Vote No on Measure PFD: Pasadena Should Have Budgeted for Its Firefighters

Sep 30, 2026 · @Victor Caballero

Nobody in Pasadena is against firefighters. The men and women of the Pasadena Fire Department run toward the emergencies the rest of us run from, and they deserve modern stations, enough colleagues on every shift, and equipment that works. That is exactly why Measure PFD deserves a No vote on November 3. It asks property owners and renters to pay a brand-new tax to cover a failure that belongs to City Hall: year after year, the City Council passed budgets that did not keep up with the most basic job a city has.

What voters are being asked to approve

Measure PFD would levy 19 cents per square foot of improved property every year for 14 years, raising about $22.1 million annually. A 1,600-square-foot home would pay roughly $304 a year. Commercial buildings, apartment buildings and houses all pay the same rate by square footage, with an exemption only for qualified low-income senior households. Because it is a special tax, it needs a two-thirds vote to pass.

The city’s headline projects are rebuilding Fire Stations 33 and 37 (about $30.5 million and $34.0 million) and building a new fire station and training center (about $37.8 million). Together, that is roughly $102 million. Over 14 years, the tax would collect more than $300 million.

The city’s own staff report is a confession

Read the August 3 staff report that sent this measure to the ballot. It says plainly that the General Fund is insufficient to meet long-term fire and wildfire needs, and that the city has been balancing its budget with one-time revenues and dipping into reserves. It also says the Fire Department’s 2026–2036 Strategic Plan already spelled out the funding requirements for new stations, communications upgrades, staffing and brush clearance.

In other words, the city knew. The needs were identified, priced and written down. The question voters should ask is not whether firefighters need the money. It is why the City Council never put that money in the budget.

Stations 33 and 37 did not become seismically unsafe last spring. Aging stations, outdated alerting systems and thin staffing are the product of decades of deferred decisions. A budget is a statement of priorities, and for years fire protection was not treated as the first one.

The endorsers are making the case against City Hall

Supervisor Kathryn Barger endorsed the measure this week, pointing out that Pasadena has “less firefighters than it did seventy five years ago” while 911 calls have grown roughly tenfold. That is a damning statistic. But it is not evidence that Pasadena needs a new tax. It is evidence that 75 years of city budgets let staffing fall behind demand while money went elsewhere.

Every council that adopted a budget without adding firefighters as call volumes climbed made a choice. Measure PFD asks voters to reward that record by opening a new revenue stream instead of fixing the spending priorities that created the gap.

Core services belong in the core budget

Fire protection and paramedic response are not extras. They are the reason cities exist. When a city carves its most essential service out of the General Fund and into a special tax, it frees up General Fund dollars for everything else, while making public safety depend on a separate vote.

Voters should look hard at whether the ordinance requires the city to keep its existing General Fund support for the Fire Department at current levels. Without a firm guarantee, there is nothing to stop future budgets from quietly shifting fire costs onto the parcel tax and spending the savings on other priorities. Audits confirm that restricted money was spent on restricted purposes. They do not stop the General Fund from backing away.

Slow money for “urgent” needs

The campaign’s ads say every minute counts. The city’s own financing plan says something different. Staff chose a pay-as-you-go approach rather than borrowing up front, which means projects get built as revenue accumulates. Station rebuilds that are described as urgent may be years away even if the measure passes. The staff report also warns that some of the financial assumptions may need to be adjusted in future years.

It is also worth noting that the draft ballot language in that same August staff report described the tax as lasting “until ended by voters.” The final version sunsets after 14 years, which is an improvement. But the first instinct at City Hall was a permanent tax.

Who actually pays

A flat per-square-foot tax does not care about ability to pay. Longtime homeowners on fixed incomes who do not qualify for the narrow senior exemption will pay. Small businesses will pay. Renters will pay too, because costs on rental buildings get passed through. The Apartment Association of Greater Los Angeles and the Building Owners and Managers Association have both raised concerns about the burden on property owners and commercial tenants, and those costs land on the people who live and work in those buildings.

Meanwhile, the city found about $436,660 in this year’s City Clerk budget to put the measure on the ballot. When the city wants something, it can find money.

What the City Council should do instead

A No vote is not a vote against the Fire Department. It is a vote for putting the Fire Department first in the budget, where it belongs. The council should:

• Fund fire and EMS first. Bring back a budget, including mid-year adjustments, that funds firefighter staffing and paramedic response before discretionary programs.
• Publish a multi-year fire funding plan. Show residents what the General Fund will commit to the Strategic Plan each year, and what gets cut or delayed elsewhere to pay for it.
• Prioritize the seismic work. Stations 33 and 37 should be at the top of the capital improvement program, not waiting on a tax vote.
• Come back with something narrow, if needed. If a real capital gap remains after the council has done its job, voters can consider a targeted, time-limited measure tied to specific stations, with a guarantee that General Fund support will not be reduced.

After the Eaton Fire, no one in the San Gabriel Valley needs convincing that wildfire readiness matters. That is the point. It should have been at the top of every budget since. Pasadena’s firefighters deserve a city that pays for them on purpose, not one that waits until it can hand the bill to voters.

Vote No on Measure PFD, then demand a budget that puts public safety first.