Firefighters urge community to consider JPA

SANDPOINT —  “Be involved.” 

That’s what Selkirk Fire officials are encouraging area residents to do regarding recent conversations about the Selkirk Fire Joint Powers Association.

The public will have a chance to give their input through an upcoming special council meeting March 27.

When the JPA formed, Selkirk officials said it allowed the region’s fire departments to increase their capabilities and become more efficient in regards to emergency responses. It also allowed for improved fire prevention, public education and community outreach by collaborating as one unit with multiple districts. Currently, the JPA includes Sandpoint, Sagle and Westside fire districts. 

“Really why we came back and formed as Selkirk Fire back in 2014 was because we’re all a bunch of small departments that provide not great service on large-scale calls because we just don’t have a lot of personnel,” said Clint Frank, union president and local firefighter for 22 years. 

In his experience, since the JPA formed, Frank said the fire districts provide better service, especially on structure fires, large motor vehicle accidents, hazmat calls, and rescues — weather water or mountain rescues. 

“We’re just better together than apart because our staffing improves,” he said. 

With Selkirk Fire’s Joint Powers Agreement term set to end in June, unless those involved opt to renew it, discussion has emerged concerning whether it is the best option for the city of Sandpoint. Throughout these conversations, firefighters from all three districts have voiced their support for JPA.

“It makes sense to listen to the subject experts, the folks that actually risk their lives and put their life on the line in the middle of the night, as far as what the best path for Selkirk Fire is,” Frank said. 

In January, the Sandpoint City Council approved workshops that would allow for discussion concerning the benefits of the JPA. The city hosted one workshop at the end of January, then voted in February to extend the JPA until June to allow for extra time to consider the agreement’s fate. They voted Feb. 1 to instead host a special council meeting where the districts could present before the council moves forward with a decision. That meeting is being held Wednesday. 

Throughout recent meetings, supporters said continuing the JPA allows for more efficient use of resources and prevents “costly steps backwards” in terms of progress that has been made through joint training and 911 responses, and keeps firefighters safe and protects the communities they serve. 

“The main difference is, currently our operations are strong because we’ve got coordinated 911 response plans, same standard operating guidelines between all the stations, training standards are all the same and we can share equipment,” Frank said.  “All equipment we purchase now is the same, so it’s interchangeable when we’re on scene. That wasn’t like that when I started my career. Since '14 we’ve made strides to improve all that.”

Now Selkirk Fire leaders are asking that the community is informed and engaged — whether they support the JPA or not, Frank said.

“We want to make sure the public has the opportunity to hear the message, and have some input on March 27, either for or against,” he said. 

With an agency as important and influential as public safety and emergency response, Frank and other firefighters are asking that the community understand how the JPA works, and what the city’s fire protection would look like without it. 

“The city is not really telling us what the issue is,” Frank said. “There have been a couple anecdotal things about administrative function, and discussion about the sliders, which are a management decision.”

Other concerns from the Sandpoint council include a decreased level of service in Sandpoint and additional administrative burden on the city’s HR team. 

Despite the direction Sandpoint takes, district boards have decided to move forward with a fire authority, which adjusts and unifies administrative tasks, solving a primary issue identified by the city. According to Frank and Selkirk Fire Deputy Chief Jeff Armstrong, a JPA is actually a better choice for the city financially as well.  

“All the firefighters are 100% in favor of continuing in the JPA and strengthening it to what we’re calling a Joint Powers Fire Authority,” Frank said. “That was the original intent of the JPA anyway, was to have that be a starting point, and then strengthen it as we move forward.”

Through establishing a fire authority, Frank said they would be stepping away from the city and have the city and the districts contract to the fire authority for their fire protection service. Through this set up, Selkirk Fire would be a legal entity established under Idaho Code that provides organization structure and funding for fire and emergency medical services, Armstrong said. The fire authority would be created by action of the governing bodies of the involved agencies. 

“What we’d like to do is bring all the administration in house for the fire department,” Frank said. “All these districts and cities, they already plan their fire budgets … Basically you allow it to go into one budget and hire the chiefs to run the department and they basically run it administratively, financially and also operationally.”

He estimated existing budgets at about $1.3 million from the city of Sandpoint, $1.86 million from Sagle, and $600,000 from Westside. 

“That’s what we’ve been lacking is that next step,” Frank said. “Chief (Armstrong) has been putting together some great information, he’s reached out to some third party consultants who have done this in neighboring states of Utah, Wyoming, Washington. They do it because it’s efficient, it saves taxpayer money and it provides better operations for the community.” 

Currently, the fire districts expect to form a fire authority by Oct.1, when the fiscal year renews. If Sandpoint removes themselves from the JPA, the fire authority will be composed of Westside and Sagle fire districts, and other districts that may choose to join in the future, Frank said.  

“The JPA in its current form was never designed or intended to be a permanent solution,” Armstrong said. “Rather, it gave agencies the time to evaluate the administrative and operational impacts of working together. Success with this model has been seen in both cost savings and in coordinated operations in emergency response.” 

The formation of a fire authority and the establishment of a separate entity will allow further sharing of resources without the cumbersome administrative process that currently exists. This will also reduce the administrative and financial burden on the city by removing all fire department functions from its responsibility. 

“Better level of service, or cheaper level of service — that’s what we continue to ask, what does the city want?” Frank said. “Because right now they are getting both. They’re getting a collaborative fire service in Bonner County that is costing them a lot less than it would have if they had their own fire department.” 

While some have suggested that the fire departments could continue operating in a unified manner without the JPA, Armstrong said that if the city breaks up the departments, there is no guarantee that the level and speed of service will remain the same. 

“Unless you have shared vision and shared leadership, there is no guarantee that in the future this thing will continue to be together, right because people change, leadership changes, elected officials change and next thing you know five years from now they’re saying ‘why are we going to Sandpoint so much?’” Armstrong said. “The reality is that Sandpoint leverages a much larger fire department now then they would on their own for cheaper than they would on their own. So one has to ask, where is this coming from?”

Both Armstrong and Frank also stressed that the city of Sandpoint faces the highest community risk because of its size, population and historic downtown structure, making the JPA even more beneficial for Sandpoint than the other districts. While some data from recent years has been explored, those years don’t necessarily include large downtown fires, such as the 2019 fire which gutted two buildings and caused significant smoke and water damage to a third. Those fires are very unpredictable and might only occur once in a decade or so.

“We haven’t really explored the data on what happens if there is a big fire in Sandpoint, not only historically what happened, but what happens if there is a big fire in the future,” Armstrong said.  “How do you quantify that? I don’t know how you quantify that. There are different models you can look at but how do you break that down so elected officials can make a decision.”

With the current JPA organization, a downtown fire would call for four engines and a duty chief, Frank said. 

“If we step backwards, we’ll get two engines — a first out engine from Sandpoint,” Frank said. “We have an automatic-aid agreement we’re looking at with Northside, but we don’t know what the future holds. It could be two engines, three engines — chief maybe, chief not. We currently have a good operations plan in place, that’s why the line wants to keep it — unanimously across the board all 24 firefighters — because it leads to better outcomes, safer conditions for the firefighters and safer conditions for the civilians.”

The special council meeting to discuss the JPA will be held March 27 at 5:30 p.m. at Sandpoint City Hall, 1123 Lake St.

    Clint Frank, union president and local firefighter for 22 years, said the connection between all the stations is at a high level right now. If the districts separate into individual departments, he expects that communication piece to not remain as strong.