Orange County Fire Authority firefighters were so incensed by Placentia’s recent decision to quit the regional agency, Placentia officials said they hassled the city’s police officers at accident scenes and even delayed taking a trauma patient to a hospital.

Placentia leaders decided earlier this month to leave the fire authority – the first city to do so in the agency’s 24-year history – because of increasing service costs city leaders said Placentia’s budget could not sustain. The city is forming its own fire department and has hired Lynch Ambulance for 911 paramedic and transport services.

City officials – including Mayor Rhonda Shader, police Lt. James McElhinny and Councilman Craig Green – raised concerns to the fire authority’s board at its Thursday, June 27, meeting about comments and behavior they said amounted to retaliation by OCFA firefighters.

Board Chairman Joe Muller called the suggestion that aid to a patient was delayed “a pretty serious allegation” that the board should investigate, but OCFA officials didn’t otherwise directly address the city’s complaints.

Outside Thursday’s board meeting, Todd Baldridge, political director for the union representing OCFA firefighters, said, “This is the first we’ve heard of it.” He said no complaints had been lodged with the firefighters’ leadership.

Placentia police described several encounters at accident scenes where OCFA firefighters allegedly suggested officers should take a patient’s vital signs and learn how to use firefighting equipment because it would be their job soon.

Placentia officials also said Lynch staff told them the company was called by a Yorba Linda assisted living facility to take a patient to St. Jude Hospital. Lynch staff determined the patient needed trauma care, so they called OCFA to send an engine with medics to accompany them.

Placentia officials said the OCFA paramedics refused to work with Lynch and called a different ambulance company, which caused a significant delay before the patient was taken to the hospital under emergency lights and sirens.

When reached Friday, Yorba Linda Councilman Gene Hernandez – who represents the city on the fire authority’s board – said the city is under contract with Emergency Ambulance, so that’s who would normally be called to pick up a patient when OCFA responds to an incident in his city. An OCFA spokeswoman separately confirmed that would be the standard procedure for such a call.

Placentia officials also criticized what Green called “misinformation, lies and outright threats” from OCFA firefighters and Chief Brian Fennessy. They accused the union of intimidation tactics including discouraging other agencies from answering Placentia’s request for fire service bids and having a public relations firm inquire about how to recall council members.

Fennessy and OCFA firefighters have said Placentia’s fire service plan is ill-conceived and unworkable, and they’ve accused City Administrator Damien Arrula of misleading residents.

Fennessy told the OCFA board members on Thursday that he stands by his comments on Placentia’s new fire department, and he made them because: “I’m concerned, greatly concerned, for the citizens of Placentia because they’re going to be receiving a lesser level of service.”

Both sides dispute each other’s assertions about how much service Placentia gets now and how its proposal for a new city fire department would work.

The city will officially leave the fire authority and launch its own fire and EMS service on July 1, 2020.