A day before a Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors committee is scheduled to review an audit of the Los Altos Hills County Fire District, county firefighters hosted a press conference Wednesday (Aug. 26) to argue for the district’s reorganization.
“The Los Altos Hills County Fire District is overseen by a board of directors, a board of non-fire professionals, and the audit recommended that this board be consolidated into the Santa Clara County Fire Department,” said Adam Cosner, president of the Santa Clara County Firefighters Local Union 1165. “The Santa Clara County Fire Department is a special district that is run by industry professionals. … They understand the dangers of what can happen in the wildland-urban interface, they understand the district and the area, and there’s no question that they would be the most appropriate group to have authority over that fire district.”
Cosner said he spoke for the union — not for the Santa Clara County Fire Department as a whole.
Supervisors Cindy Chavez and Dave Cortese, members of the county’s Finance and Government Operations Committee, are expected to review the audit Thursday morning. Among the document’s allegations are those related to improper use of taxpayer funds and Brown Act violations, and its author – auditor Cheryl Solov of Harvey M. Rose Associates – recommends the district’s suspension.
A Board of Supervisors resolution led to the district’s formation in 1939. It provides fire prevention services to approximately 12,000 residents of the town and to unincorporated parts of the county.
Cosner said he planned his press conference, staged outside the county administration offices on West Hedding Street, well before ongoing wildfires like the SCU Lightning Complex and the CZU August Lightning Complex besieged the Bay Area. His hope is to implore the Board of Supervisors to collectively vote on consolidation rather than have Chavez and Cortese consider the matter within committee.
“It has been really important for me to get in front of the FGOC meeting in order to make sure these guys know where the firefighters in their district stand,” Cosner said after the press conference. “Just the fact that the fires kicked off and emphasized the drama of the situation, that was just an (unintended) effect.”
District reps declined to comment on the press conference when asked about it by the Town Crier Wednesday, but the audit does include a rebuttal from the seven-person district commission.
“The district is proud to be a good steward of district taxpayers’ dollars, to have created no debt or liabilities that burden government and to responsibly practice governance of local control for the benefit of its constituents,” commissioners wrote.
To access the FGOC’s virtual teleconference at 9:30 a.m. Thursday, visit sccgov-org.zoom.us/j/97478721167.
