A Message From City Manager Jessi Bon on Moving Forward With Regional Fire Services

June 30, 2023

Earlier this month, the City Council directed my office to begin negotiating an agreement with Eastside Fire & Rescue to potentially adopt a regional fire services model, a step we decided to take with our community’s long-term safety and benefit top of mind. I wanted to provide an update on where we are at with the process, and what comes next.

An agenda bill and resolution for an agreement with Eastside Fire & Rescue has been posted for the City Council to consider at the July 5 Council Meeting. If the City Council adopts the resolution in the agenda bill, and upon approval by the Eastside Fire & Rescue Board, the City of Mercer Island will formally enter into an agreement with Eastside Fire & Rescue for fire and emergency medical services. We are excited about this opportunity to enhance services for Mercer Island residents and businesses, reduce costs, and improve resources and opportunities for our firefighters.

I also want to provide context as to how and why we got to this point. The purpose of adopting a regional fire service model is to maintain or enhance current levels of service while balancing the shared responsibility for long-term cost-effective fire and emergency medical service delivery. A regional collaboration allows the City to offer even stronger fire and emergency medical services to the Mercer Island community, with more cohesion, more consistent leadership, and a deeper bench of resources, specialty services, and growth opportunities.

Our exploration of this opportunity has focused primarily on proposals from two agencies: one from Eastside Fire & Rescue and one from the City of Bellevue. My recommendation to the City Council is to select Eastside Fire & Rescue.

For over twenty years, Eastside Fire & Rescue has served as an organization singularly dedicated to providing fire and emergency services, operating as a consortium of many similarly-sized communities with a shared governance model committed to equitable partnership. Eastside operates as a governmental non-profit that focuses only on providing fire and emergency response services for smaller communities. Their board includes representatives from member cities and regional fire districts, providing a diverse array of leadership, input, and perspectives. I believe this is the best model for the City of Mercer Island, and we have already successfully partnered with Eastside Fire & Rescue for interim fire leadership since 2021 and for apparatus repair and maintenance since 2020.

Naturally, a shift like this contains a lot of moving parts - from the City and the potential partners involved, to Mercer Island IAFF Local 1762 - and most importantly, to you, our residents and business owners. Some aspects of this complex process have moved faster than we thought, and some have moved slower, but I am wholeheartedly confident in the agreement we are bringing for the Council’s consideration.

I want to take a moment to acknowledge our Fire Department Staff. Changes of this magnitude can be both exciting and concerning. We have endeavored to provide certainty during the process through the assurance of employment for all of our staff and enhanced opportunities through compensation, benefits, and improved professional development and training opportunities.

The City Administration has met with IAFF Local 1762 leadership members over the past two months to bargain the impacts of fire employees transitioning to another agency. The City and IAFF Local 1762 conversations have been productive and positive, but agreement on the terms of impact bargaining have not concluded. The City Administration will continue to work in good faith to resolve the outstanding issues.

We remain committed to a fully transparent process and encourage you to provide feedback on our Let’s Talk page, where you can also learn more about the history of this project. Additionally, you can also join us and share your feedback at the July 5 Council Meeting.

I would like to thank both the City of Bellevue and Eastside Fire & Rescue for submitting excellent and thorough proposals and for continually being available for clarification and follow-up during the review process. We appreciate our strong working relationships with both agencies and are committed to maintaining those relationships into the future.

As always, the best service and highest level of safety for islanders have remained paramount throughout all of the discussions and negotiations thus far, and that will remain the case.

Thank you,
Jessi Bon
Mercer Island City Manager