By GARRET JAROS/YachatsNews
SEAL ROCK – The seeming calm preceding Seal Rock Fire District’s board meeting last week gave no indication of the powder keg that was about to blow.
Firefighting staff and volunteers seated themselves in folding chairs across the back of the fire station’s conference room. An inviting spread of food graced a side table. The only indication things might get more interesting than training schedules and financial updates was a hushed comment by one of the volunteers.
“I think I should have brought popcorn for this one,” he said.
No sooner had the meeting been called to order when Seal Rock chief Will Ewing lit the fuse that set off a cascade of condemnation for one board member who before the dust had settled was called a sneak and a liar. He was also met with a volunteer-signed petition to resign or face recall.
At the center of the firestorm was board member Mike Burt who after an abbreviated response – stated his intentions in no uncertain terms.
“Three things I know for certain,” Burt said. “My conscience is clear. I will not resign. And I will not be intimidated by bloviation.”
The events that led to the confrontation with Burt had been simmering for some time, according to volunteers. But came to a head at the board’s December meeting when it was felt Burt raised old and resolved issues out of the blue and then lambasted Ewing in what they considered an “unprofessional” and “accusatory tone” while also criticizing the department for having so many out-of-district volunteers.
“I have some things brewing in my head from the last meeting,” Ewing began before reading a prepared statement Friday.
The statement began by saying that since Ewing’s arrival in Seal Rock, the district has been under attack by Central Oregon Coast Fire & Rescue. Ewing also said Burt attempted to discredit him in a public meeting by making clear that a former Seal Rock volunteer firefighter who left to work at Central “should be and would be a great Seal Rock chief.”
Ewing believes that Burt’s opinion is based on his belief that a Seal Rock chief should live in the district, according to his statement. And that both Burt and Central Coast had been preparing the former volunteer for that position before the volunteer left three months ago to take a paid position at Central Coast.
Ewing, who lives in Toledo, then ticked off his reasoning, which included the former volunteer being told by Central Coast for months that he would make a great Seal Rock chief.
“Central Coast has recently ramped up rhetoric in continued efforts to undermine Seal Rock,” Ewing said. “Why? They want Bayshore annexed into their district in an effort to stabilize their finances. This is more than just speculation.”
The statement went on to accuse Burt of joining Central Coast in its efforts and that his comments during the December meeting only served to hurt Seal Rock and cause several out-of-district volunteers to question their commitments.
“All of this is a result of director Burt’s attempt to undermine me and this district,” Ewing said. “The self-proclaimed steward of transparency, finance and the taxpayers is not reflective of the needs of the community.”
Since 2021, Ewing said the Seal Rock district has straightened out its finances and procedures while enhancing its capacity to help on multiple fronts including assisting the East Lincoln Fire District in Eddyville after volunteers there left the Toledo Fire Department.
“That said, we could also crumble if a power struggle is allowed to seep into this organization,” Ewing said.
And he warned that struggle could lead to an exodus of volunteers. In closing, Ewing claimed Central Coast and its proxies as the “nexus” of discord by attempting to recruit Seal Rock’s volunteers and acquiring the district’s tax base through a hostile takeover.
“This is not an imagined conspiracy, it is as real as day, and now we have an operative on the board,” he said.
The board did not respond to Ewing’s statement.
Tortured history
The history of bad blood between Central Coast and Seal Rock dates back to 2020 and has been followed by a steady stream of verbal sparring since.
It has its origins in an intergovernmental agreement between the two agencies under a former Seal Rock chief and board that had them sharing personnel and equipment. That eventually led to a campaign to oust most Seal Rock board members, dismiss chief Tom Sakaris and move from a paid staff of four firefighters to a mostly volunteer department – and cancellation of the intergovernmental agreement.
Tensions went even higher when several Seal Rock board members worked with three former Central Coast board members in the spring of 2022 to try to oust COCF&R Chief Jamie Mason from his job. Voters recalled two of those COCF&R board members in June 2022 and its chair resigned in support.
In late 2021 the new Seal Rock board brought in Ewing, a former Toledo and Idanha-Detroit fire chief, to consult and then hired him as chief in 2022. Their instructions were to reduce paid staff and develop a strong volunteer program.
The majority of the Seal Rock board simply believe their organizational philosophies – extensive use of volunteers to keep its budget as low as possible — no longer fit that of Central Coast’s.
Volunteers speak out
Yachats Rural Fire Protection District firefighter/paramedic and Seal Rock volunteer Jeff Mathia expressed his views at the Seal Rock meeting in December and again Friday.
“I am very disheartened with director Burt’s lack of apology, explanation, follow up,” Mathia said. “There’s been nothing. He’s had a little over a month-and-a-half to try to right a wrong. So, director Burt, I’m asking for your immediate resignation.”
Volunteer Daniel Helfrich told the board that he and other volunteers met after the December meeting and came to a decision to seek a vote of “no confidence” in Burt.
“…Burt asked some questions with the intention of impeaching chief Ewing, while at the same time putting into question the value of our out-of-district responders,” Helfrich read from a prepared statement. “The response group of Seal Rock Fire take offense to this assumption. In our view, it is apparent that director Burt has aligned with Central Coast Fire in attempts to discredit Seal Rock Fire.”
Accompanying the vote of no confidence were 17 signatures. Helfrich told Burt if he did not resign by 6 p.m. Feb. 20 “I, with fellow other residents of this district, will start your recall.”
Burt then responded.
“That’s quite a bunch of accusations without foundation,” he said. “I have had zero discussions with anyone at Central Coast Fire. No talks whatsoever. So the chief’s statements — he needs to prove it.”
Ewing then asked Burt if he denied saying he wanted the volunteer who left for Central Coast to be the chief of Seal Rock?
“No, I’m not denying that,” Burt said. “I think he’d make a good chief.”
Board member Paul Rimola then asked Burt what his reasoning was. Burt responded the meeting was not going turn into an interrogation.
Board president Karl Kowalski said he believed the former volunteer was not qualified to be chief and that Burt had been out-voted on the issue.
“We have a chief that has brought us from the dregs of nothing to where we’re at today,” Kowalski said. “We’ve got more volunteers sitting in the corner over there right now than we had two years ago …”
“I’ll say my board comments now,” Burt cut in. “And that will sum it up. I completely understand and appreciate the sacrifices the volunteers make for Seal Rock Fire. I am also aware, with respect to Seal Rock Fire, the accomplishments of the fire chief. The chief and I, I thought were in communications to solve our differences. With this latest attack, I’ll now have to rethink that. My job is to protect the taxpayer money. And that’s what I’ll do. I’ll watch for performance from anyone who is collecting compensation from the taxpayer.”
Rimola accused Burt of making unfounded accusations about volunteers’ actions and said he was tired of Burt’s “red herring” about watching out for taxpayers.
“The red herring implies rather sneakily, the rest of us are not transparent nor do we look after the taxpayers,” Rimola said. “That you are the sole voice of the board for these issues.”
Rimola accused Burt of putting accusations and questions about procedures on a previous board agenda, but then not showing up to the meeting.
“It is a cowardly act and disrespectful to the rest of us,” Rimola said. “Then you show up at the next meeting acting like you have some God-given right to launch into more questions. And that’s what’s upsetting these guys.”
After some back and forth between the two men, Burt said to Rimola “This is not going to go in one direction, bloviator.”
Rimola responded by saying Burt was a liar.
Burt said he came to the meeting in hopes of patching things up, which drew some jeers from the volunteers and ended with Rimola saying “You are a sneaky, underhanded person,” before Kowalski brought the accusations to an end.
It was not long before more accusations were leveled against Burt and what he had said about volunteers. Rimola then made a motion to censure Burt but failed to get a second from Kowalski or the other two board members, who remained silent.
Ewing then stepped into the void.
“My writing was more of a warning for the board,” Ewing said. “I have concerns about the future of Seal Rock Fire. As I mentioned, if you look at the results of what happened in Toledo, it can easily happen here. We are on the edge of a razor blade. And you guys, if you’re not in support of the operations of this place, it can go sideways very, very quickly, which it did, last meeting.”
A steady back and forth followed with Ewing and Rimola detailing the back-and-forth between Seal Rock and COCF&R which Ewing said goes on to this day.
At the close of the meeting Burt once again addressed the room to say he was baffled by accusations he had discredited Ewing in a public meeting by asking why the budget had not been posted on the district’s website.
“That one’s got me baffled,” Burt said. “There’s a lot of speculation in this thing without foundation and I will prepare an argument against it by next meeting. But (with) 17 years of volunteering for Seal Rock Fire I watched going through six fire chiefs. I think I clearly understand what the volunteers have to go through. So, I’ll just reiterate that I completely understand and appreciate their efforts.”
Kowalski later told the YachatsNews that board members did not second Rimola’s motion to censure Burt because they needed time to think it over, but that it would be brought up at the board’s Feb. 20 meeting.
“I think the volunteers have spoken,” he added. “They’ve said what they have to say and they have a pretty big voice. I would listen to it if it was me.”
- Garret Jaros is YachatsNews’ full-time reporter and can be reached at GJaros@YachatsNews.com
I’ve lived in this county almost 8 years and it seems like there is constant bickering and headaches among all these little fire departments up and down the coast. Why isn’t there one countywide consolidated fire department? Are too many residents too cheap to want a professional full-time fire department countywide which still could have a strong volunteer contingent?
Lee,
You are exactly right. There was a study done by a consulting firm in 2012/13 that indicated the most cost effective model and best service level was a county wide consolidation. That idea had its legs cut off because to many people want to be in-charge and those people are generally bad a being in charge in there current arrangements and thus would fail in a larger organization. Will is a classic example. There is a guise that volunteers are better than paid staff and it’s simply not true. The 4 paid positions provided a better service than 20 volunteers ever could or did. That’s why your insurance calculates 10 volunteers to equal the same level of service as 1 paid staff. This board is full of old grumps that just want to keep their property tax bills low and still receive service. Seal Rock will fail just like Toledo failed. The only answer for these problems is pay more taxes for dedicated professional service; a county wide merge, or even a south county merge. If you don’t want to do any of those things you will keep having bickering boards, poor service, old broken vehicles and felons as your Chief.
Interesting that the majority of ‘volunteers’ that signed the no confidence letter are from areas well outside the district, such as Lafayette.
Very few volunteers live in Seal Rock or Bayshore. Isn’t Capt. Munger from Lafayette?
As a former member of the SRFD. Mike Burt has always been leader and I’ve stood behind him before. Ewing doesn’t deserve to be chief; he should retire now.