Santa Ana headed to OCFA

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LAflyer

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OCFA board On Thursday approved a proposed contract which would see OCFA absorb 192 Santa Ana firefighters.

The proposed contract now goes back to the Santa Ana City Council for final review on February 6th. If approved it would save Santa Ana about $10mil annually, and could take effect as early as April 2012.

New station IDs 67-76 have been reserved for Santa Ana.
 

Radio_Lady

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The Santa Ana stations would be absorbed as Battalion 9, apparently in Division 6. Stations 1-6 will become 71-76, and stations 7-10 will become 67-70, respectively.

Sworn firefighters would bring with them their Santa Ana seniority dates and be considered as having passed their probation with OCFA on the date of transition (as long as they've already passed probation at Santa Ana). The senior-most 144 of them will have a few more seniority perks than those below them.

15 non-sworn SAFD personnel, including six dispatchers, will be offered employment with OCFA, but they will be considered new hires with no seniority and have to serve a new probation period.


OCFA board On Thursday approved a proposed contract which would see OCFA absorb 192 Santa Ana firefighters.

The proposed contract now goes back to the Santa Ana City Council for final review on February 6th. If approved it would save Santa Ana about $10mil annually, and could take effect as early as April 2012.

New station IDs 67-76 have been reserved for Santa Ana.
 
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KMA367

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Sworn firefighters would bring with them their Santa Ana seniority dates and be considered as having passed their probation with OCFA on the date of transition (as long as they've already passed probation at Santa Ana). The senior-most 144 of them will have a few more seniority perks than those below them.

15 non-sworn SAFD personnel, including six dispatchers, will be offered employment with OCFA, but they will be considered new hires with no seniority and have to serve a new probation period.

Oh, but of course... they're mere civilian employees. :roll:
 

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OCFA seems to be growing at a pretty good clip having added 4 cities in the last few years.

After Santa Ana enters, OCFA will covering 23 of the counties 34 cities, with potential that Costa Mesa will make the switch also as it struggles with its own budget issues.
 

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I worked an OCFA fire just once and then another in Riverside county where the Orange Co. folks brought in a command vehicle. Boy, they had the do dads in that command rig!

This trend of contracting with the county by so many municipalities in both L.A. and Orange Counties is interesting to watch. Both departments seem to be on the path toward being super departments if they aren't already. Both have a major structure component and both have a major wildland component. Both provide wildland services for the SRA under contract for the state. L.A. City and L.A. County have quite the mix of seemingly all the factors for a fire service. The only thing Orange County does not have is a major seaport. It also doesn't have as much major manufacturing.

Yes, the measly civilians. In the Forest Service you had the professionals (natural resource degrees such as forestry, range conservation, etc.) and the technicians. I spent my early career in the latter, but the majority of my time as a "professional." Some of the more egotistical college grads would refer to the techs and say "well he/she is just a technician." I was in the lowest level of management for 7 years and then took a voluntary downgrade to a position that both technicians and foresters could qualify for. I decided I wanted to work for a living for the rest of my career! I was one of those field supervisors with the salt and pepper look enjoying my job. Management/sworn personnel do best when they don't take an arrogant attitude toward those civilian/technician folks as they need them badly.
 
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SCPD

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An added thought, should we ever get out of this mess of difficult public finances (as if it hasn't always been difficult) I wonder if the politics of that future time will take the outlook that these "super departments" are too big and too unwieldy. A trend toward returning control of services to communities may result in some areas. Just take a look at the uproar over the L.A. City School District and wanting to break it up into smaller pieces as an example.
 

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Was in the paper today that OCFA had bids out with Brea, Fountain Valley and Costa Mesa, and that absorbing Santa Ana could make OCFA's proposals for two of them even more compelling as they share borders with Santa Ana and would further benefiting from improved resource access and utilization in the immediate region which could likely reduced their contracting cost.
 

pepsima1

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Its just the sign of the times. If you know of anyone that every wants to get hired for a fire department tell them to choose a different profession. Those jobs will never come back. Its a wasted profession that just went down the tubes with our economy. Its sad but it is what it is.

Just remember in the past when Buena Park Fire Dept got absorbed into the OCFA about 15 to 20 years ago. Also, LaHabra Fire Dept got absorbed into LACOFD

Its great for the existing fire department personal because it creates more money for OT and gives a smaller department opportunity for people to promote if they get absorbed into a bigger fire department. Also, pay raises and better benefits.
 

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The scheduled Santa Ana city council vote was delayed till February 20th.

If approved on the 20th, cutover target date to OCFA will be late April.
 

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The final details have been ironed out paving way for City Council approval this week. Santa Ana needed to workout a transition agreement with its employee unions for the transfer.

Some details as follows:
• Transition date planned will be April 20, 2012 @ 0800
• 8-year contract
• 151 sworn positions accepted for the contract. 36 excess sworn positions also accepted by OCFA for other assignments. OCFA also accepts 15 non-sworn personnel in transition.
• OCFA Battalion 9 will be responsible for Santa Ana with new station IDs being 70-79
• OCFA will assume 24 pieces of Santa Ana equipment
• Start up cost approx $1.6mil covered by Santa Ana
• Ambulance transport will be contracted out with the City putting out an RFP to select a vendor. In the interim OCFA may utilize vendors of its choosing.
• Santa Ana saves $8.7-10.0mil annually over the life of the agreement.

OCFA planned station resources as follows:
70 - Assessment Engine
71 - Medic Engine + Medic Truck
72 - Medic Engine
73 - Medic Engine
74 - Medic Engine + Battalion 9 + Division 6 Chief
75 - Medic Engine + Medic Truck
76 - Assessment Quint
77 - Assessment Engine + Medic Van
78 - Assessment Engine + Medic Van
79 - Assessment Engine
After two-year period OCFA will have option to reconfigure resources based on unit response performance analysis.

=
 

LAflyer

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OCFA has grown at a nice clip recent times.

Wonder if this will further encourage cities like Brea, Fountain Valley and Costa Mesa which have pending surveys from OCFA on the table.


Back to scanning now - how will this change things?
I note OCFA will have Santa Ana as new Division 6. Guess they will need a few new talk groups, or shift around existing ones??
Santa Ana FD which can get rather busy has 8 dedicated TGs on the CCCS system currently.
 

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OCFA has grown at a nice clip recent times.

Wonder if this will further encourage cities like Brea, Fountain Valley and Costa Mesa which have pending surveys from OCFA on the table.


Back to scanning now - how will this change things?
I note OCFA will have Santa Ana as new Division 6. Guess they will need a few new talk groups, or shift around existing ones??
Santa Ana FD which can get rather busy has 8 dedicated TGs on the CCCS system currently.

OCFA has grown? Am I missing something here? Unless I'm brain farting, OCFA hasn't picked up any new territory since Westminster / Buena Park / San Clemente back in the late 80's or early 90's.

As far as other departments go, rumor has it that Fountain Valley is no longer interested in OCFA, mostly due to loss of local control. Don't know about the rest. I could see Brea waiting to see what happens with the Anaheim, Fullerton and Orange merger before they make a decision.

I would Imagine that once the transition occurs, Division 6 will stay on 3-D and/or 3-E for their tacticals and will be dispatched on 5-B like the rest of the county, but that's purely speculation on my part. Can't see them all using 5-D as the extra traffic would be too much.
Long term, I could see them on a new Tac in zone 4. Zone 5 looks to be running low on extra talkgroups.
 

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Back to scanning now - how will this change things?
I note OCFA will have Santa Ana as new Division 6. Guess they will need a few new talk groups, or shift around existing ones??

This is exactly what I was thinking. I wonder if we're in store for major changes as Santa Ana Fire talkgroups use the South cell and OCFA has everything on the Countywide cell.
 

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As far as other departments go, rumor has it that Fountain Valley is no longer interested in OCFA, mostly due to loss of local control. Don't know about the rest. I could see Brea waiting to see what happens with the Anaheim, Fullerton and Orange merger before they make a decision.

A friend of mine is a former Brea dispatcher. His opinion is that Brea FD will join Metronet in the not too distant future.
 

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This is exactly what I was thinking. I wonder if we're in store for major changes as Santa Ana Fire talkgroups use the South cell and OCFA has everything on the Countywide cell.

Another thing I just thought of is this:

Adding Santa Ana to the Countywide Cell *may* be a problem. I know that the county added 2 channels to the CW cell to increase capacity about 5 years ago and I doubt that moving SAFD was on the radar back then. The Countywide Cell may not have the capacity to handle the extra traffic without some significant upgrades. I guess we shall see........
 

seligman

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Any idea why talkgroups such as 2N are on the North Cell, yet all of the Metronet North dispatch and tactical talkgroups use the Countywide Cell?
 

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For the record OCFA was not formed until 1995 with 19 initial cities. Now its 23, soon 24 cities.

Prior OC was covered agency called Orange County Fire Department which followed the state CDF(now CAL-Fire) dropping its OC coverage circa 1980 or so.
 

Markb

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For the record OCFA was not formed until 1995 with 19 initial cities. Now its 23, soon 24 cities.

Prior OC was covered agency called Orange County Fire Department which followed the state CDF(now CAL-Fire) dropping its OC coverage circa 1980 or so.

Okay. I see what you're saying. They haven't actually grown, they've just had some of their previously unincorporated areas incorporate, like Laguna Woods and Rancho Santa Margarita. No additional stations or coverage area absorbed.
Semantics :)

As far as 2-N goes, Seligman, I am not sure what the deal is there. Sounds like they picked the "N" for consistency, but this was after the system was built. Don't know if you've noticed, but Garden Grove, who is part of Metronet, uses 2-H for structure fire calls, not 2-N, presumably the North Cell coverage is not guaranteed south of the 22 freeway.
 

seligman

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I hadn't noticed that about Garden Grove. As important as 2N is for fires and MCI's you'd think it would be on the Countywide Cell so everybody could hear it.
 
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