Issue fires up Santa Clara resistance.(Politics)(In the county: Some residents don't want Eugene fire service, fearing it's a step to annexation.)

Byline: SUSAN PALMER The Register-Guard

Call them the Santa Clara defenders, a small but passionate bunch of residents living on the bucolic flatlands north of Eugene. They don't want to be part of the city, but it's a losing battle and they know it.

Still, they've set up camp at the scene of the latest skirmish: the Santa Clara Fire District fire station.

The issue: a contract between the all-volunteer firefighters in Santa Clara and the paid Eugene Fire Department that would bring Eugene firefighters and paramedics farther north than they've come before.

Santa Clara is a patchwork of a neighborhood, with some homes and businesses on county land and others annexed into Eugene - with people right across the street from each other often living in different jurisdictions. The area's population is about 16,250, with 5,030 Eugene residents and 11,220 in the county.

It's the result of four decades of confusing public policy that began in the mid-'60s in a dispute over failing septic systems. Public services to the area come piecemeal.

For crime response, people in the county get help from the sheriff's department and people who live in the city get response from Eugene police.

But fire and medical emergencies have been handled differently. Since 1983, the Santa Clara Fire District responds to emergencies north of Belt Line Road under contract with Eugene.

Eugene has paid Santa Clara about $130,000 to cover homes and businesses that are technically part of the city.

But Santa Clara Fire Chief Skip Smith says growth in the area makes the current arrangement untenable. The firefighters can no longer handle the 1,000-plus emergency calls they receive every year. That's well more than the 250 or so his agency answered 20 years ago with the same number of volunteers - about 40.

So Santa Clara Fire District …