Diabetic Collapses at Meeting on Staffing at Calif. Station

MT. HAMILTON -- When Glenn Dolfin's blood sugar level hit the floor at a recent community meeting far in the backwoods of Santa Clara County, the big former sheriff's deputy wasn't far behind.

Thankfully for him, he collapsed at the Sweetwater Cal Fire station, at a meeting that -- just coincidentally -- had to do with keeping the site open year-round to better provide emergency service for residents and visitors in the remote area at the county's eastern edge.

It's a notion that Supervisor Dave Cortese agrees with, and last week he put forward a funding proposal that could make it happen. Cortese said Dolfin's collapse was an apt example of why year-round services are needed -- without the firefighters right there, help in the form of an ambulance would have likely taken more than an hour to arrive.

"Sometimes you just get lucky to have the right people around," said the 68-year-old Dolfin, who policed the rural east county "outback" territory for decades and whose doctors told him he "wouldn't have made it" if emergency medical personnel hadn't been "right there."

As compelling as Dolfin's story may be, the county is faced with a difficult question of whether it's prudent to spend $400,000 on a fire station that gets fewer than two calls a week when it is staffed by Cal Fire, which is usually only during the six-month wildfire season.

"What's going on is Cal Fire says they only believe it deserves a certain amount of funding, while residents say it deserves more," said County Executive Jeff Smith. "But Sweetwater and other areas are in Cal Fire's service area, and it sets a dangerous precedent for local government to subsidize state services."

But Cal Fire spokesman Daniel Berlant said all stations including Sweetwater are there for wildland fire suppression, and emergency response is a side benefit.

"Our department's core mission and our budgeting is based on wildfire threats," he said. But Berlant added that Cal Fire often enters contracts with counties and fire districts to provide a "cost effective" way of keeping life-savers in house year round. It's called an "Amador agreement," and there are 33 of them set up around the state.

"When the station is staffed and if it is closest, we will absolutely respond any kind of emergency," Berlant said, "and in a rural area that can be just about anything."

Cortese is proposing to get the funds to enter such an agreement through the county's ambulance contract, which will come up for rebidding in 2016. Until then he wants to use money from the county's emergency services trust fund, which has ballooned recently due to late penalties accrued by the current ambulance provider, to keep a captain and two firefighters at the station. The board of supervisors will consider the idea during next month's budget talks.

Smith cautioned that residents in other outlier areas might also want to be included in any contractual service enhancements, and the cost could potentially rise well above the $400,000 needed for Sweetwater.

While the flinty ranchers who mostly populate the lonely region may be a hardy bunch who don't mind the isolation, some feel their tax dollars should at least buy them a lifeline -- they shouldn't have to rely on luck.

"Maybe we'd like to get something for the taxes we pay," said Gary Stoddard, whose family has owned a ranch there for 115 years. "There are no schools or hospitals or sanitation or garbage pickup or anything; we don't reap any benefits. So maybe we ought to get a fire station open all year."

But county officials say collected property taxes from the region amount to less than $60,000, which according to a commissioned study "does not even support the cost of existing direct county services such as sheriff and road repair."

Though the area shares borders with Alameda, Stanislaus and San Joaquin counties, a recent idea to split the cost of keeping the fire station open year-round garnered no interest from those neighbors. And another proposal to impose a tax on residents for a special service district has been roundly rejected by the property owners who would vote on it.

"Why should we pay an additional fee?" asked Cheryl Joergensen, who moved to the area 16 years ago, entranced by its natural beauty.

Joergensen echoed many neighbors who say the area isn't a hidden treasure anymore -- recreational users from binoculared bird-watchers to daredevil motorcyclists are all attracted to the rural charms of the backwoods and often get into harm's way.

"Those visitors need it as much as those of us who live here," she said, "so why should we pay the cost?"

According to Cal Fire Battalion Chief Mike Jarske, the Sweetwater station gets about 1.7 calls a week in the summer months when they typically staff it, less in the winter. Residents argue that because help is so long in coming fewer reports are made, and Jarske and other Cal Fire crew members said year-round service is definitely needed.

There aren't many people around the outback, and residents believe that in the 175 square miles served by Sweetwater, it dips below one person per square mile. It's an area the size of San Jose with homes separated by acre after acre of grassy, oak-studded hills.

Folks here lead a no-frills lifestyle, with septic tanks for waste, springs and wells for water, some dwellings on the electrical grid, others dark. Mail arrives at central locations twice a week, and a package delivery will often be preceded by someone from UPS calling and asking if it can wait a few days. Run out of milk and toilet paper? That's at least a 40-minute drive to Patterson. And if you need an ambulance, response times are typically over an hour and anything serious is handled by life-flight helicopter.

Cortese, who represents the area, said he's very familiar with the territory and the inherent hazards.

"I remember asking my dad when I was a kid," he said, "'What do you do if you get a serious injury out there? What if a rattlesnake bites you?' and he said, 'Consider yourself dead.'"

Residents have come to accept the lack of emergency services as part of off-the-grid living. But they say there's an increased visibility in the area, due in large part to the Amgen bicycle race that has drawn the public eye to the seductive curves of Mines Road and Highway 130. It's beautiful but treacherous terrain, with narrow, unstriped blind turns and white-knuckle roadside drop-offs that don't offer motorists the comfort of a guard rail.

Resident John Chamorro blamed the county for promoting the bicycle race but offering nothing in the way of mitigating the side effects: In addition to packs of cyclists tracing the route taken by pros, the roads are now on the radar of "weekend warrior" motorcyclists who scream through at high speed.

"You guys send us idiot after idiot after idiot and we got sporadic, intermittent sheriff's coverage," Chamorro told officials at a recent meeting. "These guys all know there are no cops up here. And then who's going to clean it up when they eat it?"

Cortese said the area is not nearly as insulated from outsiders as it once was.

"When it was just the residents out there, which are few, there was a much weaker case for year-round deployment," Cortese said. "It was hard to justify. But now with traffic what it is, there's a case to be made for who should take responsibility."

Contact Eric Kurhi at 408-920-5852. Follow him at Twitter.com/erickurhi.

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