By Joe Hill
I recently read the newly published article about the Oceanside Fire Chief and fire safety of Measure L. As an Oceanside voter, it’s only fair to present the other side of the argument.
Please see attached letter and an additional documentation showing the 30K given to the Firefighter Pac by this Developer, that all everyone is questioning.
What is motivating the Oceanside Fire Chief and Fire Union to advocate for a high density 585-unit housing project on rural land on narrow 2 lane N River Road? That area already experienced massive gridlock during the Lilac Fire. It also was shut down for one car accident for hours quite recently. Is it logical to add more homes and cars to that area?
Many people wonder if that support was influenced by the Oceanside Fire Union receiving $30,000 from the Orange County developer, Integral.
How much is getting a new, but very small fire station that may or may not ever get built, influencing the fire chief’s perspective on this sprawl housing project? Remember folks, this is NOT a farm; it’s a housing development that will have hundreds of people living there with about 1200+ cars AND over 7000 average daily trips per day, added to a two lane road.
While it does create 2 more jobs for firemen to protect 585 new homes built in a high fire risk area, the cost to the taxpayer is huge. In order to fully staff this mini-station at least 4 more fire fighters are required and the taxpayer picks up that tab, NOT the developer- all to the tune of about $100k a year per fire fighter to cover salaries, pensions, benefits and overtime. Is getting a few more fire fighter jobs worth putting hundreds of families at risk?
And where is the fire chief’s plan for getting fire engines to the fire on what will be just a two North River Road leading to this sprawl housing project that will be clogged with families fleeing for their lives? As above, we have seen complete closure of this area for hours for a car accident.
The opponents of the project hired their own fire expert who said there is NO evacuation plan. “The past history of major emergencies has consistently and repeatedly shown that truly detailed and effective planning rarely takes place before an emergency happens. More commonly, it takes place after a major disaster has occurred – and often after significant loss of life. He goes on to say, “there many sets of assumptions that could be used to estimate clearance times and assess how an evacuation process might take place under ranges of conditions on a road network at different times of the day/week/year.” However, these assessments were not included in this report. Similarly, there was no discussion of the resources needed and or available to manage an evacuation.”
Are the Chief and his fire fighters expecting people to stay in their homes, so-called shelter in place, while a fire storm is heading toward them? Is that justifiable in any way? This is not conjecture. We have already seen the massive traffic jams during the evacuation from the Lilac fire. And no matter what the building code says, a house cannot withstand 1000 degrees of heat or more generated from a fire.
It is these issues, along with many others tied to traffic congestion and increased citizen taxes that caused the Oceanside Planning Commission to deny this project Three times.
We respect and appreciate our fire department. But on this one the fire chief and the Union is wrong. You have to wonder how much the $30K the Union received from the developer figures into their ‘support’. Vote NO on L to save lives and stop this massive sprawl project.
