By Tony Farkas
news@sanjacnews.com
COLDSPRING — While delaying specifics, the San Jacinto County ESD board members opted to hire paid firefighters to assist volunteer departments.
At a meeting on July 21, Emergency Services District President Brian May presented a proposal for hiring firefighters for ESD No. 1 — to be paid through the ESD — to “augment” volunteer firefighters and help “close critical coverage gaps with trained, professional firefighters.”
May detailed several calls in which response times were lacking, or when crews responded with less-than-optimal staffing. He also said he has met with numerous firefighters that would sign up to work in the home county but stressed that volunteers still are welcome and remain essential to the mission of the ESD.
“Fixing a broken system and actually doing something with our money that’s going to make a difference is where the fairness to the taxpayers is,” May said. “This is what everyone around us has been doing for years, and this is how the fire community evolves.”
Another benefit of a paid crew, May said, is that it would affect the ISO ratings of the area, which would assist homeowners by lowering insurance costs.
May showed three options and costs involved in hiring two to three firefighters, starting with hiring a driver-operator and an officer that will work 32 hours a week or less. Cost estimates run from $250,000 to $500,000 a year, depending on which plan is chosen.
Hiring firefighters is part of a plan for the ESD to consolidate the nine volunteer fire departments under the ESD with a single chief.
However, the Coldspring Volunteer Fire Department was resistant to the idea, so at a special meeting of the ESD board on June 2, the board approved terminating its contract with CVFD, citing, according to an open letter from ESD President Brian May, the department’s continued resistance to move the district forward, and improperly transferring the deed to the district-funded building to the city of Coldspring.
At the July 21 meeting, May said the decision to terminate the contract — which was not a unanimous one — was because they felt the CVFD violated parts of the contract.
“Parts of the contract were violated, and they were done so in a negligent manner that was incompetent, or it was done purposely,” May said. “I know that for members of CVFD it has got to feel personal, but it's not.”
He also said that the process of rolling out the plan was handled poorly, and he apologized to the people about how things were handled, some of which were in attendance and had spoken out against the ESD.
Roger Short, a resident of Lake Livingston acres, told the board that he has been paying property taxes in San Jacinto County for over 11 years, and I as well as others in Lake Livingston Acres deserve a prompt response to emergency calls.
“CVFD is 4 miles away from my home, Punkin is about 8 miles, Shepherd is 16, and others are too far to mention,” Short said. “If this is so, why would you not inform them of my emergency? You have no right to put me in that position. I hope this can be resolved.”
Gerald Deeter voiced his disappointment with the ESD board.
“When you made this decision, (the CVFD) did not have the opportunity to defend themselves because you would not give them that platform,” he said. “That’s unjust and unfair.
“The other thing that bothers me is you’ve hired a paid fire chief; was that your decision? Does the taxpayer have any say in that?” Deeter asked. “You have the audacity to pay someone when the CVFD was established in 1970, and in 2002, this organization came along. What I observed at the last meeting in Shepherd is there is so many ifs, ands, buts and maybes for departments to do, it seems like nothing but dictation on the part of the board. How can you ask them to give up their assets? When did you become a government for the nine departments? The taxpayers don’t want to pay $1 million to pay firefighters.”
Roger Samoff criticized the proposal to hire firefighters, saying nothing was set aside for another ambulance that was needed in Coldspring. He also questioned whether the ESD would cancel contracts with other departments if they did something the board disagreed with.
Ray McCoppin pointed out that one of the ESD’s tenets was to provide training, but in the 2025 budget, the line item for training has gone down. He also said that some items on the budget point to almost half a million dollars floating around unaccounted for.
May said it would have been a lot better had their plans been proposed and rolled out like it is at the current meeting and a media release been done.
“I think we've all learned something through this process,” he said. “I wish with everything in me we would have did it that way, but as a board we didn't. So now here we are and I'm apologizing publicly.”
In the end, the board appointed a transition team to negotiate contracts with Coldspring VFD, and scheduled a special meeting for 10 a.m. July 29 in Point Blank to approve a specific plan.
In other business, board members:
