By QUINTON SMITH/YachatsNews
YACHATS – For the first time in anyone’s memory, the board of the Yachats Rural Fire Protection District had four people to choose from to fill a board vacancy.
And, for the first time in its history, the board on Monday chose someone who spent decades as a firefighter with work in emergency medical services, administration and volunteering to fill the vacant seat left by longtime member Betty Johnston.
The board selected Doug Myers, who spent 46 years as a paid firefighter, captain and battalion chief with organizations as large as Tualatin Valley Fire & Rescue to being a volunteer captain at one of the Sisters-Camp Sherman Fire District’s three station.
Myers was selected over three others for the open seat. They were:
- Peter Kimmel of Yachats, who was a volunteer firefighter in Hubbardton, Vt. for 20 years retiring in 2020 as assistant chief;
- Charles Lesiecki, who lives in the unincorporated area between Yachats and Waldport and is a longtime Central Coast Fire & Rescue volunteer and president of its volunteer association; and
- Paula D’Alfonso of Yachats, a former state of Oregon and Port of Portland employee who has experience in procurement and contracts.
Three Yachats board members – Don Tucker was absent for the special meeting Monday – ranked each candidate and then their rankings were compiled to put the four in order of preference. Myers came in first, Kimmel second, Lesiecki third and D’Alfonso fourth.
“All of you are more than capable of doing the job,” longtime board member Ed Hallahan said after the vote, urging the three not selected to consider volunteering for the district’s budget committee or new civil service commission.
The district usually struggles to get candidates to run for office – most board members run unopposed for election and re-election — and there was just one applicant four years ago when a board member resigned.
Board chair Katherine Guenther acknowledged that when she said Monday’s special meeting to interview three candidates – Lesiecki did not attend – “is exciting for us.”
Kimmel, who has lived in Yachats for 3½ years and D’Alfonso, who has lived in Yachats for six years, both said they wanted to get involved in community affairs. Kimmel recently applied to be on the Yachats Planning Commission.
Myers stressed his decades in the fire and emergency services business. “I have a passion for it,” he said.
Myers and his wife split time between their seven-year-old home in Yachats and another house in Sisters, and said he can attend the board’s once-a-month meetings remotely if he is not in town.
Oregon’s rules for special districts allow boards to have members who own property in the district even if they are registered to vote elsewhere.
Years as EMT, firefighter, volunteer
Myers started his journey in emergency services in 1977 when he was taking an EMT course on the coast and joined the Cannon Beach Fire Department as a volunteer. He moved to Bend and volunteered with that city’s department before going through the University of Oregon Medical School (now OHSU) paramedic program in 1979-80.
He worked a short time for MetroWest Ambulance before joining Washington County Fire District 1, which merged with Tualatin Valley Fire & Rescue five years later.
Myers was eventually promoted to battalion chief and then duty chief overseeing 6-7 fire companies in the sprawling TVF&R district before retiring in 2006. One of the projects he was assigned at Tualatin Valley was to look into its volunteer program and “fix it or kill it,” he said. In two years he instituted conditioning requirements, upgraded training, assigned new roles and responsibilities and got professional firefighters to work with volunteers. The volunteer organization grew to 120 members, he said, the largest in Oregon.
Since moving to Sisters in 2001, he has served as a volunteer with the Cloverdale Fire Department, which sits between Sisters and Bend, and been a deputy chief and training officer for the Sisters-Camp Sherman Fire Department.
His plan in Yachats is to watch and listen.
“I don’t know what I don’t know,” he told YachatsNews on Tuesday. “I’m in the listening stage … but it seems like my skill set and experience fits what they might need as a taxpayer and a firefighter.”
Myers will fill out the remainder of Johnston’s four-year term until June 30, 2025.