Fire Station #1 in downtown Encinitas

Last week, Cardiff-by-the-Sea resident Bob Bonde showed the Encinitas City Council how the city could save $2.5 million. He’s been telling the same story to the council for years. And the city’s firefighter’s union will have nothing to do with his proposals.

Bonde, credited with being the father of Encinitas cityhood and stopping the proposed coastal corridor bullet train in the 1980s, says the political mismanagement of the Encinitas Fire Department is costing taxpayers money and risking lives.

Bonde said that more than 80 percent of all fire calls are for medical aid, not fires. When his wife recently needed medical aid, “Waiting for the paramedics, what rolled up first? The 100-foot ladder, $600,000 fire truck,” Bonde said. “Ambulances should always roll first in non-fire situations.”

The county contracts with the private paramedic firm, American Medical Response, which stations its units among fire departments. Comparing population to ambulance service of surrounding North County cities, from Oceanside to Escondido, Bonde says Encinitas residents should have three full-time ambulances.

To save the city money and fund a fully staffed, fire-department-run paramedic service, Bonde says his plan calls for the closing of Fire Stations #1 (downtown) and #4 (Village Park). He says Cardiff’s station #2 or Leucadia’s station #3 — both situated west of I-5 — also serve the Coast Highway 101 area. The Village Park station #4 is less than two miles away from the department’s newer command center, Station #5, on Balour Drive.

His plan allows for one fully staffed paramedic unit at each of the city’s fire stations and a daytime unit at the lifeguard station at Moonlight Beach.

“All the lifeguards are EMTs already,” said Bonde. “Saving lives is a matter of minutes or seconds. The current paramedic response time of up to ten minutes should be unacceptable.” Bonde asserts that his plan would result in a four- to five-minute maximum response time.

The city council chose instead to follow the recommendations of fire chief Mike Dalge; there is no plan to look further into consolidating fire and paramedic services.

“The firefighter’s union is politically powerful," says Bonde. "They campaign and walk precincts. They think I have a vendetta against them. I do not.”

Bonde credits the Encinitas firefighters union for pushing the 1986 cityhood effort, campaigning side-by-side with cityhood proponents.

Disclosure: The writer and Bonde are both past presidents of the Cardiff Town Council from the 1980s. Both were involved in cityhood efforts.