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Health & Fitness

A Million Dollar Difference?

Let's at least ASK the Orange County Fire Authority to look at our fire and paramedic costs.

One of the only cities in Orange County that's really "getting its act together" during this recession is Costa Mesa. They're blessed with a strong business community, and best of all, millons of dollars of retail sales tax pouring in from South Coast Plaza, the largest (by revenue) shopping center ON EARTH. 

For years, Costa Mesa was fooled by its now retired City Manager into thinking its finances weren't any better or worse than its neighbors. The unions were happy as no one had really figured out they were stealing the place blind. 

But as its City Council's liberals were replaced by two hard-nosed businessmen, a more conservative, finance-savvy majority formed and started asking some hard questions -- like "why are we going broke"?  That's when their City Manager decided he really needed to play more golf, and not to far behind him was their Police Chief who threw a childish fit on his departure.  Both were quickly replaced by well-regarded, seasoned and sensible men that don't believe the unions ought to be filling in for them.

My firm conducted a poll for the Costa Mesa Tax Payers Association last year, and I attend their meetings to provide any support my customer needs.  Thursday last, led Attorney Colin McCarthy, the group over 100 members and neighbors heard Mayor pro tem Jim Righeimer (a former FV resident) and Councilman Steve Mensinger speak on their strategy to convert Costa Mesa from a general law city to a charter city.

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Among many great reasons to do that is to make the process of outsourcing certain internal city functions easier, and with less meddling from the State and interference from the unions.  I spoke with Mensinger about the big savings in their outsourcing strategy -- turning over their Fire Department to the Orange County Fire Authority.  Estimates of savings vary.  Steve told me on a recurring annual basis they'll be $2 million ahead, and with NO loss of service level or increased risk to the community.

So, if it's that simple to save that kind of money, why have Fountain Valley's efforts to look into a restructuring of our Fire (and Paramedic) services been so lethargic (or non-existent)?  We've just hired a new Fire Chief instead of looking harder at our options. 

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Costa Mesa is about double our size -- 116k vs. 55k residents, 16 vs. nine square miles -- so, a little back-of-the-envelope math says we might save half as much, or a million bucks if we did the same thing

If Costa Mesa can accomplish this while the knuckle-dragging unions are screaming at them every two weeks, what's stopping Fountain Valley from at least exploring the potential and obtaining a formal quotation from the OCFA to see if WE can save some money?

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