$&!# !!! I forgot that was tonight. I was thinking it was next Mon for some reason. I'm kicking myself here. I really wanted to be there. Well as far as cost goes they are saving themselves A LOT of money. I am however extremely baffled by the fact that there will be no additional staffing placed at station 12. When the study was presented to the public the council members acted as though they would not settle for anything less than 4 firefighters being staffed at 12 like the study recommended. I got the impression that they believed anything less would be a regression in fire service not progress. They (city council, city manager ) were willing to spend over a million dollars a year for their idea of "progress" until the fire study proved it wasn't the best way to go. What changed?  For those of you that were there, did they give any explanation for this?  Will we at least have a volunteer or reserve dept. left? Was this even looked into?

On a different note..... Was there any talk about what was planned for the Grants they have?

Current city leadership=Hypocrisy at its worst. We all know why they are doing this. The city leaders want to be able to say We told you so. The only problem with the immature reasoning here is that somebody will lose property and loss of life may occur. I ask the city leadership this question. Is it so important to you to be able say We told you so and then try to put the blame on the county? To all Kern County firefighters in the Tehachapi area, stand tall and know we support you and praise your unselfish service. Also know that the city leaders have abandoned you and the residents they are sworn to serve. Shame runs deep today in Tehachapi City Hall. Or do they have any shame?

seniorcitizen- It's good to see you are still following this blog. I must admit we were harsh with you when we were fighting to do the right thing with the fire dept. I think we made great strides and was hoping that the city council would have done the right thing to follow up. We started this fight because of the under handedness of the way the fire department was developing. We got more into it because of the answers or lack of from the city council and city manager. The Chief of the department should never have been allowed to hire his own son. Then he should never have been allowed him to promote him and the other two inexperienced firefighters to captain. That along with the cost of duplicating services to the citizens of Tehachapi are some of the reasons we went after them. We felt if they had an independent study, it would show that we were right. WE WERE. We thought that the city would follow the recommendations, they did in part and are dissolving the department, but they are not paying for anything additional. They should at the minimum, pay for an extra firefighter at Station 12, but really if they want coverage for the city at all times, they should pay for an extra 2 man engine company at Station 12 like the chief of the Kern County fire department recommended. They could have continued the Tehachapi Volunteer Fire Department (one of the oldest fire departments in the county) as had been suggested by you and many others.

It is a shame that they got their feelings hurt and the only way that they can handle is to wash their hands of the fire department. They think that they will be able to make the Kern County Fire Department look bad when they can't cover all their bases all of the time. There is still time to correct this as the contract can't be signed by the Board of Supervisors before July 10 as there are not meetings until then.

LET YOUR CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVES KNOW HOW YOU FEEL

The Tehachapi City Council does NOT care about us. If they did they would have did what the study said to do.

The Current Tehachapi City Council needs to go!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!