This is a response to Chris Craiker's commentary in the paper on Oct. 9 ("Mott understands Browns Valley issues") regarding emergency services response into Browns Valley.

I am a 35-year resident of Browns Valley and I have intricately studied the deficient emergency service response into Browns Valley for all of that time, some of it in a professional capacity with the city of Napa Fire Department. This topic needs to be extricated from the arena of politics and dealt with analytically from a problem-solving basis.

The neighborhood groups in Browns Valley were not using this deficient response to derail the two proposed subdivisions, but rather to prompt the city of Napa to correct a very dangerous emergency service response into Browns Valley, and not exacerbate the problem by adding more than 110 more homes in an already dangerous response area. We also were not using the issue to gamer votes for any particular candidate. Furthermore, the City Council did not twist the developers' arm for $200,000. The O'Brien Group, understanding the seriousness of the emergency response issue, voluntarily took the lead to participate in a solution to this community problem.

What is the real problem in Browns Valley?

In order to effectively save a person's life who has stopped breathing, due to heart attack, drowning, or choking, CPR must be initiated within six minutes or the brain is no longer viable. It is not possible for emergency service personnel to reach homes in Browns Valley in six minutes. It is three miles from Fire Station 1 to Browns Valley Elementary School. Browns Valley has a large retired population and a lot of small children, including the population of Browns Valley School, which is the longest emergency response distance of any school in the city. We also have the Meadowbrook Association Pool, which is absolutely the longest response distance to any emergency service in the city, as well as numerous private swimming pools. That is the emergency medical response problem, which all mothers and senior citizens in Browns Valley should know about.

There is also a deficient fire response issue, noted by officials as a "hole in our fire protection plan." In the Meadowbrook subdivision alone, there have been two total loss fires and several devastating loss fires, in homes built to modern building standards. This is not normal, and it is due to the response distance. Fire doubles in size every minute that it bums, so by the time someone discovers the fire, dispatch is called, the fire station is notified, the firefighters turn out in protective clothing and they drive to the incident, it can be anywhere from seven minutes to 15 minutes to Browns Valley. This is in a city that has a General Plan requiring a five minute total response time.

The fire chief has not stated that these new subdivisions will have no impact on emergency response into Browns Valley. Mr. Craiker, who is a developer, may have misunderstood this. Our Fire Chief is fully aware of, and is very concerned about the response problem, (existing and future) in Browns Valley.

It is true that the response deficiency to the existing homes does not require developer mitigation by the California Environmental Quality Act. The reality is that the new homes will be built in an area that has an inherent emergency medical response deficiency when they are built. This is not what CEQA considers an inconsequential existing safety flaw, and does require that it be mitigated for any new homes built in Browns Valley. This distinction was only understood by the Planning Commission Chair Juliana Inman, who voted against both projects, citing incomplete Environmental Impact Report analysis and mitigation for these serious safety flaws.

Our Browns Valley neighborhood groups and our present City Council are optimistic and believe that we can solve this problem, and provide equal fire and emergency medical response into Browns Valley. We will work together to provide a fire station with safe response times into Browns Valley.

"There are three types of people, those who make it happen, those who watch it happen, and those who wonder what happened." -- Tommy Lasorda

We want to make it happen.

(Johnson lives in Napa.)