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Ripon council weighs MOU to split consultant costs for new fire‑assessment effort
Summary
Council considered an MOU to split with the Ripon Consolidated Fire District the cost of a consultant's engineer report for a proposed Proposition 218 assessment; the consultant's total cost is just under $119,000, with the city's share just over $59,000. Chief Eric DeHart described high concurrent call volumes and long mutual‑aid response times.
The Ripon City Council reviewed a memorandum of understanding to split consultant costs with the Ripon Consolidated Fire District so the district can pursue a new Proposition 218 benefit assessment to increase operating revenue.
City administrator Kevin Warner told the council the consultant's engineer report for the assessment will cost just under $119,000, making the city's share just over $59,000. “At this point, the fire district has received proposals for a consultant to do an engineer's report as required as part of the process. The total cost to do that is just under a $119,000,” Warner said.
Fire Chief Eric DeHart described operational strain and the rationale for the assessment. “We are absolutely getting beat up on our concurrent calls,” Chief DeHart said, noting the district ran 528 concurrent calls last year and at times has relied on mutual‑aid responses that took 14 to 16 minutes to arrive. He said the district serves about 56 square miles from a single staffed station and that additional staffed apparatus is the only thing that will substantially reduce concurrent-call delays.
Chief DeHart said the district has formed an outreach committee and hired SCI (Fairfield) as the consultant and plans outreach and refinements from lessons learned in the prior assessment attempt. Warner and the chief discussed concerns raised in public comment about the agenda title and ballot mailings and described efforts to improve outreach and correct voter/parcel lists.
Council action and next steps: council members moved and seconded approval of the MOU to split consultant costs, but no formal vote tally was recorded in the transcript. If the MOU is approved, staff said the consultant will advise on timeline and ballot materials; staff estimated a best‑case timeline could result in ballots going out by late May so they could be returned by Aug. 1 for inclusion on the 2026 tax roll.
