"Your neighborhood fire station will be CLOSED," proclaimed the leaflets, stating that the Sunrise Fire Station was slated to shut down this past Sunday. In fact, the station actually will only close on days when the fire department cannot adequately staff the city's other two fire stations.

Still, the leaflets elicited fear from residents this week, and several people stopped by a lot across the street from the Sunrise Station on Sunday to talk to union representatives who were on hand during the station's first "brownout" day of closure.

"I'll be out here every day that this station is closed," Mark Ordaz, vice president of Local 2805, said Sunday as he and two other firefighters sat next to a truck on Sunrise Drive which held a sign touting the station's closure and plugging the union's Web site.

The station will likely be closed at least 20 days this month, according to union officials. Its closures in future months will depend upon whether other fire stations have at least four firefighters, as required by a prior agreement between the city and Local 2805.

Sunrise Fire Station, 880 Sunrise Drive, oversees emergency services north of Hecker Pass Highway and west of Santa Teresa Boulevard in Gilroy. It is also the first unit to respond in areas north of Mantelli Drive and west of Kern Avenue. The station is Gilroy's newest, having opened in 2004.

The station receives substantially fewer calls - 343 in 2008 - than the Las Animas and Chestnut stations - 1,647 and 1,586, respectively - according to city data. Responses could take longer than five minutes on days when the Sunrise station is closed, city officials said.

City Administrator Tom Haglund said it is hard to know how long response times will be on those days. Jim Buessing, secretary and treasurer of Local 2805, estimated that the lag time could be anywhere from two to 10 minutes.

Las Animas Fire Station, 8383 Wren Ave., is the first responder to emergencies in the Sunrise district during these brownout days, unless firefighters at that station are responding to another emergency. In that case, Chestnut Station, 7070 Chestnut St., would respond to emergencies in northwest Gilroy.

Sunrise became a primarily two-person unit after the city laid off four firefighters and eliminated two vacant firefighter positions late last year. After that, the city and Local 2805 reached a "concession agreement" this spring in which they agreed on further cuts, including furloughs. Cost-cutting measures within that agreement included occasional Sunrise station closures.

While union members said they agreed with the city on staffing requirements, they say they did not agree to the brownouts - they merely recognized that the city had the right to close the station at times in accordance with prior city agreements.

"We didn't agree to this, we acknowledged it," Ordaz said.

Public safety needs to be a top priority for the city, he said. The union's Web site estimates that it would cost $300,000 to maintain the existing service in the Sunrise district and $750,000 to increase service by putting an engine back in service.

Although the City Council had talked about the possibility of brownouts at the station earlier this year, Ordaz believed the city wanted to be somewhat discreet about the matter.

"I think the city remained a little quiet until we squeaked a bit," Ordaz said, adding that the union had generally covered the entire northwest quadrant of the city with fliers by Oct. 26.

Mayor Al Pinheiro said that a friend had told him about the fliers on Wednesday when they were first distributed. Pinheiro notified Haglund, and the city posted a news release on its Web site the following day.

The city has been quite open during past council meetings about the possibility of implementing brownouts at the Sunset station, he said.

"The city's job was not to build a fire station like that and then have it close," Pinheiro said.

The city could keep the station open if the union allowed for only three firefighters to staff the Las Animas and Chestnut stations, he said. The city's news release also stressed this point, noting that San Jose and Gilroy are the only cities in Santa Clara County that require four firefighters for each engine.

The four-person requirement is a safety issue, union members said. Most fire departments that require fewer firefighters per engine have larger departments that can send more people to an emergency if needed, Buessing said. The city should make the fire department a funding priority, dipping into its healthy reserves if necessary, he said.

"The priority is public safety," he said. "(The city needs) to understand that. Public safety needs to be No. 1 in their lives - not parks, not trees."

The union's Web site, which was created within the past three weeks in response to the brownout situation, has a link for residents to contact officials. Union representatives said they hope concerned residents will voice their opposition to council members.

Meanwhile, Partridge Drive resident Clara Lozon expressed relief upon learning that the fire station would only be closed certain days, although she said it was still concerning that it would not always be open.

"It looked like it was closing permanently," she said Friday after someone had placed a flier on her car at Luigi Aprea Elementary School.

Apparently, several people were under that impression within the last week.

Councilman Bob Dillon said he responded to a few e-mails and a phone call from constituents, and everyone seemed to be under the impression that the station was permanently closing.

"It sounds to me like some inaccuracies are being floated," he said.

He said he has responded to concerned residents by saying that he wishes the city could keep the Sunrise Station permanently open, but times are tough throughout the state.

Gilroy Fire Chief Dale Foster said the brownouts are a definite concern, as the fire department does not have that many resources. City officials had discussed implementing the brownout days in November, as fire season is over at that time, Foster said. However, he said the policy may be revisited when fire season starts in May.

In the meantime, Local 2805 representatives say they will continue to take action to inform the public about fire department issues and will be a constant presence on days when the Sunrise Station is closed, Ordaz said.

"It ain't going to be hush-hush," he said.

Calls for service in 2008

Sunrise: 343

Las Animas: 1,586

Chestnut: 1,586

How do 'brownouts' work?

If Las Animas and Chestnut fire stations do not have enough firefighters to staff their stations, they will pull firefighters from the Sunrise station. If Sunrise does not have two firefighters on duty, it will close for the day. Firefighters