Santa Cruz LAFCO (Local Agency Formation Commission) directed staff on June 4 to conduct an analysis of all possible governance options for consideration and implementation by the Felton Fire Protection District (FFPD).
“The goal of this report was to clearly explain the issues currently faced by Felton FPD, and more importantly, identify all the possible solutions to ensure the effective and efficient delivery of fire protection and emergency medical services to the Felton community,” according to the LAFCO website.
LAFCO’s charge is to oversee special districts within the county. The organization is a state-mandated agency in California that oversees changes to the boundaries of cities and special districts, of which FFPD is one. Specifically, they are responsible for approving or denying proposals for reorganizations of these local government entities.
Given the sprawling challenges that FFPD has endured in recent years, the July 25 release of the LAFCO report created a surge of renewed interest in the difficulties that the district is facing. The report traced back issues related to five main problematic metrics within FFPD over the past four years: unbalanced growth, leadership instability, underfunded operations, volunteer decline and patchwork solutions.
While the Press Banner has reported on the repeated upheavals of leadership at FFPD, the LAFCO report goes into greater detail regarding the other issues plaguing the district. As a result, the report established 12 options for district leadership to consider in an effort to maintain a functioning fire department—variations included reorganization and contractual agreements with sister fire departments, along with a stand-alone option for the district.
FFPD Chief Isaac Blum narrowed those choices down to just a few.
“Several of the departments listed in the report as having the potential for reorganization or contract said they were never contacted and have no interest in moving forward with the LAFCO recommendations,” Blum said.
The report gave FFPD an Oct. 20 deadline to select one of the proposed options for the district’s sustainability.
In reviewing the report and the proposed options, Blum said the contents of the report’s findings were accurate, but added that they didn’t take into account the recent changes within the district.
“The LAFCO report took a screenshot of the last four years of the district, with the reporting ending at the point of our agreement with Ben Lomond Fire,” said Blum, who acknowledged that the report addressed the failures within the department leading up to the Ben Lomond Fire Department (BLFD) agreement. “The report gives us a roadmap of where to go, and I appreciate that.”
Blum noted that since the separation with BLFD, Felton has been staffed 24/7 with no lapse in coverage and their volunteer roster has increased to the point that he doesn’t have the capacity to onboard all of those who have submitted applications.
“We’re going to have to bring them on in tiers in order to fulfill the training requirements for each applicant,” he said.
He also indicated that the issue with not having enough driver operators for their apparatus has been overcome, saying, “We’ve had some promotions to ensure our staffing levels are appropriately maintained.”
Blum pointed to a number of improvements within the district over the past four months, namely the increase in volunteers on staff. While he accepts and appreciates the findings, he also wants the community to know that the department is moving forward in a proactive manner.
“We are running much like a paid department but on a stipend basis of $125/day,” Blum said. “We have solid coverage and our response times have been reduced.”
In late 2024, BLFD entered into a two-year agreement with FFPD for service and leadership coverage; BLFD’s Chief Stacie Brownlee was brought on to help FFPD address the very issues that were highlighted in the LAFCO report. A tumultuous period followed, and as a result of poor communication, heavy-handed governance by the FFPD board and accusations of sexual harassment toward Brownlee by a Felton board member, the BLFD board terminated the shared agreement effective June 2025.
That brought the Felton department back to square one; at the same time, one of the FFPD board members nominated into his position in January 2025, Doug Conrad, submitted his resignation in mid-June after serving less than six months of his two-year term, leaving district leadership scrambling to fill the void before a special election was mandated by the county.
Felton resident and Firewise board member and advocate Craig Winter was appointed to fill Conrad’s seat on July 25, the same day the LAFCO report was released. (Firewise USA is a program administered by the National Fire Protection Association that “empowers communities to become more resilient to wildfire. It provides a framework for neighbors to work together, assess their wildfire risk, and take action to reduce the potential for damage from wildfires,” according to its website.)
Winter and his family moved to Felton from Los Angeles about seven years ago, and was a relatively new resident when the CZU Fire swept through the San Lorenzo Valley in August 2020. While the experience was traumatic, Winter said that wasn’t his main motivation for joining the Firewise and FFPD boards.
“I like purpose and making a high-impact difference,” said Winter, who is in the tech sphere and credits his interest in problem-solving to his career as a generative AI strategy adviser and product manager. “In my role, I focus on roadmaps and creating compromise to establish and achieve priorities,” all of which seems to complement his work on both boards.
On Aug. 16, Winter and Blum took to the stage at Felton Community Hall for a Felton Fire Department Revival Meeting, during which they addressed issues around call volume, the lack of tax income (no increases in the last 30 years), the lack of sustainability around the current volunteer firefighter structure, budgetary concerns and what the community can do to support the district.
Around 160 community members attended the meeting, with the conversation ranging from posting reflective green address signs (available through Zayante Fire Department) to an upcoming special election on the proposed parcel tax to using life skills to support the department (social media posts, Firewise engagement opportunities and bringing baked goods to the station). As Winter said, “You don’t need to be a firefighter to support the Felton district.”
Overall, Winter was pleased with the outcome of the event, although he wished more residents had attended.
“Felton has a population of around 6,000 people, so there are a lot of opportunities for us to invite community members to participate in supporting the district,” he said.
Like Blum, Winter is optimistic that FFPD can emerge from this contentious period as a self-sustaining entity, so long as the public votes to approve the parcel tax assessment.
“I prefer not to see this as a tax on the public as much as an opportunity for us to have a sustainable fire service in Felton. This is an opportunity for Felton residents to vote on their future as a community, and I want people to see this as their choice,” Winter said.
If FFPD selects that stand-alone option for the health of the department, the LAFCO report recommends a $700 annual flat tax per parcel. Winter and fellow board member Erica Schwanbeck were tasked with investigating the stand-alone option, while board members Jim Anderson and Mike Shults looked into the potential of a shared service agreement or consolidation with a sister fire agency; both teams reported their findings in the FFPD board meeting on Aug. 18.
With both options on the table, the decision was made to investigate the stand-alone option as the primary consideration with consolidation as the secondary. Winter and Chief Blum both reiterated the fact that either option would be costly to the residents of Felton, and the stand-alone option would need to be voted on in a special election this fall.
Results of the investigation of FFPD maintaining independence will follow in the weeks to come.
