The Issues That Matter
Housing & Affordability
Ending Street Homelessness
Reform of the Tri-City Animal Shelter
It’s Your City.
Expect More.
Pasco City Councilman Leo Perales
Leo Perales is your District 3 Councilman for the great city of Pasco.
Its Your City. Expect More.
Opinions are my own and don’t represent my employer or the city of Pasco.
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🚨 WE WORKED TOO HARD TO GO BACKWARDS. 🚒
One of my serious concerns with the proposed cuts to the Pasco Fire Department is what they could mean for our WSRB Protection Class 3 rating. Our firefighters and Fire Department have worked for years to get us to this point, and that rating didn’t happen by accident. Pasco’s Fire Master Plan specifically identified maintaining our Class 3 rating as something that required continued attention and improvement, and in 2024, the Fire Department successfully maintained that Class 3 rating.
Now we’re talking about potentially cutting firefighters, taking fire engines out of service, and reducing or closing fire station operations. I believe we need to take very seriously whether cuts of this magnitude could put our rating in jeopardy. WSRB evaluates factors such as firefighter staffing, engine companies, apparatus, station distribution, training, and a community’s overall fire-response capabilities. Those are some of the very resources we are now discussing cutting.
We should not spend years investing in additional stations, equipment, personnel, and training to strengthen fire protection, only to turn around and dismantle pieces of that system when the budget gets difficult. We worked too hard to get here to start going backwards now.
There is also another potential consequence our residents and businesses deserve to understand. WSRB protection classifications can be used by insurance companies as one factor in determining property insurance rates. That makes this bigger than simply looking at how much money can be removed from a department’s budget.
Before we eliminate firefighter positions, take engines out of service, or reduce station coverage, I want an answer to a very simple question: What will these cuts do to Pasco’s Class 3 WSRB rating? Council should have that answer before, not after, we make decisions that could be difficult and expensive to reverse.
Our Fire Department and our firefighters have worked too hard to get us to this point. We should be building on that progress, not undoing it.
🚒 PUBLIC SAFETY IS PARAMOUNT. SUPPORT PASCO’S FIREFIGHTERS.
Hear something to think about: our property (home / residential), commercial and industrial insurance coverage will increase if the PFD is reduced. Reducing the PPD would most likely mean increased criminal activity. Which would mean that your property insurance rates would increase.
The fire protection rating is very real for homeowners insurance rates. I live in a donut hole of Pasco and my insurance agent has told me that our homeowners insurance will go down if we are ever annexed into the city. That insurance impact could be quantified so citizens are well informed of the trade offs for cutting services vs. maintaining and paying higher taxes.
I very much agree yet let’s be honest people the jobs and agencies are union, like them or not is irrelevant but what is relevant is how much more money this costs the Citizens.
The previous Chief Bob Gear worked hard to get Pasco Fire to its current WSRB and a respectable Fire agency. The current Fire Chief was a big mistake and just not in control of managing a Fire agency.
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When this happens, it's usually because the owner only shared it with a small group of people, changed who can see it or it's been deleted.They’re also raising insurance premiums for all employees But still going through with all their expenses projects planned!
This content isn't available right now
When this happens, it's usually because the owner only shared it with a small group of people, changed who can see it or it's been deleted.
This content isn't available right now
When this happens, it's usually because the owner only shared it with a small group of people, changed who can see it or it's been deleted.🤣This is such a classic response. Budget shortfall - staff reductions on the highest profile staff - police and fire. And as expected the good civic minded citizens will respond against the proposal in the name of safety for the fear of becoming a crime victim or burning to death. Then at the 11th hour the city will have an epiphany and propose a simple solution to raise taxes to avoid cutting police and fire. This is so quintessential of a government bait and switch game play on the dumb citizens. 🤣🤪 I have seen this game played out many times and very successfully in many cities across this state Here’s a thought - take a look at the entire city’s salary budget. Start pay cuts on a sliding scale - the higher the pay the bigger the pay cut and so on down. Do this before proposing any new tax increases. Let this be a temporary pay cut until staff learns how to budget and manage the money. You would be very surprised on how fast staff can become more efficient and responsible at managing the budgets. Once the budget is back on track, start evaluating slow removal of the paycuts based on merits. Just my rambling thoughts😁
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