Internal accounting errors led to a $1.15 million budget shortfall for the Boulder Rural Fire Protection District in 2015, a gap district officials knew about but didn't understand — or disclose — when they asked voters to approve a $1 million tax increase last year. Those are the findings of a report by financial investigator James Davis, who was retained by the fire district's board of directors to investigate the budget shortfall.
- PUB DATE: 11/3/2016 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Boulder Daily Camera

Portland police emergency and crisis teams have taken a suspect into custody after after a man barricaded himself inside a burning Southeast Portland home Wednesday morning. Portland police spokesman Sgt. Pete Simpson at a news conference just before noon said police initially responded to reports of a disturbance near Southeast 127th Avenue and Rhone Street about 10 a.
- PUB DATE: 11/3/2016 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Firehouse

The City of Lockport violated the law and its contract with the city firefighters' union by privatizing ambulance service in 2014, a state administrative law judge ruled Monday. Judge Lynn Fitzgerald of the Public Employment Relations Board ordered the city to return the ambulance duties to the fire department.
- PUB DATE: 11/2/2016 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Buffalo News

A driver has been cited for failing to stop for a fire engine in a domino-effect crash in the Back Bay Monday morning that sent four firefighters to the hospital and damaged numerous parked luxury cars, police said. Witnesses told police the driver of a Chevrolet Equinox failed to stop for the fire engine flashing its lights and sounding its siren in the crash at Dartmouth Street and Commonwealth Avenue Monday.
- PUB DATE: 11/2/2016 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Boston Herald

Prosecutors are claiming that a serial arson case in Sacramento federal court has national security implications and, in a highly unusual ruling, a judge is allowing the government to withhold parts of the evidence from defense lawyers. Attorneys on both sides declined Monday to comment publicly, but court papers they have filed outline a dispute over the legality of hiding evidence with no obligation to disclose the reasons to the defense team.
- PUB DATE: 11/2/2016 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Sacramento Bee