Mon. Nov 25th, 2024

 The City of Santa Ana could save over ten million dollars a year by signing on with the Orange County Fire Authority, according to a proposal submitted to our city manager by OCFA Fire Chief Keith Richter.

According to the proposal, “OCFA will be offering a Division Chief position to the current Santa Ana Fire Chief, who will be instrumental in the transition process for the City. The Division Chief provides a level of local control for the City Council and staff by participation on relevant public safety committees, participation at city staff meetings and attendance at city council meetings. The option also includes the transition of 192 sworn personnel and 141 non-sworn personnel*.”

The OCFA is also planning to work with our diverse community, “All of our partner communities have unique characteristics and demographics and OCFA strives to meet the diverse needs of each. OCFA recognizes the need for bilingual, Spanish speaking personnel in Santa Ana, and therefore our proposal for fire and emergency services includes a component to maximize the number of bilingual, Spanish speaking personnel working within the City. Creating a diverse workforce that matches our services areas is an OCFA value. Adapting to this need in Santa Ana will benefit the service level provided to the entire OCFA system.”

Start-up costs could reach one a half million but the OCFA is willing to amortize those over a period of time.  Click here to read the proposal for yourself.

author avatar
Art Pedroza Editor
Our Editor, Art Pedroza, worked at the O.C. Register and the OC Weekly and studied journalism at CSUF and UCI. He has lived in Santa Ana for over 30 years and has served on several city and county commissions. When he is not writing or editing Pedroza specializes in risk control and occupational safety. He also teaches part time at Cerritos College and CSUF. Pedroza has an MBA from Keller University.

By Art Pedroza

Our Editor, Art Pedroza, worked at the O.C. Register and the OC Weekly and studied journalism at CSUF and UCI. He has lived in Santa Ana for over 30 years and has served on several city and county commissions. When he is not writing or editing Pedroza specializes in risk control and occupational safety. He also teaches part time at Cerritos College and CSUF. Pedroza has an MBA from Keller University.

4 thoughts on “Santa Ana could save over $10,500,000 annually with switch to O.C. Fire”
  1. Why doesn’t the city adopt all these saving now with the current fire dept.? get all of the saving and none of the up fees to OCFD.

  2. The police savings is a total of 3 mil. to the general fund and the rest deferrals due and payable in 18 mos.
    Where did you get 13 mil in savings.
    There will be no outsourcing of any police services on Walters watch.
    Good luck kicking the can farther down the road.
    You won’t have the Fire dept. to exploit.
    Your sources are crap.

    1. The Voice of OC just reported yesterday that the City’s negotiations with their unions is going o cut our deficit to 4 million. It looks like my sources were correct.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.