Dry Creek votes to use Placer County-contracted fire services

By Mike Fitch, Journal Staff WriterDry Creek voters laid to rest a big political controversy over a small fire district at the southwestern edge of Placer County Tuesday.Final results show that 64.1 percent of the people who voted in a special election Tuesday backed Measure B, thereby siding with county officials in a debate over who can best provide fire-protection services to Dry Creek.The measure?s passage means the Dry Creek Fire Protection District will be dissolved and the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection will serve the area under a contract with the county.If the voters had rejected the measure, the Dry Creek district likely would have pursued plans for merging with the much-larger Sacramento Metropolitan Fire District.The Placer County Board of Supervisors certified the election results during a special meeting Wednesday afternoon.?It has been a long drawn-out affair. I realize that,? Chairman Bill Santucci said. ?I?m positive the right thing was done.?County Clerk Jim McCauley announced official results during the meeting, saying that 439 voters, or 64.1 percent, supported Measure B and 246, or 35.9 percent, opposed it.The controversy wouldn?t have gotten much public attention under normal circumstances, given that its focal point is a 41-square-mile area with only about 3,000 residents.It wound up in the public spotlight largely because the controversy came to be viewed in some quarters as a local-control battle pitting the county against outside forces.?We felt that was just absolutely ridiculous,? Santucci said of the Dry Creek district?s proposed merger with Sacramento Metropolitan.Santucci, the supervisor who represents Dry Creek, said he believes most voters backed Measure B because they want to maintain local control of their tax dollars and decisions about the services they get.In the audience during Wednesday?s meeting was Manuel Carrera, a board member of the old Dry Creek district.Afterward, Carrera said he initially favored the merger with the Sacramento district, because some board colleagues said CDF would serve the area from an existing station in Lincoln. After he learned CDF planned to staff a station in Dry Creek, he switched sides and backed the county plan.Carrera echoed Santucci?s comments, saying he?s convinced most voters supported Measure B because they want their tax dollars to stay in Placer County, not go to Sacramento County.The controversy surfaced last year after the Dry Creek district moved to merge with Sacramento Metropolitan. In response, the county made a counter proposal that called for having CDF serve the area.Last October, the Local Agency Formation Commission rendered its decision in the dispute, giving its stamp of approval to the county?s proposal. The issue wound up on the ballot after roughly 40 percent of Dry Creek?s registered voters protested the LAFCO decision.Merger supporters said they were simply trying to get the best fire-protection service available and argued that Dry Creek has so few people that it has little, if any control over what supervisors do in Placer County.The Sacramento district serves about 600,000 people and has an annual budget of approximately $70 million. It began helping the largely volunteer Dry Creek district about three years ago and started providing fire-protection services to Dry Creek last July on a contract basis.Backers of the county plan targeted the size disparity, emphasizing that Dry Creek voters would have little input into decisions made in Sacramento.County officials repeatedly have emphasized the Dry Creek area likely will grow substantially over the next 20 years, saying they believe the area would best be served by a single organization such as a county community services district that could provide a range of public services, rather than a hodgepodge of government agencies which would include a fire district based outside the county.