The blog has taken off on the Escambia County fire protection issue. Some regular blog readers have emailed me on why have I gotten so passionate on the issue.
The bottomline is we need an open discussion on the fire protection outside the Pensacola city limits. There are problems that the public needs to know and understand. Too much is happening behind closed doors without our knowledge or input.
The conflicts between the paid and volunteer FFs need to be resolved – so do training, certification and stipend payments.
Escambia County isn’t the only area having this problem. It’s happening nationwide. Governments are trying to ignore the problems and lull the citizens into thinking everything is great.
We need to quit putting band aids on the system. More money isn’t necessarily the solution.
Should we annex more of the county into the City? Should county have more fulltime paid FFs? Should the county get more active in training and monitoring VFDS? What are reasonable expectations for county fire protections?
We spend $45.9 millon on the Sheriff; $28.2 million on the jail. Our fire protection budget is $11 million. The average budget for VFDs in Escambia Co. is $185K.