By GARRET JAROS/YachatsNews
YACHATS – A contingent of Tenmile residents attended the Yachats Fire Protection District’s regular board meeting Monday to request the area be annexed into the agency’s fire protection zone.
The request comes in the wake of the devastating fire Thursday that left the neighborhood’s iconic Ziggurat House in ruins and laid bare the fact that Tenmile residents, who are outside any taxed fire protection zones, are on the hook for paying the costs of agencies that respond.
More than 60 firefighters and 10 agencies battled the Ziggurat fire, which will likely result in bills from multiple agencies running into thousands of dollars. The $2.5 million house owned by Pamela Staton was not insured.
“We just want to get inside the district,” said Jordan Essoe, speaking on behalf of concerned Tenmile residents. “Because we want to get in a position where emergency responders show up on a scene and contain a fire… (and homeowners) don’t get forwarded a bunch of bills afterwards.”
Essoe, whose parents live in Tenmile, said he spent several days polling the area’s residents and believes there is “mass interest” in annexation into the Yachats’ fire district. In addition to the handful of residents at the meeting who voiced support, Essoe read letters in favor of annexation from three homeowners, including Chuck and Sue Kesey, owners of the Springfield Creamery and makers of Nancy’s yogurt.
Board members were receptive to the idea of annexation while also noting it is not as straightforward as a yea or nay vote by the board.
“We’ll put this high up on our list,” said board secretary treasurer Ed Hallahan. “Hopefully it will work, I don’t know. There are all kinds of twists and turns. It’s not going to be a trivial little job to do. We will be working on it and we will be in touch.”
Yachats Fire Chief Frankie Petrick told residents she would get the ball rolling with phone calls to legal counsel for Lincoln and Lane counties. Although Tenmile is just six miles south of Yachats, it is in Lane County. In addition to county approval, annexation would also need the approval of voters registered in Tenmile. And coverage boundaries would need to be established.
“When we annexed Yachats River, the existing district had to accept and the people in the proposed new district had to accept,” she said.
Before the board moved on to other business, Tenmile residents praised the efforts of firefighters at the Ziggurat fire.
“The response was phenomenal,” said Dennis Iverson. “Until you need the fire department, you don’t know that you need the fire department and we had it in spades from all over. I don’t know how to thank them all properly, but Frankie, if you wouldn’t mind taking that thank you from us and the neighbors. It was an amazing turnout and I know it was a very difficult blaze because of the location and structure. But wow, impressive, thank you.”
Annexation details
After the meeting, YachatsNews spoke with Petrick about the details of annexation, and with Essoe about his takeaway from the meeting and thoughts about getting Tenmile residents on board who may already have fire insurance.
“I’m expecting that Lane County will be a little harder to work with than Lincoln County just because they may have internal things that are different than ours,” Petrick said.
The two counties already have an agreement in place when it comes to schools, she said, with the Lincoln County School District’s boundaries dipping into Lane County and the Tenmile area.
“And that seems to work just fine,” Petrick said. “So, I am thinking that the same could happen with a fire district.”
When Yachats River valley residents were annexed into the fire district it began with individual homes, but then the county said no to that because the state would require the whole valley to be included, Petrick said. And that meant getting on the ballot for voters to decide, which in the case of Tenmile would mean waiting for the next general election in November.
While a likely northern boundary of a Tenmile annexation would be at Bob Creek, it would be up to Tenmile residents to determine the southern and eastern boundaries prior to putting the issue before voters.
The Yachats fire district boundaries currently run from the south edge of Waldport, down U.S. Highway 101 through Yachats and up the Yachats River valley. The district’s southern boundary stops at Cape Perpetua.
Another concern to be addressed in considering annexation is that the Yachats fire district is already spread thin by a shortage of volunteers and the need for another engine, which it cannot afford in the foreseeable future.
Essoe said he felt optimistic after the board meeting.
“I feel like there’s a path forward and I didn’t know that for sure before today’s meeting convened,” he said. “I thought it might be impossible legally … because the neighborhood is over the county line.”
On Wednesday, Essoe said the Tenmile group also planned to attend the July 27 board meeting of the Western Lane Fire and EMS Authority in Florence to gauge its interest in an annexation.
Fire district vs fire insurance
Essoe believes Tenmile residents would get onboard regardless of whether they already have fire insurance because belonging to a district and having fire coverage are not mutually exclusive.
“It’s a little bit about having that formal relationship with the fire district where they are making some warranty about the fire safety in the area,” he said. “And I think there’s more than just the cost of fire damage.”
Fire insurance coverage can vary greatly and can be capped as low as $500, he added.
“So, it’s hardly an issue where you are going to have comprehensive coverage where you have nothing to worry about if you have an emergency,” Essoe said. “It’s still by far, to the best of my knowledge, a cheaper option and a much more comprehensive coverage to be in a fire district.
“And people often get dropped by their insurance company after a big claim,” he added. “A fire district won’t kick you out after you suffer through a fire emergency.”
Joining the Yachats district would not be cheap. The district’s tax base and two levies mean property owners pay $2.49 per $1,000 assessed value. For the owner of property assessed at $500,000 that’s a fire district tax bill of $1,245 a year.
A $7.7 million bond passed by voters in 2017 to build the new Yachats fire station carries a tax rate of 68 cents per $1,000 – which could add $340 onto the bill of the owner of property assessed at $500,000.
As to the Ziggurat fire, a possible ray of hope for Staton is that fire districts have the ability to mitigate the cost of response if approached by the homeowner after receiving a bill, Petrick said. But eight fire departments and two government agencies sent firefighters and equipment to the blaze.
“It will be up to them to approach us about mitigating a cost,” she said. “We’ve had smaller fires over the years down there where we didn’t even bill.”
- Garret Jaros is YachatsNews’ full-time reporter and can be reached at GJaros@YachatsNews.com
-
To see the boundaries of the Yachats Rural Fire Protection District, go here
Excellent in depth article. Well done!
The time lapse shows that major house fires are not controlled by a distant fire department. Why not have a storage tank and a small pump for each house or small housing as the area has developed? The Bathurst Lodge burned in the same manner years ago.