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Troutdale weighs joining Clackamas Fire District 1, new-district options amid union and dispatch concerns
Summary
Staff and committee members reviewed Triton and Tiberia consultant reports, discussed eight options including annexation to Clackamas Fire District 1 or creating a new multi-city district, and heard union and resident concerns about response times and dispatch integration; staff scheduled follow-up meetings with fire districts and set an August 25 working-group update.
Troutdale’s Public Safety Services Delivery Working Group reviewed consultant studies and a menu of options Tuesday for replacing the current contract-based fire-service model, with staff emphasizing that no binding decision would be made until further interjurisdictional meetings occur.
Staff summarized two consultant products commissioned by the three cities: a Triton feasibility report that compared service models and a Tiberia economic analysis that modeled the effect of property-tax compression and fee alternatives. Staff said those studies generally point toward the economics of scale favoring a fire district, and staff added that Troutdale’s property-tax base means compression to the general fund would be small relative to potential operating-cost savings from annexation or consolidation.
Unions and some residents pushed back. Public commenter Paul Wilcox read a Triton passage that raised a particular operational concern: dispatch services for Clackamas Fire District 1 are managed through Clackamas County 9‑1‑1 (CCOM), not the county BOAC dispatch used by Multnomah County, and "could cause a delay and would have to be evaluated to ensure response times meet the 3 cities' public safety goals." Longtime residents voiced unease about longer travel distances from Clackamas stations to parts of Troutdale (including Thousand Acres) and cited a recent experience in another jurisdiction where Clackamas-contracted service did not meet expectations.
Jake Wegler, addressing labor issues in a campaign context, said union concerns "are never good when you have your firefighters saying we don't like this," and Praxis urged dedicated negotiation and transition protections to address staffing and service worries.
Staff walked the group through eight distinct options — ranging from status quo contracting with Gresham, to joining Clackamas Fire District 1, to forming a new regional fire district that would include multiple cities and Fire District 10 — and said the four jurisdictions will meet with Fire District 10 and Fire District 1 in the coming weeks to refine the practical and legal implications of each path. Staff emphasized that annexation into an existing district (rather than forming a new one from scratch) is typically faster to implement.
Councilors and residents pressed staff on practical impacts: where new stations would be sited, how long mutual-aid responses might take, and how the city would explain tax-rate changes to voters. Staff acknowledged several quantitative details require legal or technical clarification (for example, exact compression calculations and capital-cost allocations) and said counsel will be needed to answer questions about creating a new district versus annexing to an existing one.
The working group set its next meeting for Aug. 25 so staff can report back after scheduled meetings with the two fire districts and to allow the incoming city manager to participate. No formal vote or referral was taken Tuesday.
