VENTURA : City to Ask County for Fire Service Payment

The Ventura County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday will be asked to pay the city of Ventura $75,272 to provide a year of fire and medical protection to north Ventura Avenue residents.

County fire officials mothballed the Ventura Avenue station in July, saying it was cheaper to pay the city to protect the neighborhood than to continue staffing the station, which had been open for more than 50 years.

Fire Chief George E. Lund said the county Fire Department could save $650,000 a year by contracting out the service to city firefighters.

“The city Fire Department has allowed the (county) fire district to directly dispatch city equipment and maintain computer status of that equipment,” Lund told supervisors in his report. “This will greatly enhance the response to our citizens.”

The amount of the contract was agreed to after city and county officials calculated the number of calls the station served over the previous 12 months, Lund said.

Future contracts would be higher if the city answers increasing numbers of calls this year, the chief said.

The county firefighters union sued the county over the decision to close Station 24.

But in July, Superior Court Judge John J. Hunter ruled that the union failed to prove the neighborhood would be irreparably harmed by the closure.