By QUINTON SMITH and JORDAN ESSOE/YachatsNews.com
WALDPORT – Sensing that a personnel-sharing agreement with Seal Rock is going to end soon, the Central Oregon Coast Fire & Rescue Board voted unanimously Thursday night to hire two more firefighters to ensure that engines are fully staffed when responding to calls.
For the last two years the districts have shared personnel under an intergovernmental agreement, putting 2-3 firefighters on one engine responding to emergencies in both districts.
That changed in January after a directive by Seal Rock’s interim chief and backed by its new board, a majority of which contend the agreement isn’t balanced and takes their firefighters out of district too often. Now Seal Rock firefighters respond separately to most calls in a rescue rig or Suburban from its station in Bayshore.
Since then, Central Coast firefighters complain they are responding alone to calls during two shifts a week. And when Seal Rock firefighters respond – and they don’t always go to minor events — COCF&R firefighters say they arrive 3- to 15 minutes after them.
The firefighters and Central Coast Chief Jamie Mason say that is unsafe, especially at night when responding alone to a medical or fire emergency in unknown or dangerous conditions.
“Shouldn’t safety be the first priority,” firefighter John Townley asked the board Thursday night.
Each district has four paid firefighters.
Mason presented a plan last month to hire two firefighters on temporary contracts until the district finds out in October whether it gets a federal grant to hire two firefighters for three years. The Federal Emergency Management Administration is spending hundreds of millions of dollars across the country to beef up fire departments, and has been awarding grants to many Oregon agencies.
Board member Kevin Battles made the motion to hire two temporary firefighters after board chair Buster Pankey gave only vague answers – and often under duress – about an initial meeting last week with two members of the Seal Rock Fire District board to discuss the intergovernmental agreement.
The motion passed 4-0. Board member Kathryn Menefee, who with Pankey is meeting with two Seal Rock board members, was absent. Menefee and board member Todd Holt are also the focus of an effort by a Waldport-area group trying to gather enough signatures to hold a recall election.
Battles said he was convinced that Central Coast could no longer – and should no longer – rely on Seal Rock to provide enough staff to cover calls. Battles said he can’t envision Seal Rock’s board changing its mind to have firefighters respond together and questioned whether that district would replace any of its four firefighters if they get jobs elsewhere.
It is widely known that Seal Rock firefighters have applications out to other departments.
“What happens when three of their firefighters get jobs elsewhere,” asked COCF&R firefighter Shi Bucher, who is also shop steward for the local firefighters union. “What happens when they’re gone?”
What would happen is unclear, based on conflicting signals and statements from the Seal Rock fire chief and board.
Interim Seal Rock chief Will Ewing told Mason in an email in January that eventually Seal Rock would be responding to many calls with volunteers. Seal Rock board members have said there is money in the budget to replace firefighters, but have stated an intention to rely more on volunteers to respond to calls.
“I don’t see it going anywhere with Seal Rock,” Battles said. “We have to worry about Central Coast. That’s our job.”
After the vote, both Pankey and Holt said they supported the temporary hires to ensure COCF&R firefighter safety. Holt said he has always wanted Central Coast “to be the best and have the best.”
“I have always had your back from Day One,” Holt told three COCF&R firefighters at the meeting. “You can never say ‘I’m not for you’.”
But both board members said they need to continue to find ways to work with Seal Rock’s board and firefighters – whether through training or mutual aid response to calls.
“I still want to have a good relationship with Seal Rock,” Pankey said.
New hires to cost $56,000
Mason said hiring the two temporary firefighters would cost the district $56,000 from mid-March to Oct. 1.
There is money in the budget to do that, he said, especially with more property taxes than expected coming in, recent cost savings, and the sale of surplus equipment.
On Friday, the district posted notices of the two jobs on its website and on social media.
Mason told the board there are firefighters ready to join COCF&R even on a temporary contract. “I have the people ready to go,” he said.
He told YachatsNews on Friday that they plan to test and interview applicants March 1, rank their scores and make offers immediately in order to get them started by March 15.
Meetings over IGA
Under the 2-year-old personnel sharing agreement between COCF&R and Seal Rock, a committee of two members from each board and their fire chiefs are supposed to meet to iron out any issues.
The Seal Rock board voted earlier this month to end the agreement in May if it cannot work out what it considers a more equitable agreement. The four board members met earlier this month and plan to meet again this week. For now, the meetings are being held without Ewing and Mason.
Menefee and Seal Rock board member Paul Rimola said in a joint interview with YachatsNews last week that the initial meeting went well as they tried to find common ground and establish “a framework” for what they envision are twice-monthly meetings until they can reach an agreement. Any proposal would still have to be approved by each board.
Rimola said a proposal could look more like an “enhanced” mutual aid agreement with one department helping the other on more serious calls.
“We will show up when called,” he said. “ … but what are we rolling on. Is it minor or automatic” that we will go.
Menefee said she was encouraged by the meeting, heard Seal Rock’s concerns about inequities in the intergovernmental agreement, and thinks the two boards can work out some sort of agreement.
“We don’t see this as a turf war,” she said. “It’s more about the best use of our resources and to use them responsibly and equitably.”
Accusations in Seal Rock
Seal Rock’s board was also meeting Thursday night, with two board members clashing over the same subject.
During a review of expenses by Rimola, board member Tina Fritz asked questions of several itemized expenses such as attorney fees that Rimola accrued during consultation about the intergovernmental agreement with Central Coast. After some argument over what department expenses must be approved by the board, Fritz made a motion that any expenditure over $1,000 must be voted on prior to purchase. No one seconded the motion and it failed.
Fritz next accused Rimola of holding the oversight committee meetings agreement without a proper quorum of board members and without the presence of both fire chiefs.
Rimola responded by slamming his fist on the meeting table and saying, “We can do whatever we want to do.”
He then read meticulously from a highlighted handout he had distributed of the minutes from a previous year’s meeting to accuse Fritz, who was board chair at the time, of the same offense — participating in improper meetings about the agreement.
“It appeared to me that you tried to rush this through before the new board came in,” Rimola said. “I firmly believe that you and Chief Mason wanted to circumvent the vote of the people, and apparently your own board, to consolidate our two districts. Or put our district subservient to Central Coast.”
Rimola claimed Fritz engaged in a secret vote and he called the 2020 intergovernmental agreement invalid.
Fritz continued to protest the two Seal Rock board members meeting with two Central Coast board members. She objected to the idea of eliminating the intergovernmental agreement and replacing it with an enhanced local mutual aid agreement or designing a new agreement without qualified board members present.
“We’re going to have some meetings, we’re going to come up with an agreement, and then we’re going to bring the chiefs in,” said board chair Karl Kowalski.
Rimola and Kowalski are scheduled to meet with Menefee and Pankey again Wednesday.
COCF&R wants details too
The COCF&R board vote Thursday night came after Pankey resisted calls by Battles and board member Reda Eckerman to talk more about the meeting with the two Seal Rock board members.
“Are they wanting to respond together or not?” Battles asked.
“I don’t want to talk too much about it,” Pankey replied. “We just started talking.”
Battles said the committees should not keep their boards “in the dark” about the direction of the discussions, especially on critical issues where firefighters are stationed and how and when they will respond.
Mason said, based on a statement released by the committee, that it appears Seal Rock wants an “enhanced” mutual aid agreement where they respond from separate stations and only when it’s deemed important enough for another crew.
“We’ve literally gone back to a situation two years ago … where we are responding alone,” Mason said.
And if there is a call in the Seal Rock district – including the more populated areas of Bayshore, Sandpiper and Makai – Seal Rock’s one or two firefighters and volunteers would first respond without COCF&R unless they called for additional help.
- Quinton Smith, a longtime Oregon journalist, is the founder and editor of YachatsNews.com and can be reached at YachatsNews@gmail.com
- Jordan Essoe is a Waldport-based freelance writer who can be reached at alseajournal@gmail.com