The first Santa Monica City Council meeting of 2024 did not disappoint. There was tap dancing, technical issues, the Brady Bunch, live music and Councilmember Oscar de la Torres’ magnificent new mustache. Moreover, additional security had to be brought into City Hall following threats recently made against some Councilmembers. Thankfully though, nothing has come of those.
“You’ve seen a number of officers and city council chambers this evening. And I want to extend my deepest gratitude to all of them and Police Chief Batista for a tremendous amount of support over the past 12 hours in ensuring that we were prepared for the city council meeting tonight,” City Manager David White said in his opening address.
Among a positively jam-packed agenda on Tuesday evening was a presentation by the Santa Monica Fire Department (SMFD) of their five year strategic plan. Wolfgang Knabe presented a summary of the strategy to Council. Knabe was appointed as interim SMFD Chief in August of last year when Danny Alvarez left the city after less than one year and four months in the role to return to his former department in Burbank as their new Chief.
Knabe initially told the Daily Press that the recruitment process was in progress and an announcement would be made soon. Then, lo and behold, just 24 hours later, City Manager David White released a statement announcing the appointment of Matthew Hallock to lead the Santa Monica Fire Department as its new chief.
“I would love to be the fire chief here,” he laughed, “But I’ve retired from another department and I’d have to come out of retirement officially to do that. And just because of the new state rules, it would be problematic for me, but I love this department and I love this city. I would do it in a heartbeat, but the circumstances now don’t allow me to do it.”
According to Knabe, the strategic plan was written while Alvarez was Chief, which is why you’ll still find his photograph atop the document’s introduction. However, it still remains the department’s plan of action, but that’s not to say it cannot be changed by a Fire Chief in the future and regardless of whether or not that happens, it is standard procedure for the strategy to be constantly consulted to ensure predetermined objectives are being met. The plan does not require another presentation in front of Council unless there’s a “major change.”
“It [the strategic plan] gives us the ability to establish that framework and forecast the resources we need in the future serves as an ongoing communications tool for future leaders, stakeholders and personnel. As things change, everybody’s on the same page,” Knabe explained to Council.
Knabe says that a five year plan is very much standard in the industry. “The reason it’s that long is it gives us an opportunity to reach those goals,” he told the Daily Press. “It doesn’t mean everything will get done, because of course it all depends on the budget.”
The 2023-28 strategy, for instance, includes a plan to replace two stations (Fire Stations 3 and 7) but as Knabe explains, they are not currently budgeted for. “If we decide to reestablish our Community Response Unit, which was our homeless liaison and stuff like that, we would need some additional budget for that,” he says, adding, “So I guess what you could say is the five year plan is sort of a vision of what we want.”
Santa Monica Deputy Fire Chief Tom Clemo said to Council, “We have found that if we write it down, we’re successful. It’s a rather lengthy document, there’s about four key pages starting on page 62, or 63, that lay out those objectives and the issues and items we’ve been working on for years. Now they have a much more formalized plan and process moving forward. That allows us to manage by objective, which is how we all grew up in the fire service.”
In response to this presentation, every councilmember showed their unanimous support. Councilmember Caroline Torosis inquired about the fire facility capital improvement plan. “I love your mission statement,” she said, adding, “I did notice … you have several unmet organizational needs and without delving into a budget discussion, because we know that if we allocate money one place, we take it away from somewhere else, but can you just talk to us a little bit about like your fire facility capital improvement plan, what do you need to complete this new training facility (at 2500 Montana Ave)?”
‘If you were there six months ago, compared to where we are today, we’ve come a long way,” Clemo said. “We’ve cleaned up the site … we’re running a 13 member academy, as we speak for the next 16 weeks. We’re in a brand new building and facility. What is left is … refurbishment of the tower replacement props. We’ve had estimates that have ranged all over the spectrum, Public Works has helped us with that effort.”
Knabe added, “[Another] great additional thing is because of that training center, thanks to the City Manager, HR Finance, for the first time, with these 13 members, we will be a fully staffed Fire Department in probably over 20 years.”