial to share with the membership, please submit that information to Carmen Berry at cberry@calchiefs.org.

CalChiefs Organizational Task Force – Update
REIMAGINING A 125-YEAR-OLD ORGANIZATION

Legislative Update
Assembly Bill 1168 (Bennett) would modify the City of Oxnard v. County of Ventura case regarding prehospital EMS by granting Oxnard .201 rights and prospectively, providing a means for .201 rights cities to join JPAs without losing these rights when they exit the JPA. The bill passed the Senate Governance & Finance Committee yesterday and now moves on to the Senate Appropriations Committee.

Assembly Bill 40 (Rodriguez) would require LEMSAs to adopt an ambulance patient offload time (APOT) standard, not to exceed 30 minutes, 90% of the time, and require acute care hospitals to implement APOT reduction protocols. AB 40 passed the Senate Health Committee yesterday and also moves to the Senate Appropriations Committee. 

Assembly Bill 767 (Gipson) would extend the sunset date to 2031 for the Community Paramedicine or Triage to Alternative Destination Act. The bill is also in the Senate Appropriations Committee.

Assembly Bill 118 (Comm. on Budget), among many changes to Health and Human service provisions, removes the requirement that the director of Cal EMSA must be a physician and adds a Governor appointed chief medical officer who is a physician with medical/response experience. This measure has been signed into law by Governor Newsom.

Cal Chiefs is sponsoring Senate Bill 577 (Hurtado) to expand the authority for the State Fire Marshal to receive funds for firefighter training and education from sources other than user fees. The bill has been moved to the Assembly Appropriations Committee.

Other active and moving pieces of legislation Cal Chiefs is supporting include:

Assembly Constitutional Amendment 1 (Aguiar-Curry) would reduce the vote threshold to 55% from the current 66.7% for local government revenue enhancement measures pertaining to affordable housing and infrastructure improvements. ACA 1 passed the Assembly Local Government Committee on Wednesday and now moves to the Assembly Appropriations Committee.

Assembly Bill 297 (Fong) would extend the sunset date to 2034 for CAL FIRE to authorize advance payments from the local assistance grant program for fire prevention and home hardening activities.

Assembly Bill 788 (Petrie-Norris) would require the Wildfire and Forest Resilience Task Force to post eligible fire prevention grant programs from state and federal sources that would benefit local agencies.

Senate Bill 470 (Alvarado-Gil) would extend existing drought relief programs to fund projects that provide benefits in addition to drought relief to reduce the risk of wildfire damage through delivery system improvements for fire suppression purposes.

Assembly Bill 700 (Grayson) would establish a Firefighter Cancer Prevention and Research Program to be administered by the University of California.

We remain active in the discussions promoting science-based fire mitigation activities at the community and local parcel level both to promote community safety and assist in addressing the distressed homeowners' insurance market impacting many areas of California.

July Executive Board Meeting

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

1. The Board continued its work on ratifying job descriptions for Board positions. At the July meeting, the Division and Area Director Job Descriptions were approved.
2. The Board approved the proposed Hall of Fame Class of 2023 nominees. As this is our first class, this includes prior CalChiefs members.

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

1. Chief Mark Lorenzen (Menlo Park Fire) has been appointed to represent the California Fire Chiefs on the Firescope SB 450 Working Group.
2. Captain Michael MacKenzie (El-Dorado Hills Fire) has been appointed to represent CalChiefs on the CalOES California Public Safety Radio Strategic Planning Committee.

At the July Executive Board Meeting, President Tubbs made the following appointments:

1. Chief Mark Hartwig (Santa Barbara County Fire) and Deputy Chief Peterson (Southern Marin Fire) have been appointed to the CalEMSA Chapter 13 Committee. Additionally, Ray Ramirez, Esq, and Andrew Schouten, Esq have been asked to provide technical and legal support to our CalChief’s representatives.
2. Chief Dave Sprague (Berkley Fire) was ratified by the Board as the new Northern Area 7 Director. 

CALChiefs Emergency Management (EM) Section 
The Emergency Management (EM) section for Cal Chiefs is currently focused on membership growth. Our outreach strategy includes collaborating with existing networks of Emergency Managers throughout the State of California. Our aim is to align our efforts and magnify our collective voices to advocate appropriately for the needs of our colleagues tasked with coordinating emergency management services. Our membership is remarkably diverse in comparison to other sections due to EM responsibilities oftentimes being held by civilian personnel. This has made connecting with these individuals challenging due to a vast majority of Emergency Managers not holding the rank of Chief Officer. Each of our meetings offers a valuable training component, legislative updates, and an opportunity to connect with other EM professionals. Despite some of our previous recruitment challenges, we are confident that we will see significant growth in our section this coming year.

If there are any questions please contact Brian Helmick, EM President, at bhelm@cccfpd.org or (925) 584-8468, and or, EM President-Elect, Justin Matsushita at JMatsushita@cityofsanteeca.gov.

National Special District Coalition (NSDC)
The fire service-related updates from the National Special Districts Coalition are intended for California fire protection district leaders and stakeholders.

National Special Districts Action Week is August 7-11.

The National Special Districts Coalition is calling on special districts across the country to engage with their representatives in the U.S. House and Senate and advocate for top federal priorities. The second annual coordinated advocacy event is formally August 7-12, although distributed materials should be up to date through at least Labor Day. Engagements anytime through the month of August are alternatively encouraged.

NSDC’s Advocacy Team will host a live webinar on Wednesday, August 2, at 10 a.m. PT covering a special district perspective on the latest from DC, highlighting two coordinated advocacy topics: (1) federally defining special district and (2) amending a WUI community wildfire defense program to expand project eligibly to include water-for-fire infrastructure projects.

Click here to register for the NSDC National Special Districts Action Week to receive coordinated materials and updates.

Click here to register for the August 2 Action Week Webinar.

Federal Special District Definition Update
Briefly – Confirmed to lead House “definition” legislative efforts is Congressman Pat Fallon, R-Texas, with Congresswoman Brittany Pettersen, D-Colo., secured as the House Democratic co-lead. The NSDC Advocacy Team is working with bill sponsors and the House Oversight and Accountability Committee staff (the House committee of jurisdiction) in the drafting process as of the time of this memo submission. Senate is still in development. NSDC expects an advocacy action alert for its members in late July/early August. Please stay tuned.

If there are any questions please contact Brian Helmick, Emergency Management President, at bhelm@cccfpd.org or (925) 584-8468.

Podcasts
As many of you may have noticed, we have not published a podcast for a while. We apologize for this, but we have been focused on legislative issues due to the legislative timeline this has needed our attention. We will again be releasing new episodes soon. Thank you for your interest in our podcasts.

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 or reach out to our team at calchiefs@calchiefs.org. 

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