Olympia community speaks against RFA: 'Manufactured crisis'

At last night’s city council meeting, Olympia Mayor Cheryl Selby opened the public hearing before the councilmembers who later voted on the joint resolution with Tumwater regarding the formation of a Regional Fire Authority (RFA), including the approval of a plan that covers governance, operations and financing, and includes a fire benefit charge.

Seven community members participated in the public process. Each was limited to three minutes. Here is a summary of their comments:

Put RFA on the backburner

Jim Lazar enumerated the potential problems if voters approve the RFA; one of them is adding challenges to the housing situation in the city.

He said the imposition of a Fire Benefit Charge (FBC) to fund much of the RFA operations would make housing less affordable. "Landlords would raise the rent to cover the benefit charge."

Lazar, who presented his comments via Zoom, noted that the RFA would  cover only fire and medical response but "explicitly leaves the emergency management and responsibility with the city."

"This is a big deal…who will respond in the case of a flood or an earthquake?" Lazar inquired. He said the creation of an RFA would eliminate coordination between emergency response and the city in cases of natural disaster.

Lazar reiterated his suggestion that each city council could use a levy lid lift to restore property taxes and – citing Finance Director Aaron BeMiller - could produce up to $19 million a year. "That would be more money for fire, police, and more money to address other problems."

He said the RFA concept needs more work and public involvement before it can go to the voters. "I urge you to put the RFA on the back burner and proceed with a levy lid lift, support all areas of city government."

Read Jim Lazar's entire opinion piece on RFA.

Manufactured crisis

According to Larry Dzieza, the claim that the cities cannot address increasing emergency response time without the RFA is a "manufactured crisis."

"There is no evidence that Olympia cannot continue to provide or even improve emergency services using its existing revenue system. You're well on your way to doing that already for emergency services," said Dzieza, who participated in the public hearing online.

Dzieza cited Tumwater’s 2019 Fire and Emergency Services Study showing that Olympia’s fire department is not stressed. He added that the city is the largest donor of services to other fire departments responding to other jurisdictions, three times more than it receives.

"The RFA argument that budget competition harms our fire department is countered with 100 plus years of our fire department competing with other city services while allowing it to become second to none in Washington State for a city its size. There is no crisis. The system is not broken. There are no inefficiencies," he commented.

He also criticized the duplication of administrative positions if the RFA is approved. The plans include spending almost $1 million for budget payroll for Human Resources, legal, and communications.

These positions, according to Dzieza, would cost the same as buying a new firetruck each year. 

The FBC, Dzieza added, is a regressive tax "that harms people who are historically suffering from structural biases."

He said the average residential property owner would see a 28% increase in their bill.

"This is an unnecessary, ill-designed, socially harmful proposal. Take the time to do the critical analysis with truly objective input," Dzieza urged the councilmembers.

Read Larry Dzieza's analysis in The JOLT. 

Potential Parks funding loss due to RFA

Maria Ruth, Olympia Parks and Recreation Advisory Committee (PRAC) chair, expressed her concerns about the potential $1.3 loss from the parks' funding.

In October, PRAC received a presentation from the Finance Department staff on the potential funding impacts to the Olympia Parks, Arts and Recreation Department (OPARD) if the RFA was created as proposed.

"It is our understanding that in transferring monies from the general fund to a new RFA account, the proposal would both reduce the total general fund account and correspondingly reduce the 11% of dedicated funding for OPARD within the general fund," Ruth stated in an October 26 letter sent to the city council.

Ruth was at the council chambers on Tuesday to reiterate her concerns and asked the councilmembers to protect the parks funding from the disproportionate impacts of the RFA.

She said the Parks committee members had a conversation with City Manager Jay Burney, councilmembers Dani Madrone and Yan Huynh last Friday, but they have yet to reach a solution to shield the Parks from the impacts of creating the RFA.

"My request tonight is for the city council and staff to commit to continuing working with PRAC and the park's advocates to create a solution for protecting the funding," Ruth said.

Respect the voters’ intent

Karen Messmer hoped the city would respect the voters' intent when they passed the Metropolitan Parks District (MPD). She said the funding reduction would seriously hinder the upkeep and the new parks that voters were promised.

"I don't want this to appear to be pitting parks funding against fire services. It is not about fire services. It's about an inadvertent impact on parks funding that the city was unaware of until we brought it to your attention," Messmer said.

She suggested an amendment to the inter-local agreement that would assign future general fund amounts to ensure funding for the parks to continue.

Councilmember Lisa Parshley said if the RFA was passed, the committee is committed to working on the FBC further to see if they can adopt other models.

As chair of the finance committee, Parshley assured the public it is on their work plan to make sure that the RFA would not disproportionately impact the Parks and other departments.

Involve the public

Bob Jacobs advised the city officials to refrain from developing proposals in secret. Jacobs served on the Olympia City Council and as mayor of Olympia from 1993-1999."If you do any more work on restructuring medic/fire operation, include the public from the beginning," Jacobs said, adding, "you will get a better product and better acceptance [from the community]."

Jacobs enumerated why he is not supporting the creation of the RFA, including the diversion of Parks funds going to the RFA. "It is unacceptable to promise to fund to get votes for parks then turn around and use some of that funding for other purposes."

He also touched on the regressivity of the FBC, saying the proposal intentionally taxes large properties and large houses at a lower rate than smaller ones.

Jacobs urged the city council to scrap the proposal. He supports the use of levy lid lift if funding is needed. "A levy lid lift is a straightforward approach that avoids many, if not all, of the problems identified in the current proposal."

Fire unions support the RFA

Mike Simmons, who introduced himself as a representative of the Olympia professional firefighters, informed the city council that fire union members – from Olympia and Tumwater – voted in favor of the RFA.

Simmons, who has been in the Olympia Fire Department for 34 years, said the city has five response vehicles that answer 16,000 calls a year.

"They can't keep up. It is wearing and tearing our equipment and our personnel. We have members working 96-hour shifts because we are understaffed."

By creating the RFA, Simmons said they could continue providing better services without falling down.