Citizen About Town

By Nancy C. Arcuri

Editor and Publisher

E-mail address: nancyarcuri@thectizensvoice.net

Fax: 626-307-9081

At the March 17 Monterey Park Council Meeting the room was filled with 350 angry taxpaying voters who demanded the City Council not charge them $60 a year to park their car on the public streets overnight.

The fight to prevent the Council from raising this tax or fee was led by former mayor Betty Couch.  She pointed out to the Councilmembers that most of the houses built in the hills of our city have variances that the city allowed the developers. Most of these homes have short driveways that do not allow other cars to be parked off street by the homeowners.  The city continues to allow apartments, condos and monster houses to be built without requiring adequate off street parking.

Several angry residents told the Council that the $4 million shortfall was their fault.   Council should have been watching the city’s budget and reduce their expenses.  The taxpaying voters will not take the blame for the Council’s mistakes. They were not going allow Council to charge them $60 a year to park their cars on the public streets.

Council voted against this item, which would have required residents pay $60 a year to park their car overnight on our city streets.

At the April 7 Council Meeting the Council discussed and voted on having a study to give our fire department away.  Two studies would be done, one from the Los Angeles County Fire Service and one from a private company called ECSI who would review the County’s study and write up their opinion on the matter.  The total costs are to be paid by the Firefighters Unions (Monterey Park and Los Angeles County).

Taxpaying voters asked Council:  Why are you are willing to give away our paramedic ambulance service which responds within four minutes?  Why are you are willing to give away our fire stations and equipment to Los Angeles County? Why are you are willing to give the county a blank check every year?  We will still be paying for the firefighters’ retirement. Why are you willing to add a financial burden to the residents to pay for a private ambulance service to deliver the patient to the hospital? Why are you favoring our firefighters over the taxpaying voters? Is this payback by three Councilmembers (Venti, Ing and Chu) for having the firefighters endorse you and campaign for you?

Monterey Park already belongs to a regional fire service through Verdugo Dispatch that sends out paramedic ambulances and fire trucks from Monterey Park, Montebello, Alhambra, San Gabriel and South Pasadena to cover all the medical emergencies and fires in our area.

We cannot afford to lose our paramedic ambulance service that responds to heart attacks, strokes and other life threatening injuries within four minutes.

The patient and their family members are waiting for help.  The county fire service does not even state on their website how long it takes their paramedics to respond to a medical emergency.

We have already voted NO to Going County.  Why waste money to do a study that cannot match our current paramedic ambulance and fire service?

Several supporters (families of some firefighters and the union members) wanted Council to vote for the two studies. They said it is time for a change in the city. They believe that it would save money to go with the County fire service. They wanted to improve the financial futures of their spouses and children who are currently firefighters.

Council opened Pandora’s box when they voted to allow the two studies to be made on going County. It does not matter if the studies showed a $2 million or two cents savings, they gave their approval to the firefighters to explore their option to place a ballot measure before the voters to go County. They looked at the unions who now have unlimited funds and political clout and gave in to their demands to have the studies.

Now the firefighters unions can begin their insidious campaign to go County.  Will they advise taxpaying voters that they know what is best for them? Will they suggest that no one will answer their 911 calls if they don’t vote to support the firefighters? Will they park their fire trucks within sight of the polling places like they did ten years ago hoping to scare the voters to give away their hometown fire department? Will they use all their dirty tricks to intimidate the voters to go County?

All five Councilmembers stated that the final decision would be the voters.  Council cannot vote to give away our fire service to the County.

How right they are, we already voted to insure that no Council would ever have the power to give away our fire/police services.  We also voted to require any chance in fire/police services must to equal to our current services or better than our current services.

Have you asked yourselves why our police officers have never requested to go County? Our police officers are working in a fairly safe environment so why would they want to put themselves in the line of fire.

Council asked for a clarification on the difference in the paramedic services.

A former County employee/resident advised Council the County paramedic services allow the paramedics to stabilize a patient and then have a private ambulance service take them to the hospital.  A paramedic would accompany the patient in the private ambulance to the hospital if the patient required extra care.  Monterey Park paramedic ambulance service stabilizes the patient and transports them to the hospital.

Long time residents remember when we had a private ambulance service that often failed to do their job. Valuable time was lost before the patients were taken to the hospital and some residents lost their lives.

The residents took action and founded our paramedic ambulance service to insure that Monterey Park residents would receive better emergency medical care.  Our paramedic ambulances arrive on site within four minutes.  They now provide emergency care on site and transport the patient to the nearest hospital for further treatment.

I live near the city/county line.  A few months ago I heard sirens and saw a County fire truck pull up to a house on Graves Avenue.  Ten minutes later I hear sirens again as the private ambulance pulled up to the site.  Another twenty minutes later I hear sirens again and the County paramedics had finally arrived.

I don’t call that good service. I believe that valuable time was lost with the delay of the paramedics.

A history lesson for Monterey Park residents: In the early 1980s the city hired a new fire chief by the name of Jim Page.  He was previous employed by the Los Angeles County Fire Service for 16 years.  He has been praised as the founder of Emergency Medical Technicians.

I wondered why Jim Page was no longer a County employee if the life of a County firefighter was so great. Why did he decide to work for a little bedroom community called Monterey Park?

Jim Page was the one who suggested to our young firefighters that it would be better to have a regional fire service. He was speaking about his old employer Los Angeles County.

We currently have a regional fire service with Verdugo Dispatch so one of Jim Page’s dreams came true.

Currently Monterey Park residents received emergency services from the Verdugo Dispatch that sends emergency units from Monterey Park, Alhambra, San Gabriel, Montebello and South Pasadena to the scene.

Now we have to battle the firefighters unions to keep our regional fire service with Verdugo Dispatch.