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Utilities Commission Denies SDG&E's Power Cutoff Plan -- Leaving an Out
Reply to #83: I love solar, but it won't solve the problem of transmission lines in the backcountry. Unless you have battery storage or a generator, you still have to be hooked up to the grid. It still gets dark about half the time (and even more when it is smokey!), so with solar you use net metering, where you pump excess electricity into the grid during the day (essentially running your meter backwards), and then use your banked credit to draw SDG&E power at night. BTW: California passed a bill allowing cities to fund low-cost loans for solar that would be attached to your house and paid back through your property tax. If you sold your house, the loan would stay attached to the property. It is potentially a great way to get people into solar without a large up-front cost. Sanders made an announcement back in early December that San Diego would create such a program. I have heard nothing since. SDG&E will push solar just as soon as it can make sure that all solar power must be purchased from them. After all, people shouldn't expect to use the sun for free (heavy sarcasm).— September 15, 2009 12:46 p.m.
Utilities Commission Denies SDG&E's Power Cutoff Plan -- Leaving an Out
Reply to #77: Don, from the little I have seen there appears to be an inherent problem with the salary structure in city jobs. I know that at least the MEA jobs I am familiar with and apparently the fire jobs speed through job categories fairly quickly, and within 3-5 years employees race through all the steps and max out. At that point the levels mostly stop, so you can spend 20-30 years in a career that you have essentially maxed out in 3-5 years. That often leads to complacency and job dissatisfaction. It also creates the situation that your only chance for any change in pay is strictly due to union negotiations and not anything to do with your ability or performance. The fact that only 2% of fire employees are firefighter I and over half of fire fighters are in the two highest categories would imply the same thing happens in the fire department.— September 15, 2009 8:48 a.m.
Utilities Commission Denies SDG&E's Power Cutoff Plan -- Leaving an Out
JF said: "I meant that CDF did not have night vision on their helicopters. For that matter, they didn't (and still don't) have a helicopter in this county. Why not? The county helicopters had not yet been even thought of in 2003... at least not by the supervisors." I'm still confused. If there were no CDF helicopters in San Diego I don't know why you were listing lack of funds for helicopter night vision as an issue, especially when the lack of funds argument here has routinely been used against the county and city. And if the CDF doesn't have adequate resources in San Diego, I don't see why you would go out of your way to absolve them while laying blame on the county and city. When you say that county helicopters had not been thought of I think you are dealing with semantics again. The Sheriff is a county agency, and the Sheriff helicopter flew to the fire in 2003 and was turned back. In fact, it flew off from the SDPD Light the Night event in Balboa Park just as we arrived. My daughters were disappointed because it had been on display and they didn't get a chance to see it. We had no idea why it was leaving at the time.— September 15, 2009 8:28 a.m.
Utilities Commission Denies SDG&E's Power Cutoff Plan -- Leaving an Out
JF said: "just setting the story straight. Everyone wants to blame CDF, but it's a combination of factors and sometimes confusing rules." Trouble with that is you "set the story straight" by blaming the funding of the county helicopter and misstate that the CDF was not responsible for the first response, when in fact they were. I am not saying that the CDF did anything particularly wrong given the guidelines they were operating under, but to shift blame to the county for not having night vision equipment on their helicopter is ridiculous. I don't disagree at all that there should be more indians. The FSSP is an MEA thing, and I mentioned that (while at the same time mentioning my experience is mostly with MEA) to help defend you, so I am surprised you are harping on it. The point is that the various benefits that city employees get (pension and other benefits) are at least partially offset by benefits such as SS and 401Ks offered in the private sector, so the net advantage you enjoy in benefits is not as great as people like SurfPup sometimes try to claim. It would be nice to quantify how much the benefits you enjoy actually cost so an apples to apples comparison could be done. It is hard to get a true number because of accounting sleight of hand.— September 14, 2009 9:28 p.m.
Utilities Commission Denies SDG&E's Power Cutoff Plan -- Leaving an Out
Response to JF #55: Thanks for the explanation on job classifications. Based on job classifications, is there a good reason why there are more captains and engineers than there are firefighters? From your description it sound like too many chiefs and not enough indians.— September 14, 2009 3:05 p.m.
Utilities Commission Denies SDG&E's Power Cutoff Plan -- Leaving an Out
Response to JF #54: You seem intent on splitting hairs. Yes, the CDF and the US Forest service are responsible for most of the backcountry, not just the CDF. Yes, the fires to the north were in the hills outside LA, which are technically in San Bernardino. Yes, some more structures could have been saved with more firefighters, I specifically said so. No, I am specifically not confusing day to day with fighting big fires. I am arguing that big fires are being used to justify beefing up day to day. The US Forest Service ordered the Sheriff's helicopter to stand down. It wasn' because the helicopter was deficient, as you suggested. In fact, the CDF pilots had already gone home for the night. No additional county assets would have changed either of those events, which were critical to the early moments of the Cedar fire. The CDF in fact DOES operate in national forests. The state and the Forest Service have cooperation agreements which specifically apply to the Cleveland National Forest. The CDF did make drops in the Cleveland National Forest during the Cedar fire, and the CDF in Ramona would have responded to the Cedar fire which started in the National Forest, if they had still been there. That is also why the Us Forest Service had jurisdiction to chase off the Sheriff's helicopter. Mea culpa: Yes the hunter was a complete idiot, and you are correct that he was not illegal. The fire believed started by illegal aliens was the Otay fire, not the Cedar fire.— September 14, 2009 3:03 p.m.
Utilities Commission Denies SDG&E's Power Cutoff Plan -- Leaving an Out
JF, Condolences for the firefighters killed in action. This discussion walks a fine line because I don't think anybody (SurfPup included) fails to appreciate the job firefighters do and agree that they deserve some special compensation for hazard pay. I see the problem as the public seeing the unions using that fact as leverage to take more than they deserve, while firefighters see any push-back from the public as a sign that their work is not appreciated. I hope that you and other firefighters understand the difference and can separate the cold hard reality of economics of salary negotiations and realize that the public does appreciate what you do and does understand that it is a dangerous job. From my peripheral experience with MEA, the union perpetually whips the members into a frenzy about not being properly paid or appreciated while the city constantly complains to the press about the workers being overpaid. That leads to a strong sense of job dissatisfaction over pay and appreciation that just shouldn't exist. I get the same feeling from the fire and police unions. Can you shed some light on exactly what a Fire Captain and a Fire Engineer is and what they do relative to a Firefighter? Is it mostly just a category change based on experience and training, or is there something fundamentally different? I was surprised to see that there are more Captains and Engineers combined than there are firefighters. Also, I imagine that a new hire moves from level I to II within two years or so? The number of firefighter Is is extremely small relative to the total number of firefighters (just over 2%), which indicative of a huge problem somewhere.— September 14, 2009 8:13 a.m.
Utilities Commission Denies SDG&E's Power Cutoff Plan -- Leaving an Out
PP said: "Bottom line-Until America's Finest(and I'm laughing right now as I type this)City gets it's collective heads out of it's collective asses,there will be more fires." For all the complaining about San Diego's lack of preparation for the 2003 and 2007 fires, the bottom line is that if we "got off our collective asses" by 2002, I don't see much difference in the outcome of either the Cedar or the Witch fires. The Cedar fire was started by an illegal alien too close to dusk, and the CDF wouldn't fly and the CDF refused to let the San Diego helicopters fly. After that, we didn't have enough resources on the ground because they had already been sent to LA for a different fire. A) If we had more ground resources, we may have just sent more to LA, and B) Firefighters preserved some structures here and there, but mostly the fire burned itself out. Its not clear how more local assets would have helped. Only huge air assets would have helped, and they both weren't available and couldn't fly anyway because of high winds (and night). The Witch fire (and others) started due to a combination of SDG&E's poor maintenance and bad weather. Once going it also pretty much went until it burned out. San Pasqual was ravaged by a second fire that started while the first was burning not too many miles away. It was at night and happened so quickly there was very little that more assets could have helped. I am not against beefing up fire protection and see a big problem with housing going into high fire areas, but realistically the only thing that would have helped in both 2003 and 2007 would have been a massive aerial assault, which is almost entirely the domain of the CDF since we are talking largely about massive tracts of national forest land. JF and others feel free to correct me where you think I have gone astray.— September 14, 2009 1:17 a.m.
Utilities Commission Denies SDG&E's Power Cutoff Plan -- Leaving an Out
Don, My numbers are from the proposed 2010 budget. If you only include the two firefighter categories, the average drops to $61K. I assume many in the firefighter I category moved to the firefighter II category between 2008 and 2010, which would explain the increase in the average from $56K to $61K. That leads me to believe the Bureau of Labor Statistics was just using the firefighter categories. I included the Engineer and Captain categories as well, because there are slightly more of them in total (459) then there are firefighters (440), and it appears that is the common career path for firefighters. I did not include the Battalion Chief category. There are only 27 of them, but they make a little more ($99K).— September 13, 2009 11:01 p.m.
Utilities Commission Denies SDG&E's Power Cutoff Plan -- Leaving an Out
City of San Diego FY 2010 Position---------Num Pos---Salary----Budget FireCaptain------238.25----$85,621----$20,399,231 FireEngineer-----220.36----$74,071----$16,322,260 FireFighterI-----20.00------$41,125----$822,494 FireFighterII----420.71-----$62,758 -- $26,402,817 Overtime------------------------------------$16,222,942 Median salary is $74K, but that is not terribly meaningful in this case. Much more meaningful is the average, after adding in the overtime, which is: $89459. So now we need to know how accurate is the City's estimate of overtime? It would also be nice to calculate exactly how much more the pension plus FSSP plan is worth than a standard 4% 401K match plus SS.— September 13, 2009 8:27 p.m.