By QUINTON SMITH/YachatsNews.com
WALDPORT – A former member of the Central Oregon Coast Fire & Rescue board has started a petition drive to recall two new board members.
The Lincoln County clerk has certified the petitions by Peter Carlich to initiate a recall of Kathryn Menefee and Todd Holt. Carlich served for 14 months on the board after being appointed in 2020.
Carlich filed the paperwork last week, just after the six months both have been in office and eligible to be recalled, and then set up recall campaign committees with the Oregon Secretary of State’s office. County clerk Dana Jenkins approved them Monday for circulation.
The recall petitions cite two reasons for the recall – allegations of misusing executive sessions to try seek discipline of fire department employees and indicating in conversations that they were speaking for the board when not authorized to do so.
But the recall process is not simple.
Carlich and recall backers now have up to 90 days – until April 20 at the latest — to gather at least 292 signatures of registered voters who live in the COCF&R district. Once the signatures are turned in, the county clerk has 10 days to verify them.
If there are enough, then Holt and Menefee are notified they have five days to either resign or proceed to a vote. If they choose to go to an election, then the county has to schedule it within 35 days.
Both Holt and Menefee indicated to YachatsNews they have no intention to do so.
“His claims against me have absolutely no validity,” Holt said. “If he thinks he has the proof, then he needs to roll it all out.”
Menefee, in a statement, said the allegations in the recall petitions are “unfounded and have no validity.”
“The only time that executive sessions have been held during my tenure were to discuss real estate purchases,” Menefee’s statement said. “The only time a quorum has met together was during reported official monthly board meetings, special meetings and executive sessions. There have been no other meetings, to my knowledge, where a quorum has met. Nor has any one board member spoken or acted on behalf of the board or district without appropriate approval.
“I have completed my board training,” she said. “I continue to work to serve the fire district and community and will continue to do so to the best of my ability.”
Heated election last year
Menefee and Holt joined the Central Oregon Coast board last July after a heated election in May during which the previous board was accused of inaction in dealing with former chief Gary Woodson, who was finally let go in February 2021.
In a two-way race, Holt defeated Carlich by five votes and in a three-way race Menefee easily defeated an incumbent and another challenger. One of the issues in Menefee’s race was that her husband, Nestor Alves, was a captain with Central Coast from 2017 to 2018 but is suing the fire district and Woodson in federal court for $1.1 million for wrongful dismissal. That was not brought up in the recall petition.
Holt, Menefee and newly elected chair Buster Pankey initially took an aggressive – and sometimes loud – role in addressing what they saw were issues in the fire district. Those included progress on rebuilding the substation in Tidewater, maintenance issues with a station in Five Rivers, the mixing of district and outside work by Lt. Erich Knudson and office manager Wendy Knudson, and at first challenging the leadership of newly appointed Fire Chief Jamie Mason.
But after many of those issues were addressed – along with verbal pushback at meetings from the firefighters union, volunteers and community – board relations appear to have settled down as the district looks to build a new main station and sort out shared staffing disagreements with the Seal Rock Fire District.
Hoping for 500-600 signatures
While Carlich is the chief petitioner on the recall, he says there are others involved to help collect signatures and distribute lawn signs. Signatures will be gathered in person and using a new, electronic process instituted by the state since the pandemic started nearly two years ago.
He is hoping volunteers – aided by a Waldport Facebook group called “Save Our Fire Services” — can gather 500-600 signatures to show Holt and Menefee there is a large number of people who want them out of office. If there are enough signatures collected and neither chooses to resign, then the fire district has to shoulder the cost of holding the election.
It is not the first time the district has been roiled by a recall effort. Longtime board member Ray Woodruff resigned in 2015 instead of forcing an election when some community members objected to the district giving up its ambulance service as a cost-saving measure.
Carlich also said the recall group will be able to support the allegations in the recall petition.
He said he has made public records requests for board emails and phone calls – they are taped now when people call the district office – to back up the allegations.
“Each of the charges we have proof to back them up,” Carlich said.
But the recall will also likely bring up old animosities and accusations among previous and current fire board members
Carlich said his intention “is to get the district working as a group again.”
Menefee believes the board is doing that, again, as they learn their roles and rules – and the district cleaned up issues. In an email to YachatsNews, she said Carlich lost an election to the board last May “evidently due to concerns about his and the previous board’s actions.”
“It seems as though he has not came to terms with the decision of the community that voted him out and that he is desperately seeking a way to gain his former seat back,” she said.
Carlich disputes that accusation.
“In fact I am a very concerned citizen of the district,” he said, pointing to the three years he attended board meetings to question the lack of progress on construction of the Tidewater station. “Over the last six months, I have witnessed Menefee and Holt breaking the rules that I was taught as a board member to never do. The job of a board member is to protect and guide the district …
“Menefee and Holt do not follow the rules, plain and simple,” Carlich said. “That is the reason I filed this recall and why I offered to be the chief petitioner for the recall committee.”
- Quinton Smith, a longtime Oregon journalist, is the founder and editor of YachatsNews.com and can be reached at YachatsNews@gmail.com