County to lease, sublease DeLuz fire station land

A legal maneuver will allow the County of San Diego to build an addition to the DeLuz Volunteer Fire Department fire station.

A 5-0 San Diego County Board of Supervisors vote April 12 approved a 50-year lease on the parcel owned by the DeLuz Heights Volunteer Firefighters Association at a rate of $1 per year and a sublease back to the DeLuz Heights Volunteer Firefighters Association at a $1 per year rate. The vote also approved a similar lease and sublease agreement with the Sunshine Summit Volunteer Fire Department.

“It gives us the ability to put public money into those facilities to improve the living conditions so that the volunteers can spend their time there,” said county fire services coordinator Ralph Steinhoff.

In 2008, the county supervisors and subsequently the county’s Local Agency Formation Commission created the San Diego County Regional Fire Authority for territory not within the boundaries of a public agency but served by a volunteer fire department. The volunteer fire departments retained their autonomy and began working with the paid firefighters covering those areas. The county contracts with volunteer fire companies, fire protection districts, and the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection to provide fire and emergency medical services within the SDCRFA boundaries.

In April 2009, the county supervisors authorized a regional deployment study to assess the delivery of fire and emergency medical services in the county. In May 2010, the supervisors accepted the report and directed the county’s chief administrative officer to develop an implementation plan.

When the county’s 2010-11 budget was approved in June 2010, the supervisors allocated $5 million to implement the deployment study, and when the implementation plan was brought to the supervisors in September 2010 the allocation earmarked $3.385 million for fire protection agency and volunteer fire department improvements such as sleeping quarters, kitchens, and apparatus bays (planning services were authorized as a legitimate expenditure for that money).

The work on the DeLuz fire station will add 2,422 square feet and include finished interior and exterior work.

To comment on this story online, visit http://www.thevillagenews.com.