July 25, 2024 • 43 mins
Unlock the secrets behind the complexities of local politics in Pflugerville, Texas. This episode of the Forge Resilience podcast reveals the critical funding challenges facing the Pflugerville Fire Department, also known as Travis County ESD 2. Discover how a vacated sales tax from Austin Transit shaped the department's growth and operations in a rapidly expanding city. We honor the pivotal contributions of former fire chief Ron Mullenberg, who transitioned the department from a volunteer base to a career department and introduced advanced life support (ALS) care.
We then turn our focus to the impact of private EMS services on the city. The challenges are many — from outdated equipment and inadequate training to high turnover rates and pay disparities. Hear about a troubling incident involving subpar care from a private EMS crew that spurred city council action and a renewed focus on the quality of emergency services. We critique the city’s decision-making processes, stressing the dire consequences of prioritizing cost over the competence and safety of its residents.
Finally, brace yourself for a sobering discussion on the looming budget cuts to the fire department and their potential ramifications. A 40% reduction in take-home salary could force a dramatic scale-down in operations, jeopardizing community safety. Learn why experienced personnel are leaving, the influence of developers on city council decisions, and the crucial role of informed voting and community action. Engage with us as we navigate these pressing issues, advocating for a safer and more resilient Pflugerville.
To watch the Pflugerville City Council choose the cheapest EMS option available please check out the Pflugerville City Council Meeting from May 28th, Skip to minute 34:15
Learn the facts and help us stop misinformation being spread by a few vocal people.
To see facts about Pflugerville Fire Department's ratings, call volume and budget please look at the Pflugerville Fire Department's 2023 Annual Report.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Lacy Wolff (00:01):
All right, Hi everyone and welcome back to the
Forge Resilience podcast.
It's been quite some time sinceour last podcast, but we are
currently amidst an electionyear and there's a lot going on
in the political atmosphere, andI've heard it said that what
happens in your local politicsactually affects you more than
(00:24):
what's happening on the federallevel, and we've got some stuff
going on here in Pflugervilleand so I thought we could talk
about that today and how thatmight impact the resilience of
our community.
Chris Wolff (00:38):
Mm-hmm.
All right, so I get to be theguest today, so Chris is my
guest today.
Lacy Wolff (00:42):
All right, excellent .
Chris Wolff (00:43):
You know the thing about politics and especially
this country.
You know people, you knoweveryone, especially the media,
likes to talk about how dividedwe are.
But, man, I tell you, if youbreak down the core issues, I
bet you, 75% of us land rightthere in the middle on what I,
what I think of common sensewill make sense.
Yeah, and this topic is nodifferent Talking about the
(01:07):
defunding of the fire department.
Lacy Wolff (01:10):
Yeah, and as a citizen in Pflugerville who has
been around these topics for thelast several years, going back
to the defunding of the EMS,services.
I just want to say that this isconfusing for me it's confusing
yeah and I I thought it wouldbe good just to have you explain
(01:32):
, because I hear you explain,I'm like, okay, I get it, but
then people ask me questions andI forget the particulars.
Chris Wolff (01:39):
So let's just record, let's do it and that's
the that's the problem withlocal politics is, you know,
let's just record, let's do itand that's the.
That's the problem with localpolitics is, you know, normally
I don't know that much about theissues and I, I I try to be a
good citizen.
I print a sample ballot, I do aquick google search and then I
do the best that I can so it'sreally hard to find like
non-biased, just common sense.
(02:00):
Um you know, story behind the uh, behind the things that we're
voting on, the issues and topics.
Lacy Wolff (02:07):
So let's start with the big issue at hand defunding
the fire department.
What's going on?
Chris Wolff (02:11):
All right.
So the Pflugerville FireDepartment, travis County, esd
number two, back before I gothere, I want to say it was maybe
in 2014 or something.
It might have been earlier thanthat, but not much earlier.
They went after a sales taxthat had been vacated.
Lacy Wolff (02:34):
They as a city.
Chris Wolff (02:35):
No ESD2.
Oh, ESD2.
The Pflugerville FireDepartment went after a sales
tax that was vacated by theAustin Transit folks.
You see those vans runningaround.
They pulled out of Pflugervilleand gave their funding back and
it's super embarrassing.
I don't remember if it's a halfcent or a full cent, but it's
(02:59):
like a cent of the eight centsthat we pay on every dollar.
Lacy Wolff (03:02):
So it's a lot of money.
Chris Wolff (03:03):
Yeah, it didn't used to be when they put that on
, it wasn't that much money.
Lacy Wolff (03:07):
Because there weren't that many citizens.
Chris Wolff (03:09):
There wasn't.
It was a bedroom community.
Not a lot of sales werehappening in Pflugerville.
Now it's all changed.
With all these people andexplosion of growth, we've got a
lot of businesses operating influterville.
And so the sales tax and again,like I'm not the the numbers
guy and I probably should haveuh, called the finance people
(03:31):
before I started this podcast,but man, I want to say it's like
a lot, it's a good, it's in themillions of dollars okay.
Lacy Wolff (03:40):
So that was used to fund the fire department and has
funded the growth in large partof the fire department Right
Old Chief Ron Mullenberg.
Chris Wolff (03:49):
Don't tell him I said he was old, but he was our
old chief.
That's what I meant by thatPrior chief.
Our prior chief.
He was the chief of thedepartment since the 70s and
there's a lot.
You know, if you're going to bechief of the department that
long, there's a lot of oldschool flugervillians that
(04:09):
either love them or hate thembecause he really did a lot to
push the fire department forward.
Started as a volunteer, startedas a volunteer department he he
transitioned it to a careerdepartment not that long ago.
I think they hired their firstpeople in like 96.
It was all volunteer beforethen.
Where was I going with this, oh?
So he said okay.
He saw that we had issueswaiting on EMS ambulance to show
(04:30):
up at our medical scenes and ifsomeone's having a heart attack
or a very serious emergency,what you need is a paramedic.
And the only people that hadparamedics in our district at
that time was Austin-TravisCounty EMS and that's a
cooperative between the city ofAustin and the county of Travis,
right, and so he's like this iscrazy, there's only two
(04:52):
ambulances in Pflugerville.
Our guys are waiting on sceneand we were waiting on scene
when I got hired on thisdepartment 10 years ago.
Yeah, 20 minutes without ALScare.
And he said, hey, let's goafter the sales tax and what
we're going to do with it iswe're going to send dudes to
paramedic school.
We're going to invest in thesemonitors and equipment and drugs
(05:14):
and the system to handle andadminister the drugs to provide
ALS care, which is advancedlevel care.
Lacy Wolff (05:20):
Right Very important .
Chris Wolff (05:22):
Very important.
So we got that ALS care andthen I was here for it.
I want to say, in like 2016,2017 timeframe, they were like,
hey, this sales tax is reallyturning into something.
Lacy Wolff (05:38):
Who?
Chris Wolff (05:39):
Everybody, I'm just paraphrasing what the
administration was thinking Iwas a probationary firefighter.
I was not in the room whenthese decisions were being made,
but I was in the organizationand so I was a service care
provider in people's homeswaiting on Austin-Travis County
EMS to show up.
They were a great agency, justnot enough.
(06:02):
They had really well-trainedpeople.
There were only two units, andguess what was happening in
travis county around this time?
Lacy Wolff (06:09):
oh, they're growing too it was blowing up right,
everybody moving out to bassdrop yeah, all over.
Chris Wolff (06:15):
So austin travis county is uh kind of miffed
because, uh, it's a city ofaustin and travis county.
So they're running in the cityof pflugerville and they're like
you know, okay, guys, are yougoing to start chipping in for
this ems or what?
And I can't speak for the cityof pflugerville people.
I definitely wasn't in thatroom when decisions were being
made, but no one ever wanted topay for this ems.
(06:37):
They thought, uh, what theypaid austin travis county should
be enough.
Uh.
So, uh, our chief, ron mol, saidokay, look, we have two
ambulances.
All our studies say that weneed like four ambulances.
We're going to make our ownambulance, we're going to buy
the ambulance which PS.
They had to buy two of thembecause you can't just have one
(06:59):
ambulance.
You have to have a reserve.
And we're going to take theseparamedics.
We're going to keep making moreof them.
And we're going to take theseparamedics.
We're going to keep making moreof them and we are going to be
the third ambulance, and thisambulance isn't going to get
sucked into downtown austin likeour other two were being right.
That's why we're waiting so longon ambulances.
Okay, because they were, yeah,they were john in the spot, if,
if they were in pflugervilleyeah, that could be a lot of
traffic and a long drive.
(07:20):
Oh my gosh, yeah, we weresitting on patients for a long
time, so I don't want thispodcast to get too long, but um,
anyway.
So austin travis county andhere's one of the lies that um,
this very small group of peoplewho are trying to defund the
fire department say they'll saywell, um, esd2 kicked out.
(07:40):
Austin travis county, emsthat's not true well, no, why
would we kick out?
we're like, hey, you know we'regonna add one more ambulance, so
now we're gonna have threeambulances in the city of
pflugerville and they werebasically like okay, so you
don't need us right, they werelike sweet guys and they got
other places.
Yeah, we've got plenty of otherplaces for these two ambulances
to go, and that's exactly whatthey did.
They moved them out of the cityof pflugerville, um, and like
(08:03):
shoot, well, you know we needthree, we've got one.
So really quickly they tookthat reserve ambulance and stood
it up as quick as they could,and so now we had two ambulances
in the city um, all right, well, two ambulances, still not the
four that we need, like hey howmany people are we serving at
this point?
(08:24):
Oh, again with the numbers, butSorry, that's alright.
In the whole district, which is, you know, like 90 square miles
, we are serving like 80,000people.
Okay, so Enough people that.
Lacy Wolff (08:38):
Four ambulances, yeah, yeah.
Chris Wolff (08:40):
Is not too many ambulances.
Especially in high traffic,right Times, and the thing is
that Pflugerville changed somuch and hopefully there's some
old Pflugervillians on here thatwill tell you.
And if you still head east inour county, they're still out
there.
These farm folks don't call EMSunless something really bad is
happening, true, and there's notthat many of them, so you can
(09:13):
get away with providing lessservice Inside of a rural city
like we have here inPflugerville the request for
service is tremendously higher.
Lacy Wolff (09:18):
So where were we?
So the ambulances get suckedinto Austin-Travis County we are
now doing all.
The ambulance in the city ofPflugerville does not want to
pitch in to help support pay forit.
Chris Wolff (09:27):
Correct.
Lacy Wolff (09:28):
They expect the county tax dollars to pay for
and just continue running itlike it is.
So the fire department sayswe're going to have to have some
funding.
Chris Wolff (09:40):
So this is where the overlay district comes in.
So this is where this is thesecond narrative that they uh,
you know, keep flugervilleaffordable.
People uh like to push as theysay, hey, we gave you guys this
um tax money so you'd run theseambulances.
No, no one told us we had torun these ambulances.
I say we, I mean again, I'm I'ma frontline person, I I'm not
(10:03):
an admin person, so it just hadto be done because no one's
going to stand on the sidelines.
So we're like no good deed goesunpunished, right.
So we stand up these ambulancesand now people are like, whoa,
it's your job, you were doingthis, keep doing it.
Yeah, what fire department juststarts taking on ambulances, you
(10:23):
know, without funding to do it.
So the department actually itwas the Firefighter's
Association was like this iscrazy, let's go for an overlay
EMS district.
And this is how they do it intwo other places in Travis
County.
Google what two other placesare, I don't remember off the
top of my head, but that's howthey do it.
(10:45):
It's a very simple deal.
Lacy Wolff (10:48):
Each household would pay an additional like $25 in
tax every year.
Chris Wolff (10:53):
Yeah, so I remember it wasn't a lot.
It's not a lot of money.
Yeah, it's not a lot of money.
Lacy Wolff (10:58):
But people are tired of paying taxes.
Chris Wolff (10:59):
Yeah.
Lacy Wolff (11:00):
The way this messaging came out was that it
was a double tax Right.
Chris Wolff (11:03):
It was really hard and I want to be full disclosure
because I do not want anyone tocatch us in a thing.
It was more than $25 a year.
We pay.
So I bought a $300,000 house.
I paid about $300 a year forthe fire department and so I
want to say my EMS bill would besomewhere in like the 100 to
(11:25):
150 so it depends on the peryear, depends on how much you're
, how much so, but that's whatwe're talking about.
Lacy Wolff (11:31):
Like I, not between 100 and 150 bucks a year for ems
service right and I think it'simportant as well for people who
don't understand emMS servicethat maybe have never used EMS
service how important it is.
It literally can be thedifference between your life and
(11:52):
death.
Absolutely, and you've seen thatYou've gone in, saved people's
lives because you're able to getthere early, and I think people
often don't understand untilthey need it.
I said how important it is, sotalk a little bit about.
Can you share?
Um, I guess we need to talkabout what's happened since we
(12:13):
lost the funding okay.
Chris Wolff (12:15):
So here's what happened.
Um, the firefighter associationwent for an ems overlay.
It passed in the wells branchneighborhood, in the north
Branch neighborhood and theNorth Town neighborhood and it
failed in the city ofPflugerville and the city of
Pflugerville ETJ, whichbasically means the
unincorporated parts of thecounty Right.
And that was going to be a hardsell because we're like, hey,
(12:37):
would you like to pay more taxesfor a service that you're
currently getting for free?
No one wants to do that you know, uh, we have a very well
informed community in wellsbranch in north town and so they
understood kind of what wasgoing on and they jumped on
board and they were receivinggreat ems thanks to that.
Um, the county saw what washappening in the etj and they
(12:58):
came back and kicked in and paidfor us to provide ambulance
service in the ETJ.
Lacy Wolff (13:04):
Oh, that's good.
What's?
Chris Wolff (13:05):
the.
Etj Emergency no it's like it'sE-T we'll Google it real fast.
It's like it's the people whoare in charge, so like it's
Pflugerville's ETJ and thatstands for.
Let's see if Google is evengoing to get it jurisdiction
(13:31):
extra territorial jurisdictionjurisdiction extra territorial
jurisdiction.
Okay, so the etj is stillreceiving this ambulance service
yep, because the county'skicking in city of fluville is
not receiving the service.
Okay, and this is what another,this like I stood and I I told
people the same people thatcomment on my facebook posts,
(13:51):
because I, you know, I'm not oneof those people that wakes up
in the morning and just wants toget in facebook fights with
people.
I hate doing that.
Um, but the say, like, look atmy facebook posts and the people
who are commenting the sameones that comment that yeah,
that no.
But back in the day I said sowho's going to run ems in the
city?
Who do you think is going tohappen?
It's going to be a private emscompany.
And they said no, esd2 is goingto happen.
(14:11):
It's going to be a private EMScompany.
And they said no, esd2 is goingto continue to run those
ambulances.
And like, just because you sayit doesn't make it so Right,
esd2 is not going to runambulances for free.
Lacy Wolff (14:23):
So what happened.
Chris Wolff (14:24):
We got a private EMS service.
Lacy Wolff (14:26):
They went should I name?
Chris Wolff (14:28):
names.
Lacy Wolff (14:31):
I don't know.
I mean people can look it up.
I mean it's our city, it's fineyeah.
Chris Wolff (14:34):
Yeah, so, anyway.
So the first ambulance servicecame on and there were some okay
providers and a lot of terribleproviders and they were used to
just running roughshod in acounty that did not really have
much EMS.
Lacy Wolff (14:52):
Tell everybody what the private ems provider's life
is like.
Chris Wolff (14:57):
Yeah, yeah so private ems means that you know
it's a for-profit model.
So, um, so let's start withyour ambulance.
It's probably going to bepretty rough, right?
It's going to have likehundreds of thousands of miles
on it.
Stuff's not going to work on it.
Um, you are not going to bepaid.
Those guys don't get paid whatI get paid.
So you're not going to getquality people.
(15:19):
And when you do, it's going tobe a stepping stone.
They're going to start at yourfor-profit EMS, then they're
going to end up at my firedepartment.
Your level tier one yeah becausewe're going to pay you more.
We're going to pay you more andwe're going to train you.
The training is not there.
They train like once a quarter.
They'll get together and dolike an in-service training.
Lacy Wolff (15:36):
How much do they make?
Do you know?
Chris Wolff (15:41):
Yeah, I mean like they're desperate, they'll pay
$30 an hour for a paramedic.
Lacy Wolff (15:44):
For an EMT For an.
Chris Wolff (15:47):
EMT like in the $20-ish.
Lacy Wolff (15:50):
And when they stood it up from my understanding,
they did not have a place fortheir, they did not have a place
to sleep.
Chris Wolff (15:56):
No, in most places you work a 12-hour shift and
you're just in that ambulancefor 12 hours.
Lacy Wolff (16:02):
We'd see them parked over here in our neighborhood.
They just yeah.
Chris Wolff (16:06):
And so what's good about that, though, is they can
can get to college really quickbecause they're already in their
vehicle staged around the cityand they're always moving.
So some people like, well,private ems is quicker.
Yeah, they are quicker.
I'll give them that they'requicker because, while we're
like in our station, we get towork out, we train, we have a
kitchen where we can cookhealthy food.
(16:26):
These guys are in the the samet-shirt they've been wearing all
day eating fast food, nottraining.
Lacy Wolff (16:34):
On their phone.
On their phone, yeah.
And all of that impacts theirreadiness.
Chris Wolff (16:40):
Even though they might be closer and get there
faster, they might not be asmentally prepared for that class
and I'll name names on thispodcast, because Jim McDonald is
a city council member and ifyou go back and look at the city
council meeting from I want tosay it was the end of May.
He says, well, if you're aparamedic, you're a paramedic.
You pass your state there.
(17:01):
You know you're the same.
You're a paramedic, he's aparamedic.
Oh my gosh.
That is the problem with city ofPflugerville trying to run
emergency response?
It's like there's just a basicmisunderstanding.
That is absolutely not true andso, like our company, now we've
got some decent medics and infact I've been working with
(17:22):
those same guys since they gotthe contract two years ago.
Some of them have come a longways and we try to recruit them
in our organization, but themajority of the case.
that just isn't so, and you knowwe try to recruit them in our
organization, you know, but themajority of the case that just
isn't so.
Majority of the time it's atransient crew and there's not a
lot of people that feel aspassionate about it as I do, or
(17:53):
what would get like a normalperson that doesn't like to
argue on Facebook to put himselfthrough.
All of this is that.
I am the one that shows up atthe door and and I'm with the
people when they die, yeah, um.
And and you're like, oh my gosh, why are you being so dramatic?
I'm not being dramatic, I'mtelling you the truth that's the
reality that is the reality.
Um, so, like the EMS, um thirdparty, uh company that we have
right now, literally sat in adriveway and killed somebody,
and I can say that becausethat's what it says on the
(18:15):
coroner's report you were there.
No, I wasn't at that call I was,I'm on the, I'm on the peer
support team, so I had to uh sitpeer support with our poor guy
who was there.
Brand new emt watched thisparamedic just go wild and
there's a current court case, soI really can't talk too much
about that.
But um, the city ofpflugerville is completely and I
(18:36):
say city of pflugerville I meanthe city council and the city
manager and the emergencyservices director is completely
aware of this case okay and theystill awarded them an extension
on their contract instead ofgoing uh, because they had the
opportunity to come, uh, let esdto the fire department provide
the ems.
(18:57):
We got way ahead of ourselvesyeah, how much time are we at?
How much time is?
Lacy Wolff (19:01):
we are at 19 minutes .
Chris Wolff (19:03):
Oh, okay, we're not doing that bad, all right.
What other questions do you?
Lacy Wolff (19:06):
okay.
So, um, we got this ems,private ems and right.
Also, I think it's important toreally think about from the
citizen perspective.
I mean, I live here, I have twoteenagers that drive yeah I um,
you know I want to have thebest care.
Chris Wolff (19:27):
Show up if something happens to one of my
kids or to one of us here's thething is we expect like we live
our lives and we assume that ourcity leadership cares cares and
is providing us with the bestcare that they can.
Lacy Wolff (19:40):
Right.
Chris Wolff (19:41):
The city leadership is currently providing us with
the cheapest option that theyhave.
That is not an exaggeration.
Go back and watch that citycouncil meeting that I talked
about earlier.
Lacy Wolff (19:51):
We'll put a link to that in the show notes.
That's a great idea.
Chris Wolff (19:54):
You're so smart.
Lacy Wolff (19:55):
Can you talk about when?
Okay, so we ended up with theprivate EMS and then it came
back and they were about to—thecity of Pflugerville and the
Pflugerville City Council wasabout to sign a contract with
ESD2.
Because of some of these issuesI don't know if it's because of
these—I don't know why.
Chris Wolff (20:15):
We were one of the options.
Lacy Wolff (20:16):
Y'all were one of the options and for whatever
reason, they decided to not gowith the ESD-2.
Chris Wolff (20:23):
Well, I'll tell you the reason, because I want to
be full disclosure and I getwhere city council is coming
from with this.
They said hey, we don't reallyfeel comfortable getting into an
arrangement with the ESD-2 firedepartment if they're about to
have their funding reduced by40% and they're no longer going
to run ambulances.
Oh so they knew I get that.
Lacy Wolff (20:44):
Oh, yeah, they know so they knew that they were
already going for the city forthe sales tax at that point.
Chris Wolff (20:49):
Okay and then.
So let me be full disclosure.
It isn't the city.
I got air quotes going that aregoing for the sales tax,
however, david Rogers, who is acity council member.
However, david Rogers, who is acity council member, is the
lead attorney on the lawsuitthat got this petition passed
for people to defund the firedepartment and David Rogers is
on the city council.
(21:10):
He is on the city council.
Lacy Wolff (21:11):
Okay.
Chris Wolff (21:13):
So when people are like, hey, it's not the city,
Okay, it's not the city, butmultiple city council members
are involved in defunding theeffort to defund the fire
department.
So, I say it is the city.
Lacy Wolff (21:26):
Okay.
So what's, what is and whywould they want to do that?
How is it in the city'sinterest?
Chris Wolff (21:33):
I should also say that my chief has no idea I'm
talking about any of this stuff,but I'm speaking now as a
citizen of Pflugerville, with awife and two kids and a lot of
friends that I care deeply aboutwho have no idea what's going
on, and I'm over here trying toraise the alarm bells.
Lacy Wolff (21:51):
Right.
So why does the city want totake the sales tax and what does
this 40% cut in sales tax meanfor us as citizens?
Chris Wolff (22:01):
the first question is hard, so let me start with
the easy second question, thenI'll jump back to the first one.
Uh, so that sales tax grew froma small fraction of the budget
to 40 of the fire departmentbudget.
So when I got hired on herethere were um 80 firefighters,
there were four stations.
We were like an iso class threedepartment.
(22:24):
You know we were doing allright, we trained every day, we
were kicking butt.
The sales tax blew up.
Um, thank god, because, guesswhat, our population also blew
up yeah so we in that time we'veadded four new stations.
We're up to uh 200 firefightersnow, so 120 quick math um new
firefighters, um some greatequipment, um so I want to just
(22:48):
pause here, and we're an isoclass one fire department.
So look that up.
What?
Lacy Wolff (22:52):
does that mean there's less than five percent
of fire departments in texasonly?
Chris Wolff (22:55):
one percent of all the fire departments in the
nation receive an iso class oneand five percent of the fire
departments in texas receive aniso.
It's an percent of the firedepartments in Texas receive an
ISO.
Lacy Wolff (23:03):
It's an incredible organization and it's about to
get gutted.
I think that's the thing thatwe need to really help people to
understand.
And for, also, I just want togo back a little bit because I
don't know that everybodyunderstands how a fire
organization works and the factyou said we have 200
firefighters and some peoplemight think, well, that's a lot
for a city of, you know,pflugerville size.
(23:24):
But what people may notunderstand is that they're
working 24-hour shifts and theysplit those 200 firefighters up
between three shifts acrosseight stations.
That includes your leadership,your training division, all all
of the parts and pieces thatsupport this city being able to
go out and react and respond,and all the ems service is still
being provided to the countyand the etj, which stands for
(23:49):
extraterritorial territorialjurisdiction yeah and the only
thing that this department isnot currently providing is ems
within the city of pflugerville,because they no, no, so thank
you for saying that, okay.
Chris Wolff (24:01):
We do provide EMS in the city of Pflugerville.
We do, you know, we can get inthe city of Pflugerville quickly
and we help out that for-profitEMS crews tremendously.
Lacy Wolff (24:15):
Every day.
Chris Wolff (24:15):
Every single day, every call, your mom slips and
falls in her bathtub in the cityof pflugerville you're there
you're getting a private emsambulance is going to show up
and you're getting a crew offour extremely well-trained
firefighters who are going toshow up and help your mom in the
bathtub right um.
So that's huge.
Lacy Wolff (24:36):
What we don't provide is the ems transport
transport service which isbillable, oh yeah, they're
making money off of that andalso from what I understand, we
don't charge anything for whatwe're doing the city of flugel
or the fire department doesn'tcharge anything, which is great,
because a lot of the people whoneed these services maybe could
not afford them oh yeah andalso when you are transported.
(24:59):
That is very expensive if youdon't have insurance, correct?
And this company can also comeafter your home, right Is that?
Chris Wolff (25:06):
a true story.
Oh yeah, they can put a lien on.
I mean, that's debt.
I mean I think there's somerules about medical debt, right?
Lacy Wolff (25:12):
Right, I don't know, but I understand that they can
come after you to try torecuperate that money?
Chris Wolff (25:18):
Oh yeah, they.
They're gonna send you tocollections, yeah, and that goes
on your, yeah, absolutely okay,so now let's get into.
Lacy Wolff (25:26):
So here's what's gonna happen all right.
Chris Wolff (25:28):
so with 40, imagine , uh, your take-home salary gets
cut by 40.
You're gonna make some changes,so we're pretty much gonna go
back to how it was when I gothired on here.
We're going to drop to about100 firefighters.
We're going to drop from eightstations back down to four.
There's a lot of stipulationson which stations they're going
to be, but you know it's notgoing to be ones, you know, in
(25:52):
the middle of Of Pflugervilleyeah.
I mean it's going to have adramatic.
Lacy Wolff (25:56):
Well, and the sad thing, it already is having a
dramatic impact on thedepartment, because everyone
feels this fear and the unknownoh, we are hemorrhaging
firefighters right now becausewe don't know what's going to
happen, and what's terrible isit's our best.
Chris Wolff (26:12):
Dudes and dudettes are rolling out the door because
, hey, I'm, I'm highlymarketable, I have a, I have a
great skill that cities.
You know our neighboring citieslike austin, round rock, you
know huddo um, georgetown,they'll take me if this city of
pflugerville doesn't want me.
So we we've had a lot of peoplebounce out yeah, a lot of
talent and, you know, it's ourmost experienced people that are
(26:35):
rolling out already right sobefore.
This vote has even been castit's having a detrimental effect
on our fire department and themorale of the fire department.
Lacy Wolff (26:44):
Imagine being a firefighter and you know like
you might lose your job tomorrowor in November.
Chris Wolff (26:49):
Right, right, and I'm lucky I've been here a long
time.
I'll be one of the hundred thatsticks around.
Hopefully, I mean no, no, I'mstaying, but but then.
So then I'm going to getreduced in rank ranked.
You know I'm a lieutenant uh,paramedic in the fire department
worked hard to get to where Iam.
Am I gonna sit around here andbump back to a tailboard?
Absolutely not, I'm gonna tryto lateral to a department that
(27:12):
is gonna pay me what I'm worth,you know okay, so that's what's
gonna happen.
Lacy Wolff (27:17):
We're gonna lose a hundred firefighters, shut down
four stations have, and here'sthe here's the biggest thing
yeah, we're no longer going togo to priority five.
Chris Wolff (27:25):
Fourth and three medical calls.
So mom falls in the bathtub.
It's just going to be that uhems, the private ems, it's going
to show up over there andthat's what's huge, because I'm
telling you the firefightershelp and keep that private EMS
you know, honest and supportedand accountable.
Lacy Wolff (27:46):
Right.
Chris Wolff (27:46):
And we help tremendously with the service.
Lacy Wolff (27:49):
Yeah, okay, and you just provide a lot more strength
.
I mean, I'm just going to sayit.
Chris Wolff (27:54):
And those.
You know it's allegiance.
I work you know a lot of theallegiance.
People know me and I respectthem.
I work you know a lot of theAllegiance.
People know me and I respectthem.
But they'll be the first totell you, like when it goes down
, like okay, mom, fall in thebathtub.
You know that's bad, right, butthey can handle that.
When it goes down like you'vegot something really bad happen
(28:15):
to a kid I'm talking caraccidents, I'm talking drowning
in a pool.
The training that we do everysingle day is instrumental in
making sure those people get thecare that they need to survive?
Lacy Wolff (28:29):
yeah, absolutely, and that I mean these things are
happening every day yeah peoplejust don't know about it.
Chris Wolff (28:35):
It happens every day and here's the thing I'm not
gonna sit by.
So when the cms thing went down, where was I?
Wasn't in the city council room, and I know it sounds like I'm
bagging on city council.
And those guys, david Rogers,those guys do more for the
community than anyone has anyidea, man.
They give up their private timeto do that.
(28:56):
I don't want to take anythingaway from that.
Take anything away from that.
Lacy Wolff (29:04):
Um, however, I should have been in that city
council meeting trying to get myelected officials to understand
the topic well enough to votethe right way right and I wasn't
there and I'm not going tostand by again who's influencing
the city council and why, likeI don't talk about, I don't want
to get into that okay, okay,but uh, but the bottom line is
there's developers with verydeep pockets that are supporting
(29:26):
the campaigns of city councilmembers that they believe will
further their interests, as isthat is politics.
Yeah, that is politics.
Okay, all right.
Chris Wolff (29:36):
No, no, I'm not, you know, no one's in my
pocketbook.
I'm trying to further theinterests of the fire department
and you know the services thathelp my wife, kids and friends.
Lacy Wolff (29:47):
Right, it is.
I mean, our bias is that youwork at the Fleur de Flore fire
department and also you know alot more than most about what's
going on, absolutely yeah, soyeah.
All right, so that's going tohappen potentially.
What do people need to do andalso how can people help?
Okay, let's start with what dowe need to do as citizens?
Chris Wolff (30:07):
Hey, did I answer that thing?
That was harder.
I said that was an easy thingand a hard thing to talk about.
Oh, I said I think that I askedwhat's going to happen and what
was the hard thing I asked youabout.
Lacy Wolff (30:27):
Why do they?
Chris Wolff (30:27):
want it to happen.
Oh, oh, yeah.
Hey, what are they gonna dowith this money?
Yes, okay, so, um, thispetition that is being voted on
in november is just to take thesales tax away from us.
Uh, and to my knowledge, yetthe city has not, in, you know,
put their own provision in totry to recoup that sales tax.
But that's what's going tohappen, and they are going to
say vote yes for EMS.
Lacy Wolff (30:50):
That's going to be their messaging.
Chris Wolff (30:50):
That's going to be their messaging, and so this is
what happened last time.
We're used to just runningcalls and helping people, and we
get ran around by thesepoliticians that like to confuse
the issue.
Lacy Wolff (31:02):
That's why we have to make a podcast about and they
pay a lot of money to thesegroups that come up with these
strategies I'm not sure aboutthat.
Chris Wolff (31:10):
I mean, they're pretty smart people that we're
up against to be honest with youokay, they're crafty, they know
their message because theirmessage last time was it's a
double tax right it's a doubletax and that that wasn't true,
because it's not double theamount of taxes and someone's
like it's a double tax.
Lacy Wolff (31:26):
No, it's no man.
Chris Wolff (31:26):
We're asking yeah, it's an additional tax for ems.
Uh, you're, you know you shouldbe getting that for free.
Oh my gosh, uh.
And so this time, um, theopposition is going to say say
yes for ems.
And what they're going to sayis they're going to take that um
40 percent of our budget andput it towards a city-run ems
(31:47):
service and they're talkingabout starting their own fire
department.
Like, oh my gosh, like we havean amazing fire department and
we're going to put people withno fire ems and experience
public safety, public safety,experience.
You know, you've got ChiefO'Malley holding down the police
department and the police.
(32:09):
They don't have enough people,they don't get the support that
they need.
Lacy Wolff (32:12):
Remember the winter storm.
Chris Wolff (32:14):
Okay, let's talk about the winter storm.
Like your fire department, cityof Pflugerville came through
for you huge, because we hadmonetary reserves that we could
purchase diesel and we kept alot of the city's generators
running with the diesel that wehad.
Lacy Wolff (32:32):
You were delivering oxygen to people in their homes
all day.
Chris Wolff (32:35):
Every one of our vehicles had snow chains, and so
people detractors are like youdon't need all this money.
Oh my gosh, you have to beprepared for every contingency.
So all of our vehicles havesnow chains, and so people
detractors are like you don'tneed all this money.
Oh my gosh, you have to beprepared for every contingency.
So all of our vehicles havesnow chains.
We got vehicles with four-wheeldrive.
Meanwhile I'm sitting on sceneand you know it's not their
fault.
But police are showing up incity of pflugerville engineering
(32:55):
trucks because they didn't youknow, pay the money to outfit um
and that's not.
that's no dig.
On the police department who Iwork extremely, they're my
heroes.
They get to grow beards andthey have guns, so I get jealous
of them, although all of themwould trade jobs with me.
Lacy Wolff (33:14):
But man they're holding the line and they don't
have what they need.
Chris Wolff (33:17):
They don't have what they need, and that's just
what we don't need is a you knowuh as another city, city run
ems and fire department would bedisastrous okay, so they may.
Lacy Wolff (33:30):
They probably will, if this passes.
They will take the sales taxand they will, and they're
saying that it's for their emsand they will try to build their
own fire station.
How long does that?
Chris Wolff (33:42):
hey, so didn't the.
Uh, oh, there was a um on thefalcon point neighborhood
facebook page there was a postabout how much debt we have in
the city of pflugerville.
So they're trying to pay downthis debt.
They just approved a crazyexpensive city hall.
It's like stories which I onlyknow because I do fire
(34:02):
prevention, and you get thatmany stories.
There's a lot of fire stuffthat gets involved in it.
My gosh, I mean I'm go city ofPflugerville and I want us to
have a cool downtown and I wantus to have a cool city hall, but
let's not take money from thefire department to fund that.
Lacy Wolff (34:20):
Yeah.
Chris Wolff (34:23):
Our priorities are way out of whack in the city.
Um, what?
What do citizens pay for?
You know?
Uh, police, fire, ems, water,sewage, roads.
I mean let's get those thingsdown before we start branching
out from there about the roads.
I know we don't even get goingon the roads, but hey, I just
noticed they're cutting a newdevelopment over here where we
(34:43):
live, not changing the road.
Lacy Wolff (34:46):
Not changing the roads, yeah.
Chris Wolff (34:47):
And so they expect us to do that with fire.
Hey, let's build the houses andthen we'll get you guys the
fire stations that you need, andthat's not how you do public
safety.
Lacy Wolff (34:57):
Okay, so this was what?
Chris Wolff (35:00):
how much time are we at?
Lacy Wolff (35:01):
we are at 35 minutes oh my gosh.
Chris Wolff (35:04):
Thank you for listening to this.
This is a lot I mean, andthat's the thing.
Lacy Wolff (35:07):
Like it is so complicated.
If you're still listening thankyou thank you for caring.
Chris Wolff (35:14):
That's city politics man.
You gotta dive way into thisdig into the weed and that's why
I don't bag too much on any ofour volunteer elected officials
that are in and out of thesedetail things all the day.
My hat's off to you.
But come on please, guys,Please help.
Help me, help you get right onthis issue.
(35:34):
Yeah, and help educate yourneighbors, your friends, your
Pflugervillian, your neighbors,your friends your Pflugervillian
and just know there's about adozen people that are about to
spill a lot of lies and twistedtruths, because confusing people
is the only way they're goingto win this election.
Lacy Wolff (35:51):
So when it says say yes to EMS, you're saying no to
funding.
Chris Wolff (35:55):
You're pretty much saying yeah, you're defunding.
Hey there go those heroes rightnow there they are.
I'll see if I can get them toget that air horn going.
Let's see.
Lacy Wolff (36:17):
There they go.
Chris Wolff (36:18):
No air horn, no air horn Sorry listeners, you
listen to a 40-minute podcastfor nothing.
Lacy Wolff (36:25):
Well, thank you, Chris.
Chris is fired up about that.
I mean, I'm seeing him as hiswife every day.
Chris Wolff (36:32):
I hate conflict, he hates conflict.
I'm not about this.
Lacy Wolff (36:34):
He walked in the house tonight is responding to
all these Facebook messages andI was like let's just put this
out and maybe, when someoneresponds on the facebook, you
could just share this podcastepisode and it might help
somebody to actually understandthe facts.
Um, you're always happy to talkto people I love discussion.
Chris Wolff (36:55):
Oh my gosh, when people start asking good things
and just the, and you'll see, Imean because because I honestly
believe 75 of us uh, you know,in my neighborhood of falcon
point and in the city ofpflugerville, our common sense,
want to do the right thing andyou'll see when people start
saying crazy stuff on facebook.
That's one of those dozenpeople I'm talking about right
and let's not let them um twistthis issue up and, uh, just gut,
(37:20):
this amazing fire departmentthat we have yeah, all right,
well, check out the show notes.
Lacy Wolff (37:25):
We'll put some more information in there and please
get out there and vote.
Not just, uh, for thepresidential election, but also
think about what you want yourcity to look like, whether you
live in pflugerville or whereveryou are.
These are really importantissues that are going to affect
our daily lives and those thatwe love.
Chris Wolff (37:43):
Yeah, All right, thank you, chris, thank you.
All right, Hi everyone and welcome back to the
Forge Resilience podcast.
It's been quite some time sinceour last podcast, but we are
currently amidst an electionyear and there's a lot going on
in the political atmosphere, andI've heard it said that what
happens in your local politicsactually affects you more than
(00:24):
what's happening on the federallevel, and we've got some stuff
going on here in Pflugervilleand so I thought we could talk
about that today and how thatmight impact the resilience of
our community.
Chris Wolff (00:38):
Mm-hmm.
All right, so I get to be theguest today, so Chris is my
guest today.
Lacy Wolff (00:42):
All right, excellent .
Chris Wolff (00:43):
You know the thing about politics and especially
this country.
You know people, you knoweveryone, especially the media,
likes to talk about how dividedwe are.
But, man, I tell you, if youbreak down the core issues, I
bet you, 75% of us land rightthere in the middle on what I,
what I think of common sensewill make sense.
Yeah, and this topic is nodifferent Talking about the
(01:07):
defunding of the fire department.
Lacy Wolff (01:10):
Yeah, and as a citizen in Pflugerville who has
been around these topics for thelast several years, going back
to the defunding of the EMS,services.
I just want to say that this isconfusing for me it's confusing
yeah and I I thought it wouldbe good just to have you explain
(01:32):
, because I hear you explain,I'm like, okay, I get it, but
then people ask me questions andI forget the particulars.
Chris Wolff (01:39):
So let's just record, let's do it and that's
the that's the problem withlocal politics is, you know,
let's just record, let's do itand that's the.
That's the problem with localpolitics is, you know, normally
I don't know that much about theissues and I, I I try to be a
good citizen.
I print a sample ballot, I do aquick google search and then I
do the best that I can so it'sreally hard to find like
non-biased, just common sense.
(02:00):
Um you know, story behind the uh, behind the things that we're
voting on, the issues and topics.
Lacy Wolff (02:07):
So let's start with the big issue at hand defunding
the fire department.
What's going on?
Chris Wolff (02:11):
All right.
So the Pflugerville FireDepartment, travis County, esd
number two, back before I gothere, I want to say it was maybe
in 2014 or something.
It might have been earlier thanthat, but not much earlier.
They went after a sales taxthat had been vacated.
Lacy Wolff (02:34):
They as a city.
Chris Wolff (02:35):
No ESD2.
Oh, ESD2.
The Pflugerville FireDepartment went after a sales
tax that was vacated by theAustin Transit folks.
You see those vans runningaround.
They pulled out of Pflugervilleand gave their funding back and
it's super embarrassing.
I don't remember if it's a halfcent or a full cent, but it's
(02:59):
like a cent of the eight centsthat we pay on every dollar.
Lacy Wolff (03:02):
So it's a lot of money.
Chris Wolff (03:03):
Yeah, it didn't used to be when they put that on
, it wasn't that much money.
Lacy Wolff (03:07):
Because there weren't that many citizens.
Chris Wolff (03:09):
There wasn't.
It was a bedroom community.
Not a lot of sales werehappening in Pflugerville.
Now it's all changed.
With all these people andexplosion of growth, we've got a
lot of businesses operating influterville.
And so the sales tax and again,like I'm not the the numbers
guy and I probably should haveuh, called the finance people
(03:31):
before I started this podcast,but man, I want to say it's like
a lot, it's a good, it's in themillions of dollars okay.
Lacy Wolff (03:40):
So that was used to fund the fire department and has
funded the growth in large partof the fire department Right
Old Chief Ron Mullenberg.
Chris Wolff (03:49):
Don't tell him I said he was old, but he was our
old chief.
That's what I meant by thatPrior chief.
Our prior chief.
He was the chief of thedepartment since the 70s and
there's a lot.
You know, if you're going to bechief of the department that
long, there's a lot of oldschool flugervillians that
(04:09):
either love them or hate thembecause he really did a lot to
push the fire department forward.
Started as a volunteer, startedas a volunteer department he he
transitioned it to a careerdepartment not that long ago.
I think they hired their firstpeople in like 96.
It was all volunteer beforethen.
Where was I going with this, oh?
So he said okay.
He saw that we had issueswaiting on EMS ambulance to show
(04:30):
up at our medical scenes and ifsomeone's having a heart attack
or a very serious emergency,what you need is a paramedic.
And the only people that hadparamedics in our district at
that time was Austin-TravisCounty EMS and that's a
cooperative between the city ofAustin and the county of Travis,
right, and so he's like this iscrazy, there's only two
(04:52):
ambulances in Pflugerville.
Our guys are waiting on sceneand we were waiting on scene
when I got hired on thisdepartment 10 years ago.
Yeah, 20 minutes without ALScare.
And he said, hey, let's goafter the sales tax and what
we're going to do with it iswe're going to send dudes to
paramedic school.
We're going to invest in thesemonitors and equipment and drugs
(05:14):
and the system to handle andadminister the drugs to provide
ALS care, which is advancedlevel care.
Lacy Wolff (05:20):
Right Very important .
Chris Wolff (05:22):
Very important.
So we got that ALS care andthen I was here for it.
I want to say, in like 2016,2017 timeframe, they were like,
hey, this sales tax is reallyturning into something.
Lacy Wolff (05:38):
Who?
Chris Wolff (05:39):
Everybody, I'm just paraphrasing what the
administration was thinking Iwas a probationary firefighter.
I was not in the room whenthese decisions were being made,
but I was in the organizationand so I was a service care
provider in people's homeswaiting on Austin-Travis County
EMS to show up.
They were a great agency, justnot enough.
(06:02):
They had really well-trainedpeople.
There were only two units, andguess what was happening in
travis county around this time?
Lacy Wolff (06:09):
oh, they're growing too it was blowing up right,
everybody moving out to bassdrop yeah, all over.
Chris Wolff (06:15):
So austin travis county is uh kind of miffed
because, uh, it's a city ofaustin and travis county.
So they're running in the cityof pflugerville and they're like
you know, okay, guys, are yougoing to start chipping in for
this ems or what?
And I can't speak for the cityof pflugerville people.
I definitely wasn't in thatroom when decisions were being
made, but no one ever wanted topay for this ems.
(06:37):
They thought, uh, what theypaid austin travis county should
be enough.
Uh.
So, uh, our chief, ron mol, saidokay, look, we have two
ambulances.
All our studies say that weneed like four ambulances.
We're going to make our ownambulance, we're going to buy
the ambulance which PS.
They had to buy two of thembecause you can't just have one
(06:59):
ambulance.
You have to have a reserve.
And we're going to take theseparamedics.
We're going to keep making moreof them.
And we're going to take theseparamedics.
We're going to keep making moreof them and we are going to be
the third ambulance, and thisambulance isn't going to get
sucked into downtown austin likeour other two were being right.
That's why we're waiting so longon ambulances.
Okay, because they were, yeah,they were john in the spot, if,
if they were in pflugervilleyeah, that could be a lot of
traffic and a long drive.
(07:20):
Oh my gosh, yeah, we weresitting on patients for a long
time, so I don't want thispodcast to get too long, but um,
anyway.
So austin travis county andhere's one of the lies that um,
this very small group of peoplewho are trying to defund the
fire department say they'll saywell, um, esd2 kicked out.
(07:40):
Austin travis county, emsthat's not true well, no, why
would we kick out?
we're like, hey, you know we'regonna add one more ambulance, so
now we're gonna have threeambulances in the city of
pflugerville and they werebasically like okay, so you
don't need us right, they werelike sweet guys and they got
other places.
Yeah, we've got plenty of otherplaces for these two ambulances
to go, and that's exactly whatthey did.
They moved them out of the cityof pflugerville, um, and like
(08:03):
shoot, well, you know we needthree, we've got one.
So really quickly they tookthat reserve ambulance and stood
it up as quick as they could,and so now we had two ambulances
in the city um, all right, well, two ambulances, still not the
four that we need, like hey howmany people are we serving at
this point?
(08:24):
Oh, again with the numbers, butSorry, that's alright.
In the whole district, which is, you know, like 90 square miles
, we are serving like 80,000people.
Okay, so Enough people that.
Lacy Wolff (08:38):
Four ambulances, yeah, yeah.
Chris Wolff (08:40):
Is not too many ambulances.
Especially in high traffic,right Times, and the thing is
that Pflugerville changed somuch and hopefully there's some
old Pflugervillians on here thatwill tell you.
And if you still head east inour county, they're still out
there.
These farm folks don't call EMSunless something really bad is
happening, true, and there's notthat many of them, so you can
(09:13):
get away with providing lessservice Inside of a rural city
like we have here inPflugerville the request for
service is tremendously higher.
Lacy Wolff (09:18):
So where were we?
So the ambulances get suckedinto Austin-Travis County we are
now doing all.
The ambulance in the city ofPflugerville does not want to
pitch in to help support pay forit.
Chris Wolff (09:27):
Correct.
Lacy Wolff (09:28):
They expect the county tax dollars to pay for
and just continue running itlike it is.
So the fire department sayswe're going to have to have some
funding.
Chris Wolff (09:40):
So this is where the overlay district comes in.
So this is where this is thesecond narrative that they uh,
you know, keep flugervilleaffordable.
People uh like to push as theysay, hey, we gave you guys this
um tax money so you'd run theseambulances.
No, no one told us we had torun these ambulances.
I say we, I mean again, I'm I'ma frontline person, I I'm not
(10:03):
an admin person, so it just hadto be done because no one's
going to stand on the sidelines.
So we're like no good deed goesunpunished, right.
So we stand up these ambulancesand now people are like, whoa,
it's your job, you were doingthis, keep doing it.
Yeah, what fire department juststarts taking on ambulances, you
(10:23):
know, without funding to do it.
So the department actually itwas the Firefighter's
Association was like this iscrazy, let's go for an overlay
EMS district.
And this is how they do it intwo other places in Travis
County.
Google what two other placesare, I don't remember off the
top of my head, but that's howthey do it.
(10:45):
It's a very simple deal.
Lacy Wolff (10:48):
Each household would pay an additional like $25 in
tax every year.
Chris Wolff (10:53):
Yeah, so I remember it wasn't a lot.
It's not a lot of money.
Yeah, it's not a lot of money.
Lacy Wolff (10:58):
But people are tired of paying taxes.
Chris Wolff (10:59):
Yeah.
Lacy Wolff (11:00):
The way this messaging came out was that it
was a double tax Right.
Chris Wolff (11:03):
It was really hard and I want to be full disclosure
because I do not want anyone tocatch us in a thing.
It was more than $25 a year.
We pay.
So I bought a $300,000 house.
I paid about $300 a year forthe fire department and so I
want to say my EMS bill would besomewhere in like the 100 to
(11:25):
150 so it depends on the peryear, depends on how much you're
, how much so, but that's whatwe're talking about.
Lacy Wolff (11:31):
Like I, not between 100 and 150 bucks a year for ems
service right and I think it'simportant as well for people who
don't understand emMS servicethat maybe have never used EMS
service how important it is.
It literally can be thedifference between your life and
(11:52):
death.
Absolutely, and you've seen thatYou've gone in, saved people's
lives because you're able to getthere early, and I think people
often don't understand untilthey need it.
I said how important it is, sotalk a little bit about.
Can you share?
Um, I guess we need to talkabout what's happened since we
(12:13):
lost the funding okay.
Chris Wolff (12:15):
So here's what happened.
Um, the firefighter associationwent for an ems overlay.
It passed in the wells branchneighborhood, in the north
Branch neighborhood and theNorth Town neighborhood and it
failed in the city ofPflugerville and the city of
Pflugerville ETJ, whichbasically means the
unincorporated parts of thecounty Right.
And that was going to be a hardsell because we're like, hey,
(12:37):
would you like to pay more taxesfor a service that you're
currently getting for free?
No one wants to do that you know, uh, we have a very well
informed community in wellsbranch in north town and so they
understood kind of what wasgoing on and they jumped on
board and they were receivinggreat ems thanks to that.
Um, the county saw what washappening in the etj and they
(12:58):
came back and kicked in and paidfor us to provide ambulance
service in the ETJ.
Lacy Wolff (13:04):
Oh, that's good.
What's?
Chris Wolff (13:05):
the.
Etj Emergency no it's like it'sE-T we'll Google it real fast.
It's like it's the people whoare in charge, so like it's
Pflugerville's ETJ and thatstands for.
Let's see if Google is evengoing to get it jurisdiction
(13:31):
extra territorial jurisdictionjurisdiction extra territorial
jurisdiction.
Okay, so the etj is stillreceiving this ambulance service
yep, because the county'skicking in city of fluville is
not receiving the service.
Okay, and this is what another,this like I stood and I I told
people the same people thatcomment on my facebook posts,
(13:51):
because I, you know, I'm not oneof those people that wakes up
in the morning and just wants toget in facebook fights with
people.
I hate doing that.
Um, but the say, like, look atmy facebook posts and the people
who are commenting the sameones that comment that yeah,
that no.
But back in the day I said sowho's going to run ems in the
city?
Who do you think is going tohappen?
It's going to be a private emscompany.
And they said no, esd2 is goingto happen.
(14:11):
It's going to be a private EMScompany.
And they said no, esd2 is goingto continue to run those
ambulances.
And like, just because you sayit doesn't make it so Right,
esd2 is not going to runambulances for free.
Lacy Wolff (14:23):
So what happened.
Chris Wolff (14:24):
We got a private EMS service.
Lacy Wolff (14:26):
They went should I name?
Chris Wolff (14:28):
names.
Lacy Wolff (14:31):
I don't know.
I mean people can look it up.
I mean it's our city, it's fineyeah.
Chris Wolff (14:34):
Yeah, so, anyway.
So the first ambulance servicecame on and there were some okay
providers and a lot of terribleproviders and they were used to
just running roughshod in acounty that did not really have
much EMS.
Lacy Wolff (14:52):
Tell everybody what the private ems provider's life
is like.
Chris Wolff (14:57):
Yeah, yeah so private ems means that you know
it's a for-profit model.
So, um, so let's start withyour ambulance.
It's probably going to bepretty rough, right?
It's going to have likehundreds of thousands of miles
on it.
Stuff's not going to work on it.
Um, you are not going to bepaid.
Those guys don't get paid whatI get paid.
So you're not going to getquality people.
(15:19):
And when you do, it's going tobe a stepping stone.
They're going to start at yourfor-profit EMS, then they're
going to end up at my firedepartment.
Your level tier one yeah becausewe're going to pay you more.
We're going to pay you more andwe're going to train you.
The training is not there.
They train like once a quarter.
They'll get together and dolike an in-service training.
Lacy Wolff (15:36):
How much do they make?
Do you know?
Chris Wolff (15:41):
Yeah, I mean like they're desperate, they'll pay
$30 an hour for a paramedic.
Lacy Wolff (15:44):
For an EMT For an.
Chris Wolff (15:47):
EMT like in the $20-ish.
Lacy Wolff (15:50):
And when they stood it up from my understanding,
they did not have a place fortheir, they did not have a place
to sleep.
Chris Wolff (15:56):
No, in most places you work a 12-hour shift and
you're just in that ambulancefor 12 hours.
Lacy Wolff (16:02):
We'd see them parked over here in our neighborhood.
They just yeah.
Chris Wolff (16:06):
And so what's good about that, though, is they can
can get to college really quickbecause they're already in their
vehicle staged around the cityand they're always moving.
So some people like, well,private ems is quicker.
Yeah, they are quicker.
I'll give them that they'requicker because, while we're
like in our station, we get towork out, we train, we have a
kitchen where we can cookhealthy food.
(16:26):
These guys are in the the samet-shirt they've been wearing all
day eating fast food, nottraining.
Lacy Wolff (16:34):
On their phone.
On their phone, yeah.
And all of that impacts theirreadiness.
Chris Wolff (16:40):
Even though they might be closer and get there
faster, they might not be asmentally prepared for that class
and I'll name names on thispodcast, because Jim McDonald is
a city council member and ifyou go back and look at the city
council meeting from I want tosay it was the end of May.
He says, well, if you're aparamedic, you're a paramedic.
You pass your state there.
(17:01):
You know you're the same.
You're a paramedic, he's aparamedic.
Oh my gosh.
That is the problem with city ofPflugerville trying to run
emergency response?
It's like there's just a basicmisunderstanding.
That is absolutely not true andso, like our company, now we've
got some decent medics and infact I've been working with
(17:22):
those same guys since they gotthe contract two years ago.
Some of them have come a longways and we try to recruit them
in our organization, but themajority of the case.
that just isn't so, and you knowwe try to recruit them in our
organization, you know, but themajority of the case that just
isn't so.
Majority of the time it's atransient crew and there's not a
lot of people that feel aspassionate about it as I do, or
(17:53):
what would get like a normalperson that doesn't like to
argue on Facebook to put himselfthrough.
All of this is that.
I am the one that shows up atthe door and and I'm with the
people when they die, yeah, um.
And and you're like, oh my gosh, why are you being so dramatic?
I'm not being dramatic, I'mtelling you the truth that's the
reality that is the reality.
Um, so, like the EMS, um thirdparty, uh company that we have
right now, literally sat in adriveway and killed somebody,
and I can say that becausethat's what it says on the
(18:15):
coroner's report you were there.
No, I wasn't at that call I was,I'm on the, I'm on the peer
support team, so I had to uh sitpeer support with our poor guy
who was there.
Brand new emt watched thisparamedic just go wild and
there's a current court case, soI really can't talk too much
about that.
But um, the city ofpflugerville is completely and I
(18:36):
say city of pflugerville I meanthe city council and the city
manager and the emergencyservices director is completely
aware of this case okay and theystill awarded them an extension
on their contract instead ofgoing uh, because they had the
opportunity to come, uh, let esdto the fire department provide
the ems.
(18:57):
We got way ahead of ourselvesyeah, how much time are we at?
How much time is?
Lacy Wolff (19:01):
we are at 19 minutes .
Chris Wolff (19:03):
Oh, okay, we're not doing that bad, all right.
What other questions do you?
Lacy Wolff (19:06):
okay.
So, um, we got this ems,private ems and right.
Also, I think it's important toreally think about from the
citizen perspective.
I mean, I live here, I have twoteenagers that drive yeah I um,
you know I want to have thebest care.
Chris Wolff (19:27):
Show up if something happens to one of my
kids or to one of us here's thething is we expect like we live
our lives and we assume that ourcity leadership cares cares and
is providing us with the bestcare that they can.
Lacy Wolff (19:40):
Right.
Chris Wolff (19:41):
The city leadership is currently providing us with
the cheapest option that theyhave.
That is not an exaggeration.
Go back and watch that citycouncil meeting that I talked
about earlier.
Lacy Wolff (19:51):
We'll put a link to that in the show notes.
That's a great idea.
Chris Wolff (19:54):
You're so smart.
Lacy Wolff (19:55):
Can you talk about when?
Okay, so we ended up with theprivate EMS and then it came
back and they were about to—thecity of Pflugerville and the
Pflugerville City Council wasabout to sign a contract with
ESD2.
Because of some of these issuesI don't know if it's because of
these—I don't know why.
Chris Wolff (20:15):
We were one of the options.
Lacy Wolff (20:16):
Y'all were one of the options and for whatever
reason, they decided to not gowith the ESD-2.
Chris Wolff (20:23):
Well, I'll tell you the reason, because I want to
be full disclosure and I getwhere city council is coming
from with this.
They said hey, we don't reallyfeel comfortable getting into an
arrangement with the ESD-2 firedepartment if they're about to
have their funding reduced by40% and they're no longer going
to run ambulances.
Oh so they knew I get that.
Lacy Wolff (20:44):
Oh, yeah, they know so they knew that they were
already going for the city forthe sales tax at that point.
Chris Wolff (20:49):
Okay and then.
So let me be full disclosure.
It isn't the city.
I got air quotes going that aregoing for the sales tax,
however, david Rogers, who is acity council member.
However, david Rogers, who is acity council member, is the
lead attorney on the lawsuitthat got this petition passed
for people to defund the firedepartment and David Rogers is
on the city council.
(21:10):
He is on the city council.
Lacy Wolff (21:11):
Okay.
Chris Wolff (21:13):
So when people are like, hey, it's not the city,
Okay, it's not the city, butmultiple city council members
are involved in defunding theeffort to defund the fire
department.
So, I say it is the city.
Lacy Wolff (21:26):
Okay.
So what's, what is and whywould they want to do that?
How is it in the city'sinterest?
Chris Wolff (21:33):
I should also say that my chief has no idea I'm
talking about any of this stuff,but I'm speaking now as a
citizen of Pflugerville, with awife and two kids and a lot of
friends that I care deeply aboutwho have no idea what's going
on, and I'm over here trying toraise the alarm bells.
Lacy Wolff (21:51):
Right.
So why does the city want totake the sales tax and what does
this 40% cut in sales tax meanfor us as citizens?
Chris Wolff (22:01):
the first question is hard, so let me start with
the easy second question, thenI'll jump back to the first one.
Uh, so that sales tax grew froma small fraction of the budget
to 40 of the fire departmentbudget.
So when I got hired on herethere were um 80 firefighters,
there were four stations.
We were like an iso class threedepartment.
(22:24):
You know we were doing allright, we trained every day, we
were kicking butt.
The sales tax blew up.
Um, thank god, because, guesswhat, our population also blew
up yeah so we in that time we'veadded four new stations.
We're up to uh 200 firefightersnow, so 120 quick math um new
firefighters, um some greatequipment, um so I want to just
(22:48):
pause here, and we're an isoclass one fire department.
So look that up.
What?
Lacy Wolff (22:52):
does that mean there's less than five percent
of fire departments in texasonly?
Chris Wolff (22:55):
one percent of all the fire departments in the
nation receive an iso class oneand five percent of the fire
departments in texas receive aniso.
It's an percent of the firedepartments in Texas receive an
ISO.
Lacy Wolff (23:03):
It's an incredible organization and it's about to
get gutted.
I think that's the thing thatwe need to really help people to
understand.
And for, also, I just want togo back a little bit because I
don't know that everybodyunderstands how a fire
organization works and the factyou said we have 200
firefighters and some peoplemight think, well, that's a lot
for a city of, you know,pflugerville size.
(23:24):
But what people may notunderstand is that they're
working 24-hour shifts and theysplit those 200 firefighters up
between three shifts acrosseight stations.
That includes your leadership,your training division, all all
of the parts and pieces thatsupport this city being able to
go out and react and respond,and all the ems service is still
being provided to the countyand the etj, which stands for
(23:49):
extraterritorial territorialjurisdiction yeah and the only
thing that this department isnot currently providing is ems
within the city of pflugerville,because they no, no, so thank
you for saying that, okay.
Chris Wolff (24:01):
We do provide EMS in the city of Pflugerville.
We do, you know, we can get inthe city of Pflugerville quickly
and we help out that for-profitEMS crews tremendously.
Lacy Wolff (24:15):
Every day.
Chris Wolff (24:15):
Every single day, every call, your mom slips and
falls in her bathtub in the cityof pflugerville you're there
you're getting a private emsambulance is going to show up
and you're getting a crew offour extremely well-trained
firefighters who are going toshow up and help your mom in the
bathtub right um.
So that's huge.
Lacy Wolff (24:36):
What we don't provide is the ems transport
transport service which isbillable, oh yeah, they're
making money off of that andalso from what I understand, we
don't charge anything for whatwe're doing the city of flugel
or the fire department doesn'tcharge anything, which is great,
because a lot of the people whoneed these services maybe could
not afford them oh yeah andalso when you are transported.
(24:59):
That is very expensive if youdon't have insurance, correct?
And this company can also comeafter your home, right Is that?
Chris Wolff (25:06):
a true story.
Oh yeah, they can put a lien on.
I mean, that's debt.
I mean I think there's somerules about medical debt, right?
Lacy Wolff (25:12):
Right, I don't know, but I understand that they can
come after you to try torecuperate that money?
Chris Wolff (25:18):
Oh yeah, they.
They're gonna send you tocollections, yeah, and that goes
on your, yeah, absolutely okay,so now let's get into.
Lacy Wolff (25:26):
So here's what's gonna happen all right.
Chris Wolff (25:28):
so with 40, imagine , uh, your take-home salary gets
cut by 40.
You're gonna make some changes,so we're pretty much gonna go
back to how it was when I gothired on here.
We're going to drop to about100 firefighters.
We're going to drop from eightstations back down to four.
There's a lot of stipulationson which stations they're going
to be, but you know it's notgoing to be ones, you know, in
(25:52):
the middle of Of Pflugervilleyeah.
I mean it's going to have adramatic.
Lacy Wolff (25:56):
Well, and the sad thing, it already is having a
dramatic impact on thedepartment, because everyone
feels this fear and the unknownoh, we are hemorrhaging
firefighters right now becausewe don't know what's going to
happen, and what's terrible isit's our best.
Chris Wolff (26:12):
Dudes and dudettes are rolling out the door because
, hey, I'm, I'm highlymarketable, I have a, I have a
great skill that cities.
You know our neighboring citieslike austin, round rock, you
know huddo um, georgetown,they'll take me if this city of
pflugerville doesn't want me.
So we we've had a lot of peoplebounce out yeah, a lot of
talent and, you know, it's ourmost experienced people that are
(26:35):
rolling out already right sobefore.
This vote has even been castit's having a detrimental effect
on our fire department and themorale of the fire department.
Lacy Wolff (26:44):
Imagine being a firefighter and you know like
you might lose your job tomorrowor in November.
Chris Wolff (26:49):
Right, right, and I'm lucky I've been here a long
time.
I'll be one of the hundred thatsticks around.
Hopefully, I mean no, no, I'mstaying, but but then.
So then I'm going to getreduced in rank ranked.
You know I'm a lieutenant uh,paramedic in the fire department
worked hard to get to where Iam.
Am I gonna sit around here andbump back to a tailboard?
Absolutely not, I'm gonna tryto lateral to a department that
(27:12):
is gonna pay me what I'm worth,you know okay, so that's what's
gonna happen.
Lacy Wolff (27:17):
We're gonna lose a hundred firefighters, shut down
four stations have, and here'sthe here's the biggest thing
yeah, we're no longer going togo to priority five.
Chris Wolff (27:25):
Fourth and three medical calls.
So mom falls in the bathtub.
It's just going to be that uhems, the private ems, it's going
to show up over there andthat's what's huge, because I'm
telling you the firefightershelp and keep that private EMS
you know, honest and supportedand accountable.
Lacy Wolff (27:46):
Right.
Chris Wolff (27:46):
And we help tremendously with the service.
Lacy Wolff (27:49):
Yeah, okay, and you just provide a lot more strength
.
I mean, I'm just going to sayit.
Chris Wolff (27:54):
And those.
You know it's allegiance.
I work you know a lot of theallegiance.
People know me and I respectthem.
I work you know a lot of theAllegiance.
People know me and I respectthem.
But they'll be the first totell you, like when it goes down
, like okay, mom, fall in thebathtub.
You know that's bad, right, butthey can handle that.
When it goes down like you'vegot something really bad happen
(28:15):
to a kid I'm talking caraccidents, I'm talking drowning
in a pool.
The training that we do everysingle day is instrumental in
making sure those people get thecare that they need to survive?
Lacy Wolff (28:29):
yeah, absolutely, and that I mean these things are
happening every day yeah peoplejust don't know about it.
Chris Wolff (28:35):
It happens every day and here's the thing I'm not
gonna sit by.
So when the cms thing went down, where was I?
Wasn't in the city council room, and I know it sounds like I'm
bagging on city council.
And those guys, david Rogers,those guys do more for the
community than anyone has anyidea, man.
They give up their private timeto do that.
(28:56):
I don't want to take anythingaway from that.
Take anything away from that.
Lacy Wolff (29:04):
Um, however, I should have been in that city
council meeting trying to get myelected officials to understand
the topic well enough to votethe right way right and I wasn't
there and I'm not going tostand by again who's influencing
the city council and why, likeI don't talk about, I don't want
to get into that okay, okay,but uh, but the bottom line is
there's developers with verydeep pockets that are supporting
(29:26):
the campaigns of city councilmembers that they believe will
further their interests, as isthat is politics.
Yeah, that is politics.
Okay, all right.
Chris Wolff (29:36):
No, no, I'm not, you know, no one's in my
pocketbook.
I'm trying to further theinterests of the fire department
and you know the services thathelp my wife, kids and friends.
Lacy Wolff (29:47):
Right, it is.
I mean, our bias is that youwork at the Fleur de Flore fire
department and also you know alot more than most about what's
going on, absolutely yeah, soyeah.
All right, so that's going tohappen potentially.
What do people need to do andalso how can people help?
Okay, let's start with what dowe need to do as citizens?
Chris Wolff (30:07):
Hey, did I answer that thing?
That was harder.
I said that was an easy thingand a hard thing to talk about.
Oh, I said I think that I askedwhat's going to happen and what
was the hard thing I asked youabout.
Lacy Wolff (30:27):
Why do they?
Chris Wolff (30:27):
want it to happen.
Oh, oh, yeah.
Hey, what are they gonna dowith this money?
Yes, okay, so, um, thispetition that is being voted on
in november is just to take thesales tax away from us.
Uh, and to my knowledge, yetthe city has not, in, you know,
put their own provision in totry to recoup that sales tax.
But that's what's going tohappen, and they are going to
say vote yes for EMS.
Lacy Wolff (30:50):
That's going to be their messaging.
Chris Wolff (30:50):
That's going to be their messaging, and so this is
what happened last time.
We're used to just runningcalls and helping people, and we
get ran around by thesepoliticians that like to confuse
the issue.
Lacy Wolff (31:02):
That's why we have to make a podcast about and they
pay a lot of money to thesegroups that come up with these
strategies I'm not sure aboutthat.
Chris Wolff (31:10):
I mean, they're pretty smart people that we're
up against to be honest with youokay, they're crafty, they know
their message because theirmessage last time was it's a
double tax right it's a doubletax and that that wasn't true,
because it's not double theamount of taxes and someone's
like it's a double tax.
Lacy Wolff (31:26):
No, it's no man.
Chris Wolff (31:26):
We're asking yeah, it's an additional tax for ems.
Uh, you're, you know you shouldbe getting that for free.
Oh my gosh, uh.
And so this time, um, theopposition is going to say say
yes for ems.
And what they're going to sayis they're going to take that um
40 percent of our budget andput it towards a city-run ems
(31:47):
service and they're talkingabout starting their own fire
department.
Like, oh my gosh, like we havean amazing fire department and
we're going to put people withno fire ems and experience
public safety, public safety,experience.
You know, you've got ChiefO'Malley holding down the police
department and the police.
(32:09):
They don't have enough people,they don't get the support that
they need.
Lacy Wolff (32:12):
Remember the winter storm.
Chris Wolff (32:14):
Okay, let's talk about the winter storm.
Like your fire department, cityof Pflugerville came through
for you huge, because we hadmonetary reserves that we could
purchase diesel and we kept alot of the city's generators
running with the diesel that wehad.
Lacy Wolff (32:32):
You were delivering oxygen to people in their homes
all day.
Chris Wolff (32:35):
Every one of our vehicles had snow chains, and so
people detractors are like youdon't need all this money.
Oh my gosh, you have to beprepared for every contingency.
So all of our vehicles havesnow chains, and so people
detractors are like you don'tneed all this money.
Oh my gosh, you have to beprepared for every contingency.
So all of our vehicles havesnow chains.
We got vehicles with four-wheeldrive.
Meanwhile I'm sitting on sceneand you know it's not their
fault.
But police are showing up incity of pflugerville engineering
(32:55):
trucks because they didn't youknow, pay the money to outfit um
and that's not.
that's no dig.
On the police department who Iwork extremely, they're my
heroes.
They get to grow beards andthey have guns, so I get jealous
of them, although all of themwould trade jobs with me.
Lacy Wolff (33:14):
But man they're holding the line and they don't
have what they need.
Chris Wolff (33:17):
They don't have what they need, and that's just
what we don't need is a you knowuh as another city, city run
ems and fire department would bedisastrous okay, so they may.
Lacy Wolff (33:30):
They probably will, if this passes.
They will take the sales taxand they will, and they're
saying that it's for their emsand they will try to build their
own fire station.
How long does that?
Chris Wolff (33:42):
hey, so didn't the.
Uh, oh, there was a um on thefalcon point neighborhood
facebook page there was a postabout how much debt we have in
the city of pflugerville.
So they're trying to pay downthis debt.
They just approved a crazyexpensive city hall.
It's like stories which I onlyknow because I do fire
(34:02):
prevention, and you get thatmany stories.
There's a lot of fire stuffthat gets involved in it.
My gosh, I mean I'm go city ofPflugerville and I want us to
have a cool downtown and I wantus to have a cool city hall, but
let's not take money from thefire department to fund that.
Lacy Wolff (34:20):
Yeah.
Chris Wolff (34:23):
Our priorities are way out of whack in the city.
Um, what?
What do citizens pay for?
You know?
Uh, police, fire, ems, water,sewage, roads.
I mean let's get those thingsdown before we start branching
out from there about the roads.
I know we don't even get goingon the roads, but hey, I just
noticed they're cutting a newdevelopment over here where we
(34:43):
live, not changing the road.
Lacy Wolff (34:46):
Not changing the roads, yeah.
Chris Wolff (34:47):
And so they expect us to do that with fire.
Hey, let's build the houses andthen we'll get you guys the
fire stations that you need, andthat's not how you do public
safety.
Lacy Wolff (34:57):
Okay, so this was what?
Chris Wolff (35:00):
how much time are we at?
Lacy Wolff (35:01):
we are at 35 minutes oh my gosh.
Chris Wolff (35:04):
Thank you for listening to this.
This is a lot I mean, andthat's the thing.
Lacy Wolff (35:07):
Like it is so complicated.
If you're still listening thankyou thank you for caring.
Chris Wolff (35:14):
That's city politics man.
You gotta dive way into thisdig into the weed and that's why
I don't bag too much on any ofour volunteer elected officials
that are in and out of thesedetail things all the day.
My hat's off to you.
But come on please, guys,Please help.
Help me, help you get right onthis issue.
(35:34):
Yeah, and help educate yourneighbors, your friends, your
Pflugervillian, your neighbors,your friends your Pflugervillian
and just know there's about adozen people that are about to
spill a lot of lies and twistedtruths, because confusing people
is the only way they're goingto win this election.
Lacy Wolff (35:51):
So when it says say yes to EMS, you're saying no to
funding.
Chris Wolff (35:55):
You're pretty much saying yeah, you're defunding.
Hey there go those heroes rightnow there they are.
I'll see if I can get them toget that air horn going.
Let's see.
Lacy Wolff (36:17):
There they go.
Chris Wolff (36:18):
No air horn, no air horn Sorry listeners, you
listen to a 40-minute podcastfor nothing.
Lacy Wolff (36:25):
Well, thank you, Chris.
Chris is fired up about that.
I mean, I'm seeing him as hiswife every day.
Chris Wolff (36:32):
I hate conflict, he hates conflict.
I'm not about this.
Lacy Wolff (36:34):
He walked in the house tonight is responding to
all these Facebook messages andI was like let's just put this
out and maybe, when someoneresponds on the facebook, you
could just share this podcastepisode and it might help
somebody to actually understandthe facts.
Um, you're always happy to talkto people I love discussion.
Chris Wolff (36:55):
Oh my gosh, when people start asking good things
and just the, and you'll see, Imean because because I honestly
believe 75 of us uh, you know,in my neighborhood of falcon
point and in the city ofpflugerville, our common sense,
want to do the right thing andyou'll see when people start
saying crazy stuff on facebook.
That's one of those dozenpeople I'm talking about right
and let's not let them um twistthis issue up and, uh, just gut,
(37:20):
this amazing fire departmentthat we have yeah, all right,
well, check out the show notes.
Lacy Wolff (37:25):
We'll put some more information in there and please
get out there and vote.
Not just, uh, for thepresidential election, but also
think about what you want yourcity to look like, whether you
live in pflugerville or whereveryou are.
These are really importantissues that are going to affect
our daily lives and those thatwe love.
Chris Wolff (37:43):
Yeah, All right, thank you, chris, thank you.
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