As Oakland faces the possibility of major cuts, the fire chief is raising concerns about public safety.
There is a renewed focus on the Oakland budget after last week's fire, and comments by the city's fire chief. And that includes some uncertainty over what, exactly, might be cut as the city now moves to its contingency budget, CBS reported.
"If you take five engines out of place and those three engines that we don't normally have, that's eight engines that would've been first due to that fire." Chief Damon Covington told a budget committee Tuesday. "Very little math will tell you that would've probably lost those homes on Campus Drive, at a minimum."
Last week's response to the Keller Fire in the Oakland Hills is the kind of thing that might suffer under the city's contingency budget.
Back in July, the council approved a budget built largely around the sale of the Oakland Coliseum, with certain payments expected in a certain period of time.
The city is getting more for the sale of the property, but the timeline isn't what the budget originally called for, thus triggering the back-up, or contingency budget, which does include freezing of five fire companies for nine months.
