El Segundo will not place fire department merger on ballot until 2012 – The Daily Breeze

El Segundo residents will have to wait until the spring of 2012 to vote on a proposed Fire Department merger with Los Angeles County.

The town’s firefighters association, which supports the plan, submitted an initiative petition in November to put the issue up for a citywide vote.

And although not specified in the initiative, the association had hoped that the City Council would call a special election this spring or summer.

But after a debate Tuesday night that touched upon costs and what would be fair for the electorate, a divided council chose to put off a public vote until the April 2012 municipal election. The vote was 3-2, with Mayor Eric Busch and Councilman Don Brann objecting.

Councilman Bill Fisher argued that waiting to put the issue on the ballot would be the easiest way to save money, considering the City Clerk’s Office estimated the town would pay up to $60,000 for a stand-alone special election, but that the expense would be “negligible” if the city held off until 2012.

“I think the thing to do is to save costs and not incur more costs to the city on this,” Fisher said, “because I think it’s going to go down.”

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