CLEARLAKE, Calif. – As part of a special election next week, voters in the Lake County Fire Protection District are being asked to approve a special tax on parcels to ensure the district has the adequate staffing to meet the community’s growing needs.

On March 7, a special election will take place specifically for the passage of Measure “D.” Polling places will be open that day, while absentee voters should already have received their ballots for the measure.

According to the Lake County Registrar of Voters Office, Measure D is “a special tax on parcels of real property to be used for the costs of funding fire protection and prevention, rescue, emergency medical services, transportation, hazardous material services, and other services relating to the protection of lives and property within the Lake County Fire Protection District.”

The district hopes that voters taking part in the special election will approve Measure D by the required 66.7 percent margin, said Lake County Fire Chief Willie Sapeta.

Sapeta said Measure D will replace a special tax voters approved in March 1997, Measure F.

Measure F, he explained, is a tax on habitable dwellings that currently is $60 per year for a standard single family dwelling.

With the passage of Measure D, the district’s special tax on properties would increase from $60 a year to $120 a year for per single family dwelling. Sapeta emphasized that the tax would not be assessed on outbuildings, barns or sheds, just habitable dwellings.

He said Measure D won’t have any impact on building fees, and so won’t increase the costs for Clayton fire survivors in the midst of rebuilding.

Since Measure F was passed in 1997, the district hasn’t had any special fee increases, despite the fact that call volumes have nearly tripled in that time, while the cost of the district’s operations have increased by 48.1 percent on the Consumer Pricing Index from 1997 through 2016, the district reported.

The Lake County Fire Protection District has an annual budget that ranges between $3.4 million and $3.8 million, Sapeta said.

Sapeta said it’s estimated that Measure D will bring in between $600,000 to $700,000 a year to help the district catch up with, and meet, the growing needs of the community.

For years the district has looked for alternate ways to bring in more revenue before settling on this measure, he said.

In the same time period, Cal Fire assessed an annual fire fee on people in the State Responsibility Area, which offers no benefit to local fire districts like Lake County Fire. District officials have addressed that with the community due to confusion about how those funds are allocated.

Sapeta said Lake County Fire – which he believes covers the largest population area in the county – has a population ranging from between 20,000 and 21,000 people year-round in the communities of Clearlake and Lower Lake. For comparison, the Northshore Fire Protection District – which is larger in acreage – is estimated to have about 16,000 residents, according to that district’s chief, Jay Beristianos.

In addition to catching up on the current population, the Lake County Fire Protection District needs to be ready for its continued growth.

Last week, the Clearlake City Council approved the city’s new general plan, which anticipates the city’s population will grow at a rate of 1.4 percent annually through the year 2040.

Currently, the 165-square-mile district has 23 paid staff; that includes 18 firefighters on shifts; three company officers, specifically, Sapeta and two battalion chiefs; and two clerical staff, Sapeta said.

Then there are the district’s volunteers, the number of which fluctuates between 10 and 20, according to Sapeta.

Volunteer numbers currently are down quite a bit, with Sapeta explaining that volunteering is particularly challenging for people who have other jobs.

He said Measure D will pay for six additional personnel to fully staff the district’s Lower Lake fire station, Station 65, which currently isn’t staffed. That will mean they have two firefighter-paramedics and one firefighter-EMT staffing the station around the clock, which is estimated to cut call response time in half – from 10 minutes to five minutes.

The district said the measure also will increase the available paramedic ambulances in the Clearlake and Lower Lake areas from two to three, and support continued efforts for vegetation abatement and defensible space, which are critical for fire safety and prevention.

Other benefits include the district being able to continue to support student athletic programs, participate in health and safety fairs, car seat clinics, fire prevention demonstrations at schools, emergency management and disaster preparedness/response.

Having quicker response time and more people on staff in Lower Lake may have helped more quickly knock down the Clayton fire, which devastated Lower Lake in August. However, Sapeta also acknowledged that a quicker initial response may not have changed the outcome due to the fire’s behavior.

Besides such major incidents as the Clayton fire, the additional staffing is needed, said Sapeta, due to the 267-percent increase in call volume the district has experienced in the last 20 years.

In 1997 they ran 1,943 calls annually. By 2016, the number of calls had grown to 5,200, and it’s expected to keep going up, he said.

Sapeta explained that over the last several years personnel and other costs have risen due to major wildland incidents in the district – the 2012 Walker and Wye fires, the Rocky and Jerusalem fires in 2015 and the Clayton fire of 2016.

During those incidents, he said he had firefighters working incidents for more than a month with no time off, which caused a significant increase in overtime pay. The district had to cover those costs while waiting for reimbursement from the state.

Sapeta said the district also has a financial deficit of about $75,000 a year on the emergency medical services side, which he said is a matter of many of the people they serve not having insurance. There also is a growing homeless population that calls 911 when they need medical assistance.

As a result, “There is no chance of recovery those funds,” he said.

Proponents of the measure have held town halls and been going door to door in the fire district to explain what the measure will do and why it’s needed. Sapeta and other district staff can’t campaign for the measure on work time.

Battalion Chief Charlie Diener has spoken at the town halls and also participated in walking neighborhoods on his personal time.

Diener said people want to know what Measure D is about and, once explained, are receptive. “We’ve been getting pretty decent feedback,” he said.

Sapeta and Diener said the outreach for the measure also has provided an opportunity to explain to the public what fire district personnel do in their day-to-day operations.

The response so far indicates that many people don’t know what firefighters do, Sapeta added.

Their work doesn’t just include firefighting, Sapeta said, but emergency medical care, water rescues, fire and flood recovery, and more.

With all of the wildland fires the district has dealt with over the last few years, Sapeta said this was the first time they’ve had to take a break and get the measure on the ballot. Last year they were too involved in the Clayton fire recovery to take it on.

If Measure D fails, Sapeta said it will give him some time to consider realignment, and by this time next year the district could potentially be looking at severe measure such as program cutbacks and layoffs.

The measure’s failure also would mean that Sapeta’s staff doesn’t have the ability to support programs like the Lower Lake High School’s firefighter training program.

Diener said that the amount property owners will pay for Measure D is very little to pay to have fire and medical services respond right to your door.

For more information, see the district’s informational flier.

Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.