The South County Fire Regional Fire Authority Board of Commissioners will present the RFA’s annual report for 2024 during the Edmonds City Council’s Tuesday, Feb. 25 business meeting, starting at 6 p.m.
The council will also learn more about the new state legislation (House Bill 1293, now codified as RCW 36.70A.630) and how it will be addressed in the city’s 2025 code updates.
The meeting will be in the council chambers, Public Safety Complex, 250 5th Ave. N., Edmonds. Regular council meetings beginning at 6 p.m. are streamed live on the council meeting web page (where you can also see the complete agenda), Comcast channel 21 and Ziply channel 39.
You can attend virtually via Zoom at https://zoom.us/j/95798484261. Or attend by phone: +1 253 215 8782. The webinar ID is 957 9848 4261.
This report contains some very unexpected changes in two key metrics that weigh on the case for or against annexation. Specifically both the neighboring unit utilization factor metric and the transport balancing factor metric which previously indicated that the resources funded by Edmonds were more than adequate to deliver the services that we receive and to provide appropriate levels of mutual aid to neighboring areas within the RFA have mysteriously swung very far out of balance. There are other questions about the data reported for 2024 that I cannot go into within the confines of a short comment but suffice to say, something smells off here. In my extensive experience working with organizational and process metrics, such shifts do not occur without some explicit management intervention or a change in the definition of the metrics. I hope that the RFA will adequately explain the reasons behind these data at Tuesday’s meeting. failure to do so could lead me to believe that the metrics are being inappropriately gamed to support the case for annexation.
Thank you, Niall. Many of the issues raised by those opposing annexation are distractions from the big issue at hand–e.g., using a consultant for a short term communications job–but offer no solutions or new information. We have been presented with the choice of a very expensive but known fire/EMS, or “not sure what happens next but it costs too much.” The questions you raise sound like an opportunity to really understand the proposed contract cost.
These are all fair questions, and the voters need clarity before they can cast informed votes. At the core, if it is a given that our current cost-plus contract at $12m is fully covering fire/EMS labor costs plus contributing to South County Fire overhead, the key question is specifically what additional overhead is being built into the $21m contract pricing for 2026? Is it possible over $8 million—on top of the overhead we are already paying—is needed to cover 2026 overheads? Frankly, it doesn’t make sense. This sort of thing is why the voters should vote no on the April ballot measure so these questions can be adequately answered
What is missing is an accurate, honest, and detailed study of what it would cost to re-start the Edmonds Fire Dept., using the buildings we already own. It was the Mayor and the Council’s job to do this study or somehow provide this information and for whatever reasons they decided not to. With the money they have wasted on hiring PR and buying a one issue special election from the county (1/4 M dollars) they could have done their job right and given us a real comparison to vote on. These people waste our money faster than we can earn it. Giving them more money to waste is a fools game and taking us to municipal bankruptcy whether we give them the money or not. They do not know what they are doing and got conned by the RFA into the belief that there is no other option for fire service and the RFA is as efficient as we could ever get. Yes we have to pay more taxes but we don’t have to be stupid about how we do it. Their fear mongering is the most disgusting part of all this whole mess to me. We’ve got Briar employees and firefighters telling us how and what to think and they just need to be ignored.