Cal Poly Humboldt terminated its contract with the Arcata Fire District on August 23, effective after 90 days. The decision was made because of the district's new fees for false fire alarm calls.
The university will still receive basic emergency response.
The most recent agreement for services between the two parties said the fire district would receive $37,000 a year as baseline pay. The contract began on July 1, 2021, and was set to expire on June 30, 2024.
However, Arcata Fire Chief Justin McDonald said the relationship between the two had been going on much longer, up to 10 years.
He said the cancellation was surprising.
"We got a letter in the mail, essentially says ‘we are asking to get out of our contract early,'" he said. "All because my assumption was because we sent them an invoice for $100 false alarm."
McDonald said the fire district put new fees in place last year to address an increasing number of false fire alarm calls citywide.
"We've been seeing a steady increase in false fire alarm calls, and to try to encourage business owners and property owners to fix the systems, words and letters can only go so far. So we opted to do what most law enforcement agencies do and adopt a false alarm fee," he said.
Cal Poly Humboldt received a $100 fine this summer.
The university didn’t make anyone available for an interview. But in a statement, it cited these new fees as a reason for the cancellation.
"Historically, the agreement in place had made sense due to the large number of calls generated by our campus, specifically the false alarms related to our residence halls. However, based on AFD’s restructured fees, the University would incur tens of thousands of dollars annually to account for the number of calls to campus," the statement reads.
McDonald said the fire district treats each building at Cal Poly as its own entity since the campus is so large. Therefore, the university would receive a fine only after its second false fire alarm at the same building, not across the campus as a whole.
"The risk manager has been pretty responsive. So we don't tend to have a lot of false alarms on campus for their systems," McDonald said.
The university also said in its statement that most of the services in the contract had not been provided to the campus for years. McDonald disagreed with that statement, although he said some services had been paused due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The university said it's committed to working on an updated agreement with the fire district.
"Cal Poly Humboldt deeply values the work of the Arcata Fire District and our partnership with them, and we look forward to working with all our partners to ensure that the University appropriately supports our Fire District and our surrounding community," the statement reads.
