The Sonoma County Board of Supervisors Tuesday directed a team of fire chiefs to push ahead with a plan for a possible countywide sales tax measure this fall to pay for more firefighters, equipment and stations.
The board also authorized spending $1.6 million a year to help fund the county’s newest fire agency, to be formed from the consolidation of four existing departments that cover Santa Rosa’s outskirts and Windsor.
The two moves were part of a large package of proposals meant to help modernize the county’s antiquated firefighting network, partly by reducing the number of agencies and the bureaucracy needed to oversee them.
But that yearslong, complicated effort bogged down again Tuesday in a contentious discussion among supervisors, ending in a split vote that postponed until March some of the most difficult issues, including the fate of the county’s 11 volunteer fire companies.