Thursday, March 28, 2024

Chelan Fire faces uncertainties in upcoming staffing, finances

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CHELAN – While Fire and Rescue commissioners were prepared for the planned agenda items during the regular commissioner’s meeting, Wednesday, May 9 at Station 71 on Wapato Avenue, the borderline packed meeting room suggested a slightly different agenda.
Before addressing the night’s agenda items, commissioners provided the public time to speak their minds. Lisa Garvich began, “I was personally so disappointed in the outcome of the levy, and I’m sure that almost everyone in the room feels about the same way,” then expressed, “I want to encourage the commissioners to not stop the momentum and the forward motion that was kind of the groundwork that the focus group was on, and the administration.” She explained that her belief is that the 60 percent of people that stated they didn’t agree with the levy, felt that way because they simply just didn’t know. “I asked several people after the election about how they voted and why,” she continued, “and I got answers all across the board, ‘we don’t need a fancy department,’ and ‘we don’t need more firefighters, we just got six new firefighters,’” she expressed. She stated her belief that people don’t understand what capacity a volunteer department has and what a step backward for the department it would be.
Steve Garvich was next to speak, beginning by stating, “I’m going to ditto what my wife (Lisa Garvich) just said, but I’m more concerned about, being a volunteer, I feel the responsible involved here is more on me than ever,” he explained, “knowing that there’s an unknown, (whether or not the exiting firefighters will be replaced), I’m concerned about my neighborhood,” he expressed, “I’m concerned about my house, that there’s less firefighters on duty to save my house and my neighbors, I’m concerned about the level of staffing and the response time, and everything else that goes with fighting a fire … I would like to see the commissioners move quickly on coming up with a plan,” he said.
Tom Peters, previous commissioner with the district took advantage of the public comment segment to express his standing. “At the time, we as commissioners voted to present the levy LID lift, I didn’t necessarily agree with that,” he voiced, “I didn’t agree that the timing was fit to do that, because of the recent huge property tax increase we all experienced. I didn’t necessarily think that that was the best thing, but we all agreed that it was important to give the community an opportunity to vote, and that it was important to give those people who are the most affected the time to make decisions if the community had voted in a negative way.” Concluding his thoughts, he stated “the community has voted, and I urge you as commissioners to accept that vote.”
Finishing up the public comments was Jacquelynn Dalton. “I chose to speak up today because I felt there was a sever lack of community support with this last levy,” she began. “I feel it’s necessary to state that I’m here as a Chelan local home owner, tax payer, employee of a local business and small-business owner,” she continued, “I feel that it is imperative to safety and well-being of our community to provide them another opportunity to become more educated about our fire department, and why we really need this levy to pass.” The answer is very simple, she stated, “the youth of our community.” The safety of the children is top priority, she emphasized, and nearly half of our population is under the age of 18, and “we are all responsible for them in one way or another.”
Dalton continued explaining to commissioners how important maintaining the current level of staffing is to the youth in the community and pleads for the community to have another chance to become educated on that importance and allow the opportunity to represent the levy.
In response to the increase audience and public commentary, Commissioner Russ Jones expressed, “I fully appreciate the people that came and talked to us, we’d like to have more of that,” he said, playfully adding, “I think we just set a record for number of people speaking.”
Moving into regular agenda items, Chief Tim Lemon reviewed budgetary items, including a $63,000 check from the California Wildfires, which was the first installment from money owed to the department. “Other than that,” he added, “most of the budget is pretty routine on the rest of it.” Leading into the emergency response report, “The most remarkable thing is looking at where we were this time last year and where we’re at now,” he began, “we’re up 60 calls and there’s no real measurable item that you can put your finger on to say this is why you’re up that route, if that continues,” he expressed, “it’s going to be an extremely busy year, so hopefully that will taper off.” April presented four over-lapping calls, he stated, meaning “there were two calls going simultaneously out there.”
Moving into the operations side of things, Deputy Chief Mark Donnell explained that currently the department is in position of a piece of training equipment, provided by the Washington State Fire Training Academy. The platform will allow the firefighters to practice forced entry methods in emergency situations. Chelan Fire and Rescue is the first district to have the opportunity to utilize the equipment and will have it for use until the end of the month.
“On the staffing side,” Donnell switched topics, “we have a resignation from Firefighter Austin Murdock.” He stated that they have scheduled interviews for three individuals the next week, but “that position still needs to be filled for the remainder of the year,” he explained, “and all three are interested in filling that position.” All three applicants are already qualified as Firefighter 1, 2 and EMTs, he stated. The last count on volunteers, he said, who are trained to some degree or another in support, driver operator, wildland and/or structural firefighter is 32.
Moving into the burning topic of filling the vacant commissioner seat two position, Commissioners Phil Moller and Russ Jones voiced three top candidates they felt would best fit the district’s needs. Commissioner Jones recommended the consideration of Nan Bolimay and Karl Johanson, with Commissioner Moller, opposed to Jones’ suggestions, recommending Jay Witherbee. “I can’t consider Jay,” expressed Jones, “what I had hoped for in this ballot measure was that people in our community would have the opportunity to become informed about how our fire district operates and what the real issues were. And, Jay certainly has some very good qualifications, however his selection of what information he allowed to go to the public certainly was one-sided.” Jones continued by stating that the community should have had information available to them to base their decision on and voiced that he feels Witherbee may have a specific agenda and that wouldn’t benefit the district.
Moller rebutted Jones’ opinion, stating that he would disagree as he believes that Witherbee has the community first and foremost in his mind, and he believes that “there was plenty of information put out for the community to make a decision, whether it was Jay’s information or from publications from the house here (the district).”
The meeting’s agenda also covered:
Assistant Chief Asher’s volunteer staffing report
• Firefighter’s Association Report
• Medical Responses
• Upcoming events
• Passing of Resolution 2018-04 – meeting time change from 4:00 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.
Chelan Fire and Rescue Commissioners’ next scheduled meeting will take place Wednesday, June 13, beginning at 5:30 p.m. at Station 71 on Wapato Avenue.
 

Chelan, Fire and Rescue, meetings, levy, commissioner

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