Cities explore MOU for fire response services
By Terry Miller
At the Sierra Madre City Council meeting on Jan. 8, 2019 the council approved a non-binding term sheet which would allow the City of Sierra Madre and the City of Arcadia to explore a memorandum of understanding (MOU) for fire response services. Since the meeting took place the city has received several inquiries and questions about what was voted on and approved.
Sierra Madre City Manager Gabriel Engeland said that the city has a Fire Department and is continuing its work towards becoming a career department with all full-time, paid personnel. Sierra Madre is having an engineer’s exam this month and will be able to hire two additional full-time engineers. This is important as these hires will complete the transition to a career department and Sierra Madre will be staffed similarly to the majority of stations in the Verdugo system. Once the Sierra Madre Fire Department (SMFD) is fully staffed, the department intends to once again ask the Verdugo system to allow Sierra Madre to participate in automatic aid, similar to other fire organizations.
