SANTA MARIA, Calif.- The Santa Maria Fire Department will begin providing the community with 5 full-time fire stations beginning Monday.
This comes after Measure U was passed back in June after voters approved a quarter cent sales tax increase, which helped staff Fire Station 5. The new station, which opened back in September, has only been operating at night due to budget reductions, but starting Monday it will be a full-time station.
"We obviously have been understaffed for many years and we finally get to increase our staffing a little bit. We have ten new recruits that hit the floor tomorrow and that will enable us to open the station full time and provide better coverage for the city and increase our response times," says Captain Doug Bedell, Santa Maria Fire Department.
The new recruits will begin assignments at specific fire stations and will work side-by-side with the veteran crew members.
