An El Dorado County fire chief will step down to save the job of a firefighter who nearly died last summer on the same day local voters rejected a tax increase that would have kept him employed.
Garden Valley Fire Protection District Chief Clive Savacool said Wednesday he’s planning to step down as soon as possible in order to keep firefighter Scott Wager employed.
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However, two other firefighters with less seniority are certain to be laid off by this summer. The layoffs come after a September vote saw 54 percent of voters in the Garden Valley service area reject an assessment that would have levied an additional $71 to $182 annual fee on each parcel in the district. The $400,000 in revenue would have allowed the district to keep two firefighters on duty 24 hours a day. The vote was the latest in a long line of local ballot initiatives to fund rural fire departments to fail in the state’s conservative rural regions, where residents feel they’re being overtaxed by Democrats in Sacramento.
In the months since, the district tried to consolidate with neighboring fire departments to save their jobs, but Savacool said those talks went nowhere.
“That was essentially our last shot to save the guys’ jobs,” he said. “Even if we tried to go for another tax measure, we wouldn’t have been able to get it done in time and the community would probably have an uproar because they just shot one down. We’re basically out of options.” Savacool said. Garden Valley will have three firefighters on staff once he quits and the other two firefighters are let go.
Wager, along with another firefighter, nearly died in September as the failed assessment votes were being tallied. Wager and Capt. Chris Schwegler found themselves surrounded by roaring flames after they responded to a small brush fire. They fled to their engine, but it wouldn’t start and caught fire.
They avoided burning to death by running through flames to a nearby field.
Their story may be uncommonly dramatic, but as The Sacramento Bee revealed last year, it’s common for conservative voters in fire-prone communities like Garden Valley to shoot down a fire tax.
Ballot initiatives to raise taxes for struggling fire departments like the one in Garden Valley are approved only about half the time. In rural El Dorado County, it’s common to see roadside signs advocating for forming a new State of Jefferson. The Jefferson activists seek to secede from California and form a new state with lower taxes, less regulations and fewer liberals.
Meanwhile, since 2018’s devastating Camp Fire, lawmakers in Sacramento allocated $918 million for fire protection, but little of that money made its way to the rural fire departments that tend to handle the medical and house-fire calls in rural areas.
Small fire departments struggled for years with inadequate staffing and lack of equipment, in large part because of property tax restrictions set under the 1978 ballot initiative known as Proposition 13.
Savacool, who said his salary was around $100,000, said he won’t struggle financially after he resigns. Savacool, 41, owns a startup software company and does consulting work for another firm.
“I’ll land on my feet,” he said.
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