Central Coast fire board will get appraisal for station property it wants to buy, but board members and chief clash over other issues

 

By QUINTON SMITH/YachatsNews.com

WALDPORT – The board of the Central Oregon Coast Fire & Rescue District will get a professional appraisal of the building it is leasing from the city of Waldport to help in its negotiations to buy it.

The board, after two members were authorized to consult a Salem attorney, will also press the city to hold a public hearing on why they are selling the former city offices and attached fire house.

The action, taken last Thursday during an oddly contentious meeting, is the board’s next step in trying to negotiate a price for the structure from the city of Waldport.

When the city moved its offices across Hemlock Street to the former Umpqua Bank building, the district moved its offices into the larger city space and then let Pacific West Ambulance remodel portions of the second floor for its paramedics’ staff areas and sleeping spaces. The fire district has been leasing some offices and the engine bays from the city for $1 a year for the past 20 years. Five years ago the city told it the rent will increase to the going commercial rate – an estimated $5,200 a month — next July.

The fire district wants an up-to-date station that can withstand an earthquake. The city wants to sell the property – it believes it is worth $1.1 million – so it can use the money to help upgrade Waldport’s water system. The city has argued it is restricted by Oregon law on how it can dispose or sell public property — which some fire board members are questioning.

The Salem attorney, J. Michael Keane, said the city has the right to sell the property at fair market value – which the county assessor has put at just over $1 million — but needs to have a hearing where the fire board can make its case “and potentially influence the City Council in its decision to sell.”

The board approved getting an appraisal by Jeff Marineau of Coos Bay for $6,950. He did an appraisal recently for the Yachats Rural Fire Protection District for its former station in downtown Yachats.

Three new members of the board – chair Buster Pankey, Todd Holt and Kathyrn Menefee – have been very vocal in their view that the district should not pay the city’s $1.1 million asking price. They are also pointing to an August memo from its architect that the engine bays – 56 percent of the building’s 8,337 square feet — will have to be torn down to enlarge it and make it able to withstand an earthquake should the district buy the property.

Pankey and Holt have also filed public record requests with the city to get all the ownership records and background documents on the property.

On Monday, Waldport City Manager Dann Cutter sent the board a letter pointing out another large piece of property for sale in downtown Waldport that it could investigate and expressing concern with “the tenor of the Fire Board public meeting which seems to be very ‘us vs them’ in terms of the building sale.

“As noted in your attorney’s communication, the same ORS quoted by the city in our determination posted at: https://www.waldportoregon.gov/projects/pages/sale-city-hall is cited by your attorney. The council has always had the ability to set the price to serve the best ‘public good’ per our fiduciary duty; nor are we trying to ‘sell it out from under’ you as suggested by board member Holt.”

“Our determination was that the public is best served by minimizing total cost to the citizens of Waldport,” the letter said. “Given other needs in our city, that need is represented by the math presented in the above citation. Our intent will always be to minimize this number – so as the negotiation progresses, the city will always evaluate discoveries or changes in funding and status to continue to minimize this amount. In a perfect world, we would both receive funding for our needs with little taxpayer impact.”

Meeting grows heated

But Thursday evening’s meeting devolved into raised voices and attacks on Fire Chief Jamie Mason and maintenance officer Erich Knudsen for the condition of a small substation in the forest community of Five Rivers.

Holt said he stopped by the station Sept. 10 to find a door caved in, evidence of rats in the building, uncut brush, and gutters filled with grass. Raising his voice, Holt said he was “appalled” at the lack of attention to the building – which is on private property – and is powered only by a propane-powered generator.

He and Pankey then went on criticize the lack of progress at finishing work on the station in Tidewater as winter approaches. While contractors have done some concrete, electrical and some plumbing work, most of the other construction has been done by Knudsen 2-3 days a week to help save money.

“Whose watch is this on?” Pankey demanded.

“It’s on me,” replied Mason, frustration showing. “We’ve been trying to put this district back together … there’s a lot going on. When there’s fire trucks rolling out the door that takes priority.”

That’s when Menefee joined in criticizing the status of the Tidewater station, as both she and Mason argued over the top of each other.

Pankey and Holt then began questioning if Knudsen and his wife, Wendy Knudsen, who is the district’s administrative assistant, were spending time during the day running their online news business Information Station. The Knudsens and Mason maintained they did that work away from fire district time.

Only then did another board member – Kevin Battles – jump in.

“Am I missing something here,” he asked. “Why are you so aggressive.”

“You think this is aggressive?” Pankey replied. “I have a lot of people asking me questions … and I don’t know the answer to them.”

The entire heated discussion took the first hour of a two-hour meeting.

Public disagreements

In an interview over the weekend, Pankey told YachatsNews that he has decided that face-to-face issues with the chief in his office to address operating issues were not productive and should be brought up instead at public meetings.

“I know it’s not politically correct,” Pankey said. “But behind closed doors just doesn’t work. It just does not. People put us in there to change things … and we’re trying.”

Only later in the meeting did voices moderate – but feelings did not.

Mason, who came to the district in 2020 from Lincoln City, has been acting chief or chief since February after the negotiated departure of Gary Woodson who was sending pornography to district employees. But Woodson had also been neglecting basic duties for three years, employees and new board members said, and exposed the district to a $1.1 million wrongful dismissal lawsuit.

Near the end of the meeting Holt told Mason that new board members understand “a lot of things need to be cleaned up.”

“We need to talk about these things as adults,” he said.

But Mason countered that the district employees – there are six total – have been responding to an increasing number of calls, repairing and replacing long-neglected equipment, working on how to design and finance a new main station, and rebuilding the Tidewater station with a limited budget and staff.

“When voices are raised and accusations made right when the meeting starts, it’s hard not to become defensive,” Mason said.

But after discussing a few other issues for a few minutes, the back-and-forth resumed.

Holt asked if the board should go into executive session to discuss comments by Erich Knudsen at last month’s board meeting, when he read a statement countering a rumor that some board members thought firefighter morale was low. After deciding they could not meet in private without public notice, Holt said any idea that board members questioned staff morale was “absolutely incorrect.”

Mason said that’s why he and Knudsen brought it up in a public setting.

Menefee said she thought there could have been other ways to address possible rumors involving board members.

But Mason said they – including firefighters – thought it was best to bring up any employee morale issues up in a meeting.

“We feel morale is good … that things are on the upswing,” he said. “That statement was made (last month) so that we’re not calling someone out, that we address it and we’re done with it.”

On Wednesday, the union that represents COCF&R district firefighters issued a statement on the Waldport community Facebook page calling the argumentative questioning by the three board members “unprofessional and unproductive.”

“The volunteers, administrative staff and union members work together diligently each day to correct many years of neglect within the district and morale amongst the staff has never been higher, despite rumors that have been circulated,” the statement said. “The significant amount of positive change that has been made in the past five months is unprecedented, and is quick to be shadowed by undue aggression, misinformation and ignorance.”