Too Many
Firehouses

As the newly elected mayor of Zenith City, you face a number of challenges. You have to fulfill your campaign promises to improve K-12 education and to create some effective job training--and retraining. Predictably, however, you also face a budget deficit for the next year.

On the day after you were sworn in, moreover, you got some bad news. The projected deficit for the next fiscal year is twice as large as you had been told officially during the transition. It is many times larger than the rumors you kept hearing through the grapevine during your campaign. Thus, if you are to implement any of your campaign proposals to improve the quality of the city's work force, you will have to squeeze resources from other parts of your budget.

You and your staff have gone over all the standard categories and line items for potential cutting, and regrettably, you found very little. Had Zenith been a mismanaged city, you would have the option of taking a meat axe to its budget in the name of efficiency. But that isn't the case. Most of the obvious bloat was eliminated during the early 1990s recession. Social services, public works, police--there's damn little fat in any of them.

But an alert young staff analyst keeps calling your attention to one column of numbers: the budget for the fire department. It's almost $30 million--quite a bit more than other cities of Zenith's size are spending, and more than would seem to be necessary given the demands on the department.

There are 35 fire stations in Zenith City--a number that is indefensible by any textbook analysis. Most of them are seriously out of date, and too small to take advantage of the most up-to-date equipment. This is, of course, a legacy from the previous century, when the realities of urban life required that the fire department put a fire station in every neighborhood, if not quite in every block. For a fire crew and its equipment to make it to the fire in time to have any impact, the station had to be close to the scene. Thus, Zenith City, like most American communities of its era, had built numerous one-door firehouses throughout its neighborhoods.

Over the years, it had partially modernized these facilities. As the locomotion for fire engines changed from horses to steam, and then to gasoline or diesel, each station had been renovated to accommodate the newest equipment. But most of the single-door fire stations are still in use, with a single fire engine in each.

That is no way to fight a fire in the 1990s. Turn-of-the-century single-bay firehouses are not only too small, they are dangerous. Their big bay doors open directly onto the street, and when a fire engine returns from a run and its driver must back it into the narrow bay, it disrupts traffic. Thus far, no one has been hurt, but there have been some fender-benders, and local editorial writers are warning of possible disaster.

So from a safety standpoint--as well as a fiscal standpoint--it's obvious what to do. Close half a dozen of the old single-door stations and gradually switch to a smaller number of modern ones, with doors at both ends of the building and large, off-street tarmacs in front. There would be a significant long-term impact on the capital budget, but, argues the analyst, the short-term operating savings could be in the millions. And the city would be safer for it.

When the exuberant young fiscal aide finishes laying out the benefits, your chief political adviser--a veteran of four decades of city politics--starts up. The reason for the $30 million budget, and the 35 stations, he says, is not mysterious. Several of your predecessors tried to close one or more firehouses. They all failed. Every time a mayor, city council member or fire chief has even hinted that the city might close a firehouse, the local community has immediately mobilized. Your predecessor studied the problem, formally proposed closing several firehouses, and even held firmly to this position--at least for a while. But the opposition was well motivated and well organized. Eventually, the mayor decided not to sacrifice a bright political future for a few firehouses. You should make the same decision, your political adviser argues. Some fights are not worth waging--and then losing.

In Zenith City, a firehouse is more than a place to park a fire engine between emergencies. Many members of the fire company live in the community, and between runs they provide a variety of community services. Not only do they rescue cats from trees, they also conduct safety inspections for local homes and businesses, organize holiday clambakes, and help children with homework. In Zenith City, a firehouse is an informal community center. Thus, when people want to mobilize a coalition to keep their threatened firehouse open, they have an easy sell. Citizens are motivated not only by a perceived concern for their safety but also by the intangible value of the facility itself to their community.

You are not a political innocent; if you were, you would not be mayor. You don't want to start any unnecessary fights. At the same time, the fiscal crisis is real. Sooner or later the fire department has to bow to rationality. If it happens now, you will have extra funds to help you keep your campaign promises for schools and job training. There must be a way to be fiscally prudent and still survive politically.

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