Amador County – Jackson City Council cited a healthy cache of fire protection reserves and a palatable need for better response to public safety service calls Monday in hiring the city’s fifth paid fire fighter, a fire engineer, to help increase fire call abilities.

City Manager Mike Daly recommended the hiring, saying the city has amassed “a pretty healthy reserve” in fire protection funds, with money collected from the state-wide Proposition 172 for fire protection, about $400,000 in Measure M fire fighting funds, from the 2008 county-wide ½-cent sales, and membership funds to a fire service district.

Daly said “we have a little more than $700,000 in reserves that can only be used for these purposes.” The city now has a chief, a captain and two engineers at a cost of about $325,000. Adding one more engineer would costs $385,000 total, up to $415,000 for “top step” staffing. Daly said “it appears it could be well within the city income.”

The council agreed. Mayor Pat Crew said: “He says we can afford it, and it would be OK with me.” Councilman Keith Sweet said “it would be inane not to use it for what we’ve been collecting it for.” He recommended they “check in a year to see how big a reserve needs to be.”

During public comment, volunteer and operations Fire Chief Mark Morton said he was thrilled with the council’s support. He said “filling another position is just going to enhance the services we are able to give to the city and surrounding areas. And you are still going to have us volunteers” responding.

Jackson Police Chief Scott Morrison said as they get increased calls for service, to have that extra person at a collision, medical call or even crime scene is very beneficial. Vice Mayor Connie Gonsalves made a motion to approve the hiring, and “to fill the position as soon as possible because it is a public safety issue.” The council approved the hiring on a 5-0 vote.

In his sixth month on the job, Jackson Fire Chief Mark Crain said 2011 was the first full year of full-time fire coverage within city limits, with a fire captain and two fire engineers to augment the coverage of the dedicated volunteers of JFD.

Crain and Daly recommended that the public would be better served by hiring the engineer. They noted that with 135 calls in January, 2012 off to an even higher pace of service calls. 2011 had a record with 1,215 service calls answered by Jackson Fire Department.

Story by Jim Reece This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.