TUSTIN : Mayor Will Serve on Fire Authority Board

Mayor Thomas R. Saltarelli will serve as the city’s representative on the new Orange County Fire Authority board of directors. The board will hold its initial meeting today to move ahead with an agreement that will give Tustin and other cities greater control over the county Fire Department.

Saltarelli was named to the position Wednesday by a unanimous vote of the City Council. Councilman Jim Potts was selected as the city’s alternate.

The council also approved a revised contract with the county that creates the fire authority. An earlier version of the agreement was signed by Tustin in July, but the Board of Supervisors later modified the document and resubmitted it to Tustin and the 17 other cities that pay the county for fire service.

Tustin City Manager William A. Huston said the revisions “will not have a material impact on the operational or economic feasibility” of the new fire authority.

Huston and other city officials are worried, however, about how the county bankruptcy may impact the Fire Department. A prime concern is that the department’s $36-million reserve fund may be tapped as the county grapples with its financial crisis.

Tustin and other cities strongly maintain that the reserves legally belong to the Fire Department, Huston said, and should not be diverted to other areas of the county budget. Huston said the fire authority may be able to head off attempts to tap the reserves.

“There is really no downside to creating the authority,” Huston told the council. If the county withholds funds from the Fire Department, he said, the cities could disband the new governing body for breach of contract.