‘Grossly unfair’: Ross firehouse debate heats up

A debate over the future of fire services in Ross is sharpening before the Town Council meeting next week.

Supporters of reopening the firehouse that closed in June will contend Ross is paying too much for too little protection. But a majority of council members and local officials who backed the closure will note Ross has ample emergency services.

“It’s just a grossly unfair contract for us,” said Bob Herbst, Friends of Ross Firehouse president, speaking of Ross’s annual payment to the Ross Valley Fire Department, which covers Ross, San Anselmo, Fairfax and Sleepy Hollow.

“We’re 9% of the population. We’re 7% of incidents. And we’re paying almost 24% of costs,” he said.

“We had a fire station in town that was staffed,” said Ross Councilmember Mathew Salter. “Now we’re paying $2.4 million for no fire station and no staffing.”

Friends of Ross Firehouse will present several consultant reports at the Jan. 8 council meeting. The dueling perspectives on costs and benefits are coming to a head in the town of 2,300 covering 1.6 square miles.

Mayor Julie McMillan, who is also Ross Valley Fire Department vice chair and the town’s representative on the Marin Wildfire Prevention Authority board, defended shuttering the century-old structure and Ross’s commitment to build a new paramedic facility in its place.

“The Ross fire station is no longer needed for fire protection services and emergency medical services since these services can be provided by nearby fire stations,” she said in a followup interview. “The volume of working fire incidents in Ross is extremely low.”

“By not rebuilding the Ross fire station, Ross is saving $14 million to $17.5 million based on 2020 estimates,” McMillan said, noting two modern stations are minutes away. Kentfield’s fire station is 0.6 miles from Ross’s closed station and Station 19 i San Anselmo is 1.1 miles away.

Belvedere has not had a fire station since 1980 and relies on emergency services from Tiburon that are as close as Kentfield’s station, she said.

Pending the meeting’s outcome, Friends of Ross Firehouse might resume its effort to qualify a 2026 ballot measure on reopening the station.

“The Friends of Ross is evaluating options to restore a fully staffed firehouse with 17 firefighting personnel,” said a report by a Friends of Ross Firehouse consultant, Colorado-based Jensen Hughes, which prepared a “staffing feasibility study” estimating a fully staffed station would cost $3 million a year.

The fire department, like many municipal and intergovernmental agencies in Marin, is governed by a joint powers authority, or JPA, agreement.

“Put quite simply, the contribution that is required of the Town of Ross by the existing JPA is troubling,” the Friends of Ross Firehouse report said.

It discussed the town’s withdrawal from the Ross Valley Fire Department and noted several alternatives: creating a new Ross Fire Department, a new volunteer fire department or partnering with another local agency such as the Kentfield Fire Protection District, the Marin County Fire Department or the Central Marin Fire Department.

“If we’re successful getting our firehouse rebuilt, then we’ll have to give notice,” Herbst said. “We have to give two years notice to leave” the department.

At the Town Council meeting in December, McMillan announced that Ross signed agreements with the Ross Valley Paramedic Authority to build a new ambulance and staff facility at the closed firehouse’s location. The council also received reports noting that most of Ross’s 911 calls are for medical emergencies.

In response to the latest Friends of Ross Firehouse latest analysis, McMillan said the group did not fully understand the history and variables behind the town’s fire protection costs.

Upon joining the JPA in 2012, she said, the town’s 23.3% share of its annual budget was based on “having 25% of the facilities and 25% of the firefighters” in town.

With the firehouse closure, McMillan said the town’s share decreased by $233,000, or 8.5%. In contrast, the costs paid by San Anselmo, Fairfax and Sleepy Hollow all increased by 6.9%. San Anselmo is now renovating Fire Station 20 at a cost of $3.2 million.

The Friends of Ross Firehouse report said that between 2022 and 2025, Ross had at most a dozen fires annually.

At the council meeting in December, fire department officials said emergency response times since the station’s closure were delayed by two minutes — although the data were preliminary and actual response times varied depending on an incident’s location.

“RVFD has carefully planned for the closure of the Ross Fire Station to ensure that fire services remain excellent,” McMillan said. “For a fire, there is the potential for structure fires to have further interior loss, but the fire would likely remain within the building of origin.”

“During a wildfire, one fire station will not make a difference,” she said. “Typically, wildfires generate a broad regional response, and the quality of the response is more contingent on the size of the responding force than the locations of individual fire stations.”

McMillan said recent history has shown that large wildfires occur within “red flag” warning days, which typically gives local and county public safety officials several days’ notice to mobilize firefighting teams and position equipment.

“The Town Council made the decision to close the Ross fire station in 2021, after several years of similar megafires starting in 2017,” McMillan said.

The fire station supporters take another view.

“The thing is, one of the richest towns in the country is not able to afford fire services,” said Salter. “It’s sort of shocking.”