Controversial Redding ‘lift assist’ fee repealed

“It’s expensive already to have emergencies,” Jenny O’Connell-Nowain told the Redding City Council in public comment on Tuesday night. She explained that, as a person with epilepsy, if she passes out in public, she can’t control whether people around her will call for help. O’Connell-Nowain worried this could result in her receiving a bill for services months after the fact under a recent Redding ordinance instituting fees for first responder services. 

O’Connell-Nowain was one of seven people who spoke during public comment at the meeting, sharing personal experiences and concerns about Redding’s newly implemented First Responder Fee, which was implemented specifically to address lift assist services, where emergency teams are called to help someone who has fallen. 

After hearing from O’Connell-Nowain and other citizens, all five Redding City Council members voted unanimously Tuesday to begin the process to repeal that fee, rescind current billing and refund those who have already paid.

City Manager Barry Tippin confirmed to Shasta Scout via email that the city council will need to take two additional legal steps to confirm that vote last night. While the repeal won’t become official for about two months, the council agreed not to continue to charge individuals for lift assist fees, effective immediately.

Tippin could not confirm when refunds for past bills will go out, as he said it will take some work from the city finance department.

The city’s First Responder Fee was first approved in 2021. It became effective in January of this year. Many people were unaware of it until the city publicized in August that bills were being sent out for calls dating back to the first of the year. The press release drew concerns from Redding citizens, some of whom appeared at the meeting to speak in-person. As council member Mike Littau mentioned many others also commented on social media or via other means over recent weeks. 

“I think we got more comments on the fire fee than the tree ordinance, or tobacco or anything else over the past six months,” Littau said, emphasizing his concern that the council should revisit the topic.

Council Member Erin Resner was also a member of the council in 2021 when the First Responder Fee was originally discussed and approved. Resner said Tuesday that she remembered the conversation initially being prompted because of an influx of calls from skilled nursing facilities, which presumably had staff to assist with fall recovery but instead would call for city services. 

She said the previous council didn’t believe the city could easily differentiate between whether the fee was applied to nursing facilities or individuals, but had included a waiver program for those on fixed incomes to ensure fewer private citizens were affected. At the same time, Resner said, the council’s hope was that nursing homes “would hopefully start taking care of people the way in which they were supposed to be taking care of people, because that’s their job.”

Redding Fire Chief Jerrod Vanlandingham told the council this week that right now the majority of calls for lift assist are coming from private homes or 55-plus communities. In the past, Vanlandingham said, the department did receive calls from nursing homes, which are now mostly required by the state to provide their own lift assist. 

Vanlandingham reiterated that the fee was approved in July 2021, and that a staff report at the time identified 20 other fire agencies in California with similar fees, instituted in light of increased workloads and thinner budgets in jurisdictions across the state.

“Fire departments are either trying to find additional sources of revenue or figuring out how to prioritize a little bit differently and changing or potentially reducing some of their service levels,” Vanlandingham said. 

He told the council the public reaction to the fee was somewhat expected, per communication with other fire chiefs in the state. There is typically an initial shock, which eventually levels out, Vanlandingham explained. 

The council eventually voted to repeal the ordinance, drawing cheers and applause from the seated public. A majority of the people who spoke to the council had shared personal experiences about falling in their homes or calling for assistance for a family member. Several voiced fears that people may be afraid to call if they were worried about being charged a fee. 

Terri Brown told the council she had fallen and called for help three times. She said her experiences with the Redding Fire Department were positive, saying they were kind and gentle. When she fell again on Monday, she said, she was determined not to call because she couldn’t pay the almost $500 fee. She was eventually able to get up, but she said she worried about other people who may lay on the floor rather than call for help with the new fees in place. 

Another speaker, holding a bill she received for a lift assist call for her husband who sometimes falls, called the fee insensitive and said she was appalled to be charged when she and her husband have paid taxes and invested in the community for years. 

Resner offered an apology to those in the audience who had received bills for past services, saying the decision to bill back to January 1 felt like a surprise to her too. “I’m really sorry, that shouldn’t have happened, and especially not without warning,” Resner said.

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