Email to the Editor: Executive Management of Fire District Cause for Concern

First off I would like to say I believe we have very very good firemen working district 28.  Firemen as a whole are just plain great people and do great work.

I became concerned with the executive management of our fire district as soon as the new District started their promotion for a new fire station and the hiring of 60% more staff, all at a time when 90% of us are working extremely hard to stay solvent. Many people are losing their jobs, houses and businesses and the population in the district is almost stagnant.  I doubt the next 10 years will bring much new housing to our area due to the few jobs out here, building restriction imposed by Growth Management, (Agenda 21) and the cost of fuel. What information are the Fire Commissioners and the new Fire Chief using to justify a new building. The new Chief said he was hired to implement the Master Plan.  The $50,000, 295 page Master plan, paid for by the taxpayers, says absolutely nothing about needing a new fire station.  The Districts main fire station looks to be in perfect shape inside and out. The firemen keep it in pristine condition. It has a new $160,000 roof and recently got a very expensive seismic retrofit. The offices are condensed but I’ve seen a lot of offices way worse.  We were told there were not enough beds, but the math and the firemen say there are plenty.  For a year and a half there was no fire chief in Enumclaw and things seemed to run quite smoothly. The city hires a new chief for $140,000 a year and a year later under the new fire district management, the Fire Chief received a $40,000 raise (to $180,000 in 2011) during the worst economic times in 50 years.(For the record, our Police Chief is paid about $80,000 a year.)  And land that the county assessed at under $60,000 was purchased by the fire District for $495,000 to build a new fire station……  five to ten years from now?  Has land prices stopped falling yet?  The Commissioners and the Chief are going to ask the public for a substantial raise in taxes just to sustain the growth of the department since the new Chief arrived. This proposed tax hike will not include any money for a new building. Additional money will be asked for at a later date. The Chief at one of the open house meetings said “I would raise the fee to $4.00 (per thousand) if I could”.  The fire district taxes have gone up 23 percent already and with what the Commissioners and Chief want, it will mean a 70% increase in a 4 year period of time. This one taxing authority will add $1,000 to my already high tax burden. The Fire Commissioners, all 3 being union firefighters, are insulated from the realities of this terrible economy. From the taxpayer’s point of view, it looks like once the Fire Commissioners were free of the City of Enumclaw’s pesky tight budget, they decided to take and spend a great deal more of the taxpayer’s money because who’s to stop them.  

During a time in history where the districts population is stagnant, the private sector is earning 6% less than the year before, the city workers took a pay cut and the average pay for our Firemen is right about $100,000 a year, all we’re asking, is to go easy on us taxpayers. We love you guys, but we’re fighting for our life to stay afloat out here.  

Ted DeVol

Enumclaw

Editor's Note: This email was submitted prior to Fire Chief Joe Clow's announcement this week that the Fire District would not be seeking a levy lid lift in this coming April election (read the story). Clow told Patch on Monday that his base salary in 2011 was $132,000. He received a 3.2 percent cost of living increase for 2012, which puts his base salary, minus benefits or pension, at just under $137,000. And in a public information request of city employee salaries for 2011, Patch found that the police chief position earned a base salary of $101,390 -- minus benefits. Patch is continuing to work on a story detailing the fire district's major expenditures in the past year.