New Fire Tax Could Affect Thousands of San Bernardino Residents

Irony: Fee is assessed on structures--protection Cal Fire does not provide.

Dan Wilson
Best Syndication

SAN BERNARDINO Calif. – Today the County Board of Supervisors made their position known on the fire tax by passing a unanimous resolution in opposition to it.

According to George Watson, Chief of Staff for Supervisor Neil Derry, the resolution calls for resending [sic] of the tax. “I am committed to waging an ongoing and sustained battle against this illegal tax,” Supervisor Derry said.

Initially the tax was to be $150 per household living in the wildland areas serviced by Cal Fire. First District Supervisor Brad Mitzelfelt tells Best Syndication that the money goes to the state’s fire protection agency. “The irony is that Cal Fire does not provide structure protection, although the fee is assessed on structures”, Mitzelfelt said.

The tax / fee could be assessed against tens of thousands of residents of San Bernardino County. The good news is that the fee was lowered from $150 to $90 per year and there are discounts available for residents who provide defensible space between their home and brush and trees.

Those with the lowest incomes could be weighed-down the most. “The High Desert has the highest unemployment in the region and our residents cannot be burdened with additional taxes when so many are struggling to make ends meet”, Supervisor Mitzelfelt said.

“This is an example of the majority in the Legislature’s irresponsible, unfair, and possibly illegal effort to balance its out-of-control budget on the backs of local residents, who already pay taxes and fees for this service.”

Watson tells Best Syndication that the assessment is on habitable structures only, not garages or sheds. According to David Zook, spokesperson for Supervisor Brad Mitzelfelt, the fee will be assessed on “inhabitable” structures.

“When the legislature passed the bill it was meant to cover a shortfall in the Cal Fire budget, but because the way it was written the money could go to local fire agencies”, Watson told Best Syndication.

California Governor Jerry Brown may change that. According to Chief of Staff Watson the governor wants to make sure the money goes to the state and not the local agencies.

Land for Amboy Fire Station Received

From the Office of Brad Mitzelfelt
Supervisor, First District
San Bernardino County

SAN BERNARDINO – The San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors today accepted the donation of 2.05 acres in Amboy to be used as a site for a new fire station.

“Getting fire stations built in remote desert areas where response times can exceed an hour has been a priority of mine since taking office,” said First District Supervisor Brad Mitzelfelt. “I want to thank the owner, Albert Okura, for his generous donation. This is a major step toward improving fire response times in a high-traffic, but underserved area.”

A fire station in Amboy would provide coverage on the heavily traveled Interstate 40 corridor, where there are no fire stations along the 150-mile stretch between Barstow and Needles. Response times in the Amboy area are a minimum of 1 hour 15 minutes. Fire crews that serve Amboy and I-40 must come from as far away as Wonder Valley, outside of Twentynine Palms, Needles, Harvard, just east of Barstow, and even Baker, approximately two hours away on Interstate 15.

A fire station in the Amboy area could provide emergency services to Amboy and along the I-40 corridor, which would shorten emergency response times by 30 to 45 minutes to such unincorporated communities as Ludlow, Cadiz, Bagdad and Essex. It would also allow Station 53 in Baker to serve as a back-up to the I-40 corridor so that the Baker emergency response crew would be free to cover the more heavily traveled Interstate 15 corridor.

Supervisor Mitzelfelt previously won a commitment from the Board of Supervisors that additional federal funding promised for the next few years from the Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILT) program would be set aside to build remote fire stations.

Construction begins on Victor Valley fire station

Joint city-county station will serve Hesperia's west side and Oak Hills

Dignitaries including Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-41), Assemblyman Anthony Adams (R-59) and First District Supervisor Brad Mitzelfelt, break ground on San Bernardino County Fire Station 305 Tuesday morning. Photo by Peter Day

Beau Yarbrough
Hesperia Star

Construction on Hesperia's fifth fire station began in earnest Tuesday morning.

Firefighters, dignitaries and construction workers converged on a 3.5-acre lot on Caliente Road, west of Interstate 15, the future site of San Bernardino County Fire Station 305.

The new fire station will be the city's first since Station 304 at Eucalyptus Street and 11th Avenue was built in 1991, and the first built in cooperation with San Bernardino County.

"We've got a great relationship with the county fire department," said Leonard, himself a retired city and county firefighter. "I see great things in our future."

Both the city and county benefit from the new jointly built station, as its future coverage area will include both Hesperia and Oak Hills (which is the county's jurisdiction).

"Our current station in Oak Hills is inadequate; it needs to be replaced," said San Bernardino County Fire Department Division Chief Dan Wurl. "This station is going to be one that supports the troops out there, doing the job we ask them to do."

Money for the project was in question at one point: Before leaving office as First District Supervisor in late 2006, Assessor Bill Postmus proposed using $2.8 million intended for Station 305 to refurbish the assessor's San Bernardino office. In the uproar after the proposal became public, supervisors yanked the proposal off their agenda before it ever came to a vote.

In addition to local dignitaries and fire officials, Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-41), Assemblyman Anthony Adams (R-59) and First District Supervisor Brad Mitzelfelt were also on hand to mark the occasion.

"All of us know, as we see the fires raging this very day," Lewis said, "The challenges ahead. ... We know that we're all in this together."

Lewis said building new stations in Southern California was especially important as the region is gripped by "a drought that seems to go on forever."

"This is exactly what leadership is," Adams said. "It's putting aside personal interests in the pursuit of common goals."

"When a fire truck shows up to your home," Mitzelfelt said, "It doesn't really matter what the logo on the side of it says."

The 18,478 square foot station has a price tag of $6.4 million and should be completed in a year.

Hesperia's first fire station, Station 301, will also be remodeled this fiscal year, Leonard said.

$2.7 million approved for Phelan fire station

Board approved Sept. 9 and construction to begin Sept. 22

RYAN ORR Staff Writer
Victorville Daily Press

SAN BERNARDINO — Supervisors Tuesday are expected to approve a $2.7 million contract for the construction of a new Phelan fire station that will be completed by next summer.

The bid from RIC Construction Company, in Hesperia, was the lowest one submitted and is the only local company out of five throughout the Inland Empire that offered proposals, said David Zook, spokesman for San Bernardino County 1st District Supervisor Brad Mitzelfelt.

Pending approval from the board, construction is set to begin on Sept. 11. As part of the project, located on Beekley Road in Phelan, existing facilities on the site will be demolished, dismantled and removed to make way for a 6,997 square-foot single-story fire station. The station will be complete with a hose tower, emergency generator and separate 1,800 square-foot storage building.

“It’s an overdue improvement for the Phelan community and the firefighters who serve it,” Mitzelfelt said.

Mitzelfelt said that an unprecedented investment in capitol improvements and new equipment for the fire department came about from the reorganization of the county fire department, which became official in July.

“We’ve secured it as one that can exceed the expectations and needs of the residents and the public safety needs of San Bernardino County,” Mitzelfelt said of the department.

Goffs is a step closer to getting a fire station

Submitted by David Zook
Best Syndication News





Satellite view of Goffs, California. The red square indicates the 40 acre parcel to be transferred to San Bernardino County Fire for the location of a proposed fire station to serve the East Mojave.




SAN BERNARDINO - A much-needed fire station to provide coverage on Interstate 40 and the remote eastern Mojave Desert took its first step toward becoming a reality today when the Board of Supervisors approved the sale of surplus land to the San Bernardino County Fire Protection District.

"On the remote stretches of Interstate 40, rescue personnel have to come from as far away as Needles or Baker," said First District Supervisor Brad Mitzelfelt. "Getting a fire station in the eastern Mojave Desert has been a priority of mine since taking office, and is essential for the safety of the traveling public."

The County Department of Public Works has owned 40 acres in the Goffs area as a borrow site to excavate material used for maintenance of county roads. It is no longer being used for that purpose and is being made available to be used as a site to construct a new fire station. The land was declared surplus today and is being sold to the San Bernardino County Fire Protection District for $20,000, or $500 per acre.

Goffs is situated 30 miles west of Needles and 50 miles east of Amboy. Supervisor Mitzelfelt and County fire officials continue to work toward planning a fire station to serve Interstate 40 in the area between Ludlow and Amboy. On June 24, Supervisor Mitzelfelt secured Board of Supervisors approval for $300,000 to go toward design work for the staion.

The proposed station in Goffs would augment fire protection and rescue services to the eastern Mojave Desert and the transportation corridors of I-40, Highway 95 and Route 66 (National Trails Highway). That would also provide the communities of Baker, Needles, Havasu Lake and Kelso with an additional resource for rescue.

San Bernardino County is the largest county in the lower contiguous 48 states. Most of the area is composed of a vast wilderness called the Mojave Desert. It can be very difficult to get emergency services to this sparsely populated area.

Fire station approved for Mojave Desert site

Richard Brooks
Press-Enterprise




A fire station will be built in a remote Mojave Desert area, making crews available to help Colorado River vacationers and other travelers along Interstate 40, San Bernardino County officials said.

The station will be near the old railroad town of Goffs, 30 miles west of Needles and 50 miles east of Amboy. Emergencies in the region now draw fire crews from as far away as Needles and Baker.

Land for the proposed station was provided Tuesday to the San Bernardino County Fire Protection District. The county Board of Supervisors has allotted $300,000 for the project.

Tehachapi residents remember the depot

BY JOE BOESEN
staff writer
Bakersfield Californian



Tehachapi Train Depot in 1904.


After 104 years of service, it only took hours for the Historic Tehachapi Train Depot to come crashing down.

The old structure was engulfed in flames after fireworks, lit off late at night, started the inferno.

The depot was the second. The first built in 1876 and burnt down in 1904.

However for more than a century, it stood in the center of Tehachapi, acting as its lifeline, especially in the early days before highways went through Tehachapi. The 1952 earthquake flattened many of the historic buildings in town, but failed to damage the depot. Even when passenger service stopped in 1971, the depot survived and transformed. It continued to be used as office space for the Southern Pacific Railroad Company.

It took only fireworks to burn down a part of Tehachapi history, erase a visible part of American railroad history and shake the core of Tehachapi downtown.

DEPOT MEMORIES

Lydia Wheat, moved to Tehachapi in 1925. She remembers the historic depot as “just the depot.” She would board trains there and head into east Bakersfield for lunch and shopping before returning to Tehachapi.

“In the 1940s it was the only transportation we had,” she said. To send mail, Wheat said she would go to the depot.

“You could run and give the letter to the conductor and they would see that it would get out,” she said. “It was pretty nice.”

Growing up across the street from railroad tracks, Wheat said trains used to pass through the depot every three or four minutes.

“The first couple of nights we moved to town, we could not sleep,” she said. “Now they do not bother me in the least.”

“I was very sad to see it go,” Wheat said of the now destroyed depot.

BEST PLACE TO PLAY

As the son of an alfalfa farmer, Ed Grimes would always accompany his dad on trips to downtown Tehachapi for supplies and equipment repairs. The train depot was always the best place to play.

“There were so many places to hide,” Grimes said.

Walking into the depot, Grimes remembered smelling the wafting scent of cigars.

“It has always been so vivid in my mind,” he said. Outside the depot, all the old measuring scales piled up and the old equipment provided a “neat place for a boy to play.”

When he saw the depot on fire, he said he was so emotionally distraught he didn’t realize the tears running down his face.

URGE TO RESTORE

Doug Pickard became concerned with the deteriorating condition of the depot when he realized the railroad company, now the Union Pacific, was not going “to spend a dime on it.”

The Union Pacific, which bought out the Southern Pacific in 1995, was using the building as an office for its maintenance workers.

Although Pickard has a relatively short history in Tehachapi (living there for only 14 years), he became emotionally attached to restoring the old depot to its former glory.

“It was a strong personal desire to restore that depot late in my life,” he said. As he researched the history of the depot, it grew on him. He formed the Friends of the Tehachapi Depot in 2004, a small group of enthusiasts pushing for restoration.

The City of Tehachapi achieved a major milestone in 2006 when Union Pacific agreed to exchange the depot if the city built another building for its workers.

After an October key exchange ceremony, volunteers officially could begin restoration of the depot, which Pickard estimates was 95 percent complete when it burned down last Friday. In less than three years of work, he said it was fully repainted, new windows and the heating system were installed and even the sprinkler system was set up.

Fortunately, they were not finished — historic artifacts to be displayed in the museum weren’t inside yet.

“Then it would have been a much greater loss,” Pickard said.

ALMOST A MUSEUM

Where Pickard struggled for ten years to restore the depot, Dell Troy struggled for 35 years to rehab the old depot. As a resident of Tehachapi for 50 years, she began to push for a museum at the depot in 1973, two years after passenger service stopped.

“In the fall of 1972, there was a rumor that it would be sold and made into a restaurant,” she said.

She and several others formed the Tehachapi Heritage League to save the depot from becoming a restaurant. The Southern Pacific Railroad Company later said it would not sell the building.

From then on Troy said there was a tuggle war between the people of Tehachapi and the railroad company, which continually refused to allow restoration of the building.

“The answer was always no,” she said. When ownership changed to the Union Pacific, Tehachapi residents were able to start restoration on their favorite building.

She said the love affair residents have with the depot is rooted in history.

“I think everyone put so much love into the depot because they lost practically all of the downtown in the 1952 earthquake,” she said. “It’s 104 years of history gone.”

What’s next for the depot?

The Tehachapi City Council voted unimously on June 16 to rebuild the depot, said City Councilman Ed Grimes.

“We gave directions to the city manager to start building as soon as the investigation is complete,” said Grimes.

Insurance, a building donation fund and redevelopment funds will cover the cost of rebuilding the depot. Grimes said residents have already donated $13,000 to the building doantion fund.

Although it is still unclear when the construction will begin, the city will try to have the depot ready for Tehachapi’s 100 year anniversary in August 2009.

Authorities delay arrest of two in Tehachapi depot blaze

The Bakersfield Californian

A two-alarm fire ripped through a historic Tehachapi train depot Friday morning, causing more than $1 million in damage and leaving a community distraught. Photo by Nick Smirnoff / Special to The Californian

TEHACHAPI — Police have identified two men from Tehachapi, aged 36 and 31, as the two suspects who allegedly caused the Tehachapi train depot fire last week.

The suspects have not been arrested because police are waiting for the Kern County District Attorney’s office to file a complaint against them, police said in a news conference Wednesday afternoon held in front of the charred ruins of the train depot.

The two men were approached individually Monday afternoon by Tehachapi police and in subsequent questioning, along with evidence from the burnt train depot, police believe they caused the fire.

“They were cooperative,” said Tehachapi Police Chief Jeff Kermode. “There was no resistance in the lengthy interview.”

Kermode said the men will not be arrested until the Kern County Fire Department arson investigators present the case to the District Attorney’s office.

The first man contacted “expressed great remorse over the outcome and great fear over the consequences,” Kermode said.

The second man did not show much remorse, he said.

He said the men were not a flight risk because they both had jobs in Tehachapi, one raising a family there.

The arson investigators were expected to present their case to the District Attorney’s office either Wednesday or today, said Phil Castle, Kern County Deputy Fire Chief.

Investigators found that fireworks, which are illegal in mountain areas like Tehachapi, caused the fire. Police said the two men had also been drinking that night.

“Alcohol and illegal fireworks are not a good combination,” Kermode said.

Arson investigators began by consulting with builders who were rehabbing the old train depot, which was to become a museum, to find out if a construction accident was to blame.

Police were tipped off that two men were lighting off fireworks at about 9 p.m. that night. A squad car patrolled the area and the two men left, but they returned around 2 a.m. to light the rest of their fireworks, police said. The fire began shortly after 3 a.m.

Police said they received a tip Saturday stating remnants of fireworks could be found along nearby railroad tracks. The police found and collected those remnants. Those clues led them to the two men. They could be charged with felony arson and felony possession of fireworks.

Shortly before the fire, a new extinguisher system had been installed as part of the depot’s renovation. The water line had not yet been set up.

During the fire, which lasted several hours, at least one propane tank was ruptured by the heat, causing a blast that broke windows in nearby stores.

The news conference drew both media and a crowd of residents, who gathered on the sidewalk in front of the burnt Historic Tehachapi Train Depot. City dignitaries including Mayor Deborah Hand and Councilman Ed Grimes expressed their sorrow over losing the landmark, but promised to rebuild.

“We can rebuild the building but the old wood smells won’t be there,” she said. “It’s a deep feeling of loss.”

As a kid, Grimes used to play hide-and-go-seek in the old building. Tears ran down his face when he watched the building burn.

“To see it all go up in smoke really got to me,” he said.