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Gift To Fire Station Held Up By Bureaucracy

SACRAMENTO (CBS13) – A gift from an anonymous donor to a fire station stricken by budget cuts has been held up in City Hall for nearly a month.

Firefighters at Sacramento Fire Station 8 were surprised when a man insisted they take a $500 gift card as a measure of thanks in the face of looming reductions, an act so rare that Fire Chief Ray Jones said he has only seen it once before.

Fire officials immediately followed protocol and notified city leaders about the donation, and the gift has been in limbo ever since.

"Basically, we don't have a mechanism to take donations of that sort," Jones said. "Someone wants to help out their local fire station, it's not so simple."

A city charter says no firefighters can take a donation without city council consent.

For the gift card to be returned to Station 8, the city treasurer, the city attorney, and assistant city manager and Fire Chief Jones all have to sign off on the gift -- and then the entire City Council can vote on whether to accept the gift.

No city officials were available to comment to CBS13 about the matter Friday.

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