Table of contents | Previous chapter Introduction | Cast of characters   Playing with Fire A novel by Scott Lazenby   Chapter Two o, what’re we going to do?”       One of the council members tapped his pencil. Another reached for a doughnut. I watched, then got up to refill my coffee mug. This was going to take awhile.       “Well, the choices aren’t easy, but we might as well put them on the table,” Seth Rosenberg said. It was a Saturday morning, and he was wearing blue jeans and a Trailblazers sweatshirt. “We’re either going to have to cut some services, or increase taxes. We’re not the federal government — we can’t just go out and borrow more money.”       Without any appreciable campaigning, the property tax rollback had sailed through with a seventy-two-percent approval vote. It caught the city council members — and me — completely off guard. We had been lulled into complacency by a series of editorials in the local newspaper that urged voters to turn down the measure as an irresponsible and foolish vendetta against the city government. It gave me some small satisfaction to realize that the paper had no influence over elections, but I kicked myself for realizing it too late.       “Yeah, but I’m not sure we even have both of those choices,” boomed Rob Titus, a lawyer in his other life. He was a pudgy bear of a man in a yellow golf shirt and pleated pants. “Even if we wanted to raise taxes, the state’s taken away most of our options. The property tax is all we have left. We’re just going to have to pull out the ax.”       There was a rare silence. I couldn’t tell if it was because they were trying to figure out what Titus meant by his cliché, or if they had come to the same conclusion.       Mayor Diane McTavish glanced at me out of the corner of her eye. She was a tall, no-nonsense woman with short black hair. She had little patience for Titus, and often refuted his speeches, but now she seemed to be waiting for me to do it. I didn’t take the bait. The silence continued to hang.       Looking uncomfortable, Maggie Henderson finally blurted out, “The message from the voters is that they want government to be more efficient. We need to first cut any unnecessary expenses and waste.” She was a recently retired schoolteacher with a thick head of blond curls that I figured had to be a wig. Talk about unnecessary expense and waste.       “You’re right, Maggie,” Seth said in his measured voice. “We do need to take a hard look at each budget. But we’ve been doing this for the past six years, since the first state tax-limitation measure passed. We haven’t left too many dollars lying around on the floor. There may be some opportunities to save money by looking at radically different ways of getting things done, but the choices aren’t easy. They raise the same kinds of emotions and reactions that school vouchers and charter schools do.”       Ouch. Seth looked serene, but he must have pushed Maggie’s teachers’-union button intentionally. She seemed not to have noticed; she probably hadn’t been listening.       The mayor glanced at the council members in turn, acknowledging them. “You know, I’m not sure what the voters said they wanted. I think they mostly wanted to pay less tax. They’re used to voting for presidents and congressmen who promise they will cut taxes, increase services, and end the deficit. They like living in that fairyland. ... But Maggie’s point is well taken. We need to shave costs where we can. And if we have to stir up a few hornet nests by talking about different ways of doing things, so be it. That’s why we get the big bucks.”       Her colleagues chuckled. They were all volunteers.       Rob Titus cut in. “I for one am not opposed to some major service cuts, in areas that are very visible. The voters need to get the message that there are consequences to irresponsible decisions. We can’t just go on pulling rabbits out of the hat. Its time to show some tough love.”       Seth leaned forward. “You know, it isn’t our job to teach voters a lesson.” He stroked his beard thoughtfully. “And it can backfire. For years, every time Multnomah County hit a budget shortfall, they would close libraries, and then ask the voters for more money to re-open them. And guess which county service is used by more residents than any other? The library patrons felt they were being held hostage. Like it or not, I think we have to do the best job we can to keep the impact on services as small as possible. The voters may well say, ’Hey, that was easy — let’s hit ’em with another tax cut.’ That’s just the way it is. To do anything else on our part would be shirking our duty.”       More silence. Outside the glass and cedar walls of the Champoeg Retreat Center, it was drizzling, typical of a June day. The sun had found a hole in the clouds. Drops of water collected on the branches of the fir trees next to the window and fell randomly, catching the sun and flashing like diamonds.       Maggie raised her hand. “How about if we cut — say — ten percent across the board? That way no single program would be hit hard, and we would spread the pain over all the areas, and maybe — ”       “That’s the chicken way out,” Mayor McTavish said, her impatience starting to show. “If it was as easy as that, a computer could do our job. The fact is that some programs are more important than others to our constituents. And some departments can more easily take budget cuts than others. We’re here to exercise some judgment, not make knee-jerk decisions.”       Maggie’s face reddened.       Seth quickly jumped in, “Its not that bad an approach — a lot of governments and businesses use it. But it does have its problems. One is that what looks like an across-the-board cut really isn’t.” He looked at the ceiling. “Uh, let’s see. Take the senior citizens area as an example. We get a lot of grant money for meals, van rides, social services. And we use our own tax money as a match for the state and federal funds. So every dollar we cut there means we lose, maybe, three or four dollars of grant support. Another operation, say police, depends mostly on local taxes. So an across-the-board cut of ten percent would cut ten percent of the police department’s budget, but maybe forty percent of the senior services budget. I doubt we’d want to see that happen.”       Maggie nodded. “I hadn’t thought of that. It was just a suggestion anyhow.”       I leaned on an elbow and listened as the discussion continued. Seth and the mayor tossed some ideas back and forth, and the others started to tune out. McTavish eventually looked at me.       “Ben, what kind of a percentage cut do we need to make to be in balance?”       “Well, the ballot measure is pretty convoluted, and each property gets a different reduction — ”       “I know that. Just give us a ballpark.”       That’s the way she liked it — short and to the point. If a staff report was more than three paragraphs long, she would make the department head verbally condense it to one sentence. “My guess is that we’re looking at about fifteen percent,” I said, “assuming our revenue assumptions are right. But if you follow Seth’s suggestion, we should ask departments for larger reductions — say twenty-five or thirty percent — because you know you’re going to want to pick and choose between them.”       “Yeah, we’ll end up with a Chinese menu,” McTavish said with a snort. “Give me combination dinner number five: pork fried rice, two less police officers, selling a park, with a side order of egg rolls.”       Seth grinned. “Right, but I don’t think this will be a meal we’ll have much of an appetite for. Ben, how long would it take you and the staff to come up with some options for us?”       “Maybe two or three months. But if you want to look at some fairly radical ways of doing things, then it would take longer — say, six months.”       “Six months? Why wait that long?” Titus snapped. “We’re only postponing the inevitable. I still say we should make the tough choices now and get it over with. We don’t have to analyze this to death.”       Up to this point, council member Hank Arnold had quietly watched the conversation, nodding when he agreed with a comment. Now he shook his head and peered at Titus through thick glasses. “So Rob, what’s your agenda? Do you have some cuts in mind? Is it really as easy as you’re making it out to be?”       “No, I don’t have any cuts in mind. But let’s all put a few ideas on the table right now.”       He looked expectantly at his colleagues. Silence. He shrugged and leaned far back in his chair. I thought it would tip over.       McTavish said, “Okay, let’s follow Seth’s suggestion. Ben, go ahead and work up some options for us to consider. And while the staff is doing that, we should each think hard about our priorities. Ask the people you come in contact with for their opinions about city services. Which ones do they use the most? Which ones could they live without?” •      •      •       When I met with my department heads after the council’s retreat, I gave the usual speech about being creative and coming up with innovative ways to cut costs. They responded with a combination of weary resignation and gallows humor. But the issue was still abstract — until the council and I made the final cuts, life would go on as usual.       We quickly gravitated to other business. The Chamber of Commerce was having a spat with the Fourth of July Committee, and wanted the city to intervene. Our workers’ comp agent wanted to do a walkthrough of city facilities to check our safety procedures. The school district planned to expand their ball fields and wanted to get free city water for irrigation. Employee performance evaluations were due again. A local dentist was in a feud with his neighbor over a barking dog. The usual stuff.       Jake Wildavsky, the public works director, held back after the meeting and said he needed some advice. “This is just a heads-up in case you get a call. There’s a guy on Clearview who’s been reading us the riot act because he’s had a temporary water service for 10 months. He threatened to go to the city council.”       Wildavsky was an engineer by background and training, but didn’t conform to the pocket-protector-and-horn-rim glasses stereotype. In a heated public meeting about neighborhood traffic or a sewer line project, he would unfold his six-foot-four frame and use his wild curly hair, moustache, glasses, and slightly oversize nose to disarm the crowd with a perfect Groucho Marx imitation. His devil-may-care attitude about public works, and life in general, helped us keep our daily crises in perspective, and got us through dozens of sticky public relations challenges. He was one of the three department heads that I relied on for advice and counseling on any issue — sort of an inner cabinet. But that same strength of character exasperated me at times. Deadlines? Return phone calls? Organize files? Ha!       “So how come he doesn’t have a permanent service line?” I asked.       “Well, he had one before, but he was fooling around with his backhoe and cut right through the pipe, about five feet from the tap to the sixteen-inch main up there. Water was shooting into the sky like Old Faithful. It took us half a day to patch it. The guy — Van Oort — thinks we’re holding out because we’re mad at him for cutting through our pipe.”       “Are you?”       “I’m shocked you would ask that! Of course not. Well, maybe we are, a little. But the thing is, to make the permanent connection, we would have to close the sixteen-inch main. The whole south end of town would be without water, including Clearview School. The school gets pissed whenever they don’t have water to flush toilets or cook lunches. Anyway, we just haven’t found a good time to do it.”       “What’s the problem with the temporary connection?”       “Well, we filled the trench with gravel and won’t let Van Oort landscape over it until we get around to putting in the permanent pipe. But he’s got plenty of water. The patch has a small leak, but it’s on our side of the meter, and we’re not charging him for it.”       “Is the leak making his yard wet or something?“       ”No, it’s too small for that — it just disappears into the ground. Actually, his lilacs are looking healthier than ever. We’re doing him a favor.”       “Okay, thanks for the warning, Jake.” I thought about it. One guy with a backhoe costs us probably $2,000 in labor and staff time ... and then has the audacity to demand his customer rights. Sort of like the guy who takes his smelly, worn-out shoes into Nordstrom’s and demands a replacement because he wasn’t satisfied with them. •      •      •       On a rare day without evening meetings I had the luxury of walking home from work. I passed the storefronts on the east side of town, and headed into our neighborhood on Skookumchuk Drive. Our house was built in 1908 by one of Trillium’s pioneer families, and it had stayed with the family for a couple of generations. It had small bathrooms and old plumbing, and as Mary said, plenty of character. The street side was dominated by two huge Douglas firs and the shade of a maple.       My daughter, Trixie, was huddled over something on the driveway. “Give me more tape,” she said. Nathan, the neighbor boy, pulled some duct tape off a roll and sank to his knees. From my vantage point behind the tree I could see what looked like a toy car. It was the convertible that Trixie used to have Barbie and Ken drive. I held back to watch.       After a minute, they stood up. Nathan unwound a coil of wire and moved toward the edge of the driveway.       “Let me have the end,” Trixie commanded, and hooked the wire to a battery. They spun around to watch the car. A model rocket engine, taped to the side of the car, hissed into life. The car lurched forward an inch, then rolled onto its side. The rocket engine squirmed and broke loose of the tape. It shot out, six inches above the concrete. Trixie leaped into the air as the rocket flew under her sandals and buried itself in the grass.       “Yow!” Trixie and Nathan tentatively approached the smoking rocket tube, and bent down to see what kind of a hole it had made in the yard. I resumed my stride along the sidewalk.       “Oh, hi Dad.” Trixie looked sheepish. Nathan warily watched her, then me.       “You know, when I was a kid, I glued a piece of wood to the car to keep the rocket from coming off. And it’s a good idea to stick the rocket on the hood instead of the side to keep the car from spinning. And give yourself plenty of room — it takes a while for the car to start moving, but once it does, it can really fly.”       “Oh. Okay.” Trixie and Nathan looked at each other with a mixture of relief and embarrassment, and then broke into a fit of giggling. “I told you we needed more tape — did you see that thing fly?”       “Yeah, but you sure jumped fast, like you saw a snake or something. Hee hee.”       Mary was working at the computer — paying bills — as I headed in to put on a pair of jeans. “I caught Trixie out there in the process of corrupting the neighbor boy,” I said. Mary looked apprehensive. “Don’t worry, she was just taking a page from my own childhood.”       “Ha ha. Like that’s supposed to make me feel better.” •      •      •       The phone startled me from a dreamless sleep. Two-thirty in the morning. A call that late usually meant some disaster was unfolding.       “Is this the city manager?” a woman’s voice asked.       “Yes?”       “My street light has been out for a month. Don’t your cops drive on these streets at night? Surely they must have noticed this by now. It’s unsafe! Why hasn’t anybody taken care of it?”       “Uh, yes ma’am. Have you called the power company about it?”       “No, why should I, it’s not my problem, it’s yours. It’s not my street. I shouldn’t even have to be calling you.”       “Okay, I’ll have it taken care of. But I’ll need your phone number and street address.” •      •      •       When I went into Jake Wildavsky’s office to pass on the street-light call, he and the police chief, Simon Garrett, were bent over in laughter. I asked them what was up.       “The taxpayers are getting their money’s worth out of the police department’s training budget,” the public works director said, grinning.       I must have given them a blank look. Simon quickly explained. “We got a grant to do some crosswalk enforcement — ”       “That’s where they stick someone out in the traffic and see if anyone stops,” Jake said helpfully.       “Anyway, there was a training session in Salem. We sent Howlett down for it. They spent some time in a room, going over the law and the procedures and whatever, then they went outside for some field training. There was about a dozen of ’em, half in uniform. They’re all standing there watching as they send this guy into a crosswalk. It’s a two-lane one-way street, see, so the first car stops like it’s supposed to do. The guy keeps walking and gets to the middle of the crosswalk. A pickup comes barreling down the lane, but instead of stopping for the guy, the driver rolls down his window, flips him the bird, and lets loose an expletive having something to do with his mother.”       “And the cops standing there hear it all?”       “Yep. As part of the training, a motor officer is sitting on his bike at the end of the block. He pulls out and nabs the guy. Turns out the schmuck was driving suspended and had a handful of warrants out on him.”       “Oops.”       “You got that right. He’s surrounded by a dozen cops who can hardly keep from cracking up. They hauled his butt off to jail and towed his truck. Talk about hands-on training, huh?”       I shook my head and returned to my office, trying to remember what I had gone to talk to the public works director about in the first place. •      •      •       Back in my office, I started digging through the mail. Most of it quickly went into the recycling basket, but a handwritten letter caught my eye. It was from a local resident whose wife had been involved in a car accident and had been seriously injured. Great, I thought, another guy who wanted to sue us for a poorly designed road or some other act of negligence. But it turned out he was writing in praise of the response by our public safety personnel, particularly the fire department. They had responded within minutes of the accident, and the ER doctor had credited our paramedics with saving the woman’s life. The husband worked a couple of blocks from where the crash occurred, and a friend who had passed by called him on his cell phone. When he showed up at the accident scene, the victim assistance specialist had been calm and reassuring, and had gone out of her way to drive the man to the hospital behind the ambulance, even making arrangements for having his car delivered back to his house. “I can’t express how much this service meant to my wife and me,” the man had written.       I sat for a while, indulging myself in the warm glow of praise. It was rare enough that the moment had to be savored.       “Got a minute, Ben?” Betty Sue Castle, my assistant city manager, leaned against the office door.       “Sure,” I said, putting the letter back on the stack. “What’s up?”       She moved hesitantly into the side chair by my desk. She had brown hair that curled down to her shoulders and round glasses perched on the end of her nose. She pursed her lips, considering her words.       “You told the department heads to think outside the box, and see if they could figure out new ways to do things. It got me to thinking. ... When I applied for the assistant job in Kirkland, they gave us a test. They wanted us to review their new fire master plan and to critique it. Well, I noticed something that’s bothered me ever since.”       “What’s that?”       “It was schizophrenic.”       “Huh?”       “Here’s what I saw. They — or their consultant or whoever wrote the plan — started off with a lot of background information. You know, number of calls to the fire department, response times, population growth, that sort of stuff. But the thing is, what dominated their statistics was medical calls, not fire calls. Over ninety-five percent of their responses were for medical calls, and that’s where they forecast the greatest growth in demand for service.”       “Okay, makes sense.”       “But then they described how they were going to meet the increased demand, and they suddenly switched to talking about fire. How they needed at least a three- man crew — to protect the guy in the burning building — and four would be better, how many fire trucks they needed per thousand population, how many ladder trucks they would need for new office buildings.”       Betty Sue leaned forward. She had an easy grace that was at least partly due to the two evenings a week she spent in her Aikido class. “I didn’t think much about it at first,” she said, “since I always figured that first-aid calls were what firefighters did in their spare time. And maybe that’s how it got started — the guys were just sitting around in the fire station playing checkers, and they might as well head out and rescue a cat from a tree or treat an accident victim. But looking at the Kirkland stats, it isn’t a time-filler anymore. These guys are really paramedics first, and firefighters second.”       “So?” I thought about the stack of work that was still waiting for me, and hoped she would get to her point. She looked excited, and I forced myself to be patient.       “So here’s what I wondered. If the main job is responding to medical calls, what if they designed their programs around that? What kind of vehicles would they use? How many paramedics would they need in a crew? If they used eight-hour shifts instead of twenty-four-hour shifts, could they match their manpower to the demands of each shift, like the cops do? I wasn’t sure about the answers, but my intuition said that it wouldn’t necessarily look like a fire department anymore.”       “But what would they do about the fire calls?”       “At the time, I didn’t have a good answer for that either. Maybe that’s why I didn’t get the job there — not that I mind, since in hindsight, I’d much rather be here.” She smiled. I didn’t take her brown-nosing seriously. “But that’s what I thought was schizophrenic about it: They thought they were a fire department, but they really were a medical response team. That idea stuck with me.”       “Uh-oh.”       “Yeah.” She pushed her glasses back. “I kept my eyes open for more information about it. I read an article — by a fire chief, of all people — that gave some hard data on response times. It turns out that response times are much more important for medical calls, like heart attacks or strokes, than for fire calls. So many homes have smoke detectors that people get out in time. Saving lives is easier than it used to be. So then it just comes down to property loss, and again, response time from the fire station isn’t that critical. If the call comes in after the fire has hit flash point, there isn’t much the fire department can do except protect the neighboring houses. If the call comes in while the fire is just smoldering, there’s probably someone around to throw some water on it.”       “So when the guys jump into their turnout gear and slide down the fire pole, they’re over-reacting?”       “It does help maintain the image. But remember, most of those calls are medical calls, and time can matter more. The first minutes after a stroke can be the key to recovery, or so I hear. Obviously, time matters a lot if you need to get a heart re-started.”       “So you still need to pay attention to response times when you design your service. ...”       “Sure, when you’re deciding where to park your paramedics, but you don’t have to use the same response time criteria when you’re building fire stations. We mix up the two just because we’ve been conditioned by years of using firefighters to respond to medical calls.”       My phone rang. Betty Sue watched as I started to reach for it, then I changed my mind and let the voice mail machine take the call. “Okay, suppose you’re right. But does it change the situation much if you look at it as paramedics responding to fire calls in their spare time, instead of the other way around? You still need basically the same kinds of equipment and training.”       “Are you playing devil’s advocate or something?”       “Hardly. The public sees the folks you’re talking about as angels, not devils.” I thought about the letter in my in-basket. “They really do provide a valuable service. And some of them are fairly intelligent. Haven’t they asked themselves the same questions?”       “I suppose. But maybe they haven’t had to. And why mess up a good thing?”       “Well, whatever. But back to your point — what happens if you separate the medical service from the fire service? Do you necessarily save money?”       “My intuition tells me you should. Do you really need a $260,000 pumper barreling down city streets to respond to a broken leg? Do you need three or four people to operate a defibrillator or haul a gurney, or would two do? I’m not sure, but I do think we need to check into it. That’s why I wanted to talk to you about this. I don’t know where to go next, and besides, it’s your call. If the fire department is a sacred cow and off-limits in this budget mess, this is definitely a moot point. But if we’re really going to leave no stone unturned, or whatever the cliché is, then I think we need to think about it.”       I leaned back in my chair. Betty Sue only had a few years experience in city government, but she was sharp as a tack. And she needed major challenges to stay motivated. At the same time, there were a lot of other projects that I needed her to work on, and a snipe hunt like this would just be a distraction.       “I appreciate your thinking on this, Betty Sue. You may have something here — in fact, you probably do — but the chance of us getting anywhere with it is pretty close to zero.” I could see a shadow fall across her face. “I’ve been through this kind of thing before,” I said. “There are some things that just won’t work, whether we like it or not. I’m afraid this is one of them. And I really need your help in so many other areas — ”       “But you’re the one who is always telling us that we need to be creative, and to challenge the old ways of doing things.” There was an edge to her voice.       “I know. So maybe I’m chicken. But it won’t do either of us any good to go poking around in the fire department. Just let it drop and move on to something else. See if you can come up with the same kind of ideas in, say, the planning department, or streets.”       She tilted her head back and looked at me through the bottom of her glasses. “All right,” she said. “But I — ”       My intercom interrupted. “Ben, we need you at the front desk.” The message had a note of urgency, and Betty Sue stood up and stepped aside as I headed out for the stairs. I told myself I needed to work out a code with the receptionist. Whenever she said, “There’s someone here to see you,” there was an equal chance that it was a friend, someone merely looking for information, or someone mad at the city. I figured this summons fell in the latter category.       Lenny Fiala, local resident and pool hall owner, had worked himself into a lather. Marie, the receptionist, was trying to hold her temper, but her face was flushed and I reckoned that Lenny was outstaying his welcome. I also knew what he was there for.       “They had no right to take it. It’s an illegal confiscation of private property, and I’m going to get a lawyer on you.” He added a few colorful descriptions of city employees, and I subconsciously checked the lobby to see if there were any children present.       “Lenny, are you talking about the basketball hoop?” I asked.       “Damn straight. All she tells me is to go to the police station. I want this taken care of now.” He puffed out his chest and stood at his full five feet four inches, making me think of a dachshund with distemper.       “I’m afraid Marie’s right.” I started maneuvering him toward the door. “The police have your hoop, but I told them it was okay to pick it up. We warned you about all the complaints we’ve gotten from your neighbors. Apparently your kids wouldn’t even interrupt their games long enough to let people drive past. You know, it’s technically illegal to have a basketball hoop on the street.”       “Oh yeah? I can show you hundreds, all over town. How come you’re not stealing them?”       “Well, we let them stay up if they aren’t causing any problems. Most kids get out of the way of traffic.” By now we were on the plaza in front of city hall. “The last straw was when your kids got the can of spray paint and made a key and foul line on the asphalt. That even got our public works guys upset.”       “It wasn’t my kids. At least you can’t prove it. You have no right to take my pole and hoop for something that someone else did.”       “Okay, talk to Sergeant Ramos about it. All I know is that our code enforcement folks felt the warnings were being ignored, and they had to let you know they were serious. Maybe you can work something out with them, but you’ve got to get those kids under control.”       He cursed and headed across the street for the police station. I used Marie’s phone to warn the police department, and to urge them to try to work it out.       “I wish he would just move out of town,” Marie said.       “No kidding.” •      •      •       I was at my desk, editing a letter to our state representative, when my phone rang. A woman’s voice purred, “I was just thinking of you. How about sneaking out for a little fun. I reserved a hotel room. Come get me while I’m hot.”       I laughed. “Hold that thought, Mary. I’m on my way.” Next chapter: the burning bunker Copyright © 2001, Scott D. Lazenby. Reproduction in any form without the written permission of the author is prohibited. Illustration: Paul Salmon