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Friday's Internet Edition, November 21, 2008.
Derr to run for CSD reelection
Director wants to complete numerous park, fire projects
By Cameron Macdonald
Staff Writer
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Gerald Derr’s second term as a director for the Cosumnes Community Services District (CSD) is coming to an end and he still has a lot of business he wants to take care of.
“I’ve got many things to do and many projects to finish,” he said.
Derr mentioned projects like the handful of parks that the CSD is currently building, a temporary fire station in south Elk Grove, a remodeled Galt fire station, and a new fire rescue vehicle that he described as “one big Jose rescue truck.”
Derr is filing his paperwork for his reelection campaign in this year’s November election for the CSD board.
Incumbent Gil Albiani is also running for reelection, while newcomers Sandi Russell and Michelle Orrock have entered the race.
“The CSD has been a pretty big part of my life,” Derr said.
He has worked at the CSD from its start in 1985 when he was the fire chief of the Elk Grove Fire Department and Sacramento County proposed the idea of having a local parks district merge with his fire department.
Derr then co-created the CSD with parks administrator Hal Bartholomew.
“It came as a shock,” he said, “but Hal and I decided to run with it, and it turned out great.”
Derr worked as the CSD’s general manager, as well as its fire chief, until he retired in 1991. He was later elected as CSD director in 2000.
Since then, the district underwent major changes.
Elk Grove’s booming growth led to the CSD’s construction of more than 80 parks and five fire stations. The CSD also formed a parks partnership with the city of Elk Grove after a few litigious years.
Derr cites the CSD’s 2006 merger with the Galt Fire Protection District as his biggest accomplishment in his past term. He said that the move increased Galt’s manpower and improved their training and resources.
“They are a firefighting bunch of characters down there,” he said about the Galt firefighters.
As for the biggest challenges that his board faced, Derr said that it was Elk Grove’s housing slump that caused the CSD to greatly slow down its growth.
“It’s trying to keep things moving ahead, and (then) having the bottom drop out of the housing market,” he said, “we would be way ahead if it wasn’t for that.”
Asked about his commitment to firefighting, Derr replied, “It’s something that you just can’t get out of your system.”
He is a fourth-generation Elk Grove resident who joined the Elk Grove Fire Department as a volunteer when he was a 14-year-old student at Elk Grove High School.
Derr said that the requirements for volunteers were to be “able to drive, able to breathe, and able to run.”
Most of the fire staff were volunteers living in what was then the small country town of Elk Grove. They were called to duty when an enormous air siren rang in Old Town.
Derr’s father ran a lumber business, and he grew up in a family of volunteer firefighters. He recalls traveling to fires when he was 8 years old.
When he joined the fire department, it was a time when fire vehicles lacked the electronics and breathing apparatuses that are essential to today’s firefighter.
“We fought fires in Levis and cowboy boots,” Derr said.
There was a case where he had to speed down rural Bruceville Road in the thick fog at 2 a.m. while driving a 1927 fire engine that had weak headlights.
When he became the Elk Grove Fire Chief, Derr reorganized his department and recruited many volunteers. The department later became full-time staffed after he retired.
The CSD dedicated their Laguna West fire station to him a few years later.
On today’s CSD Fire Department, Derr described it as “one of the best trained fire departments on the West Coast.”
As for his reelection campaign, Derr said that he will not conduct fundraising, and he will instead self-fund it.
“I don’t want to be beholden to anyone,” he explained.
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