Lewis County Fire District 1 Commissioners, left to right, Jeff Lee, Chair Rich Bainbridge and Bill Kassel
Updated
By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter
CHEHALIS – A contentious emergency meeting of Onalaska fire department leaders after the firing of their chief saw roughly one-third of the volunteers quit days earlier ended with a two-to-one vote to appoint a new person interim chief.
Lewis County Fire District 1 Board of Commissioners Chair Rich Bainbridge opened the Tuesday evening gathering inside the garage of the station by telling those in attendance of the need to fill a personnel gap and reassure the public the level of service isn’t diminished.
“Is this going to affect our staff here?” Bainbridge said. “Yes, it is going to be more work. We have qualified staff here to carry on.”
The chair of the three-member board said that just the night before at a meeting of fire commissioners from around the county, other fire districts expressed their support and willingness to help out. He reminded the crowd of existing mutual aid agreements.
Not everyone was as optimistic as Bainbridge.
Now-former Capt. Randy Tobler called out: “You have zero firefighters right now, you know that?”
The all-volunteer district that protects the area around Onalaska did have 24 members, according to district secretary Linda Patraca.
Last Thursday night when the commissioners voted after an executive session to dismiss volunteer Chief Andrew Martin, six other volunteers either turned in their gear or submitted letters of resignation, Patraca said.
Midway through Tuesday evening’s meeting, Assistant Chief Rhonda Volk quit as well. Volk stood and took the side of her former chief, opposing two of the commissioners.
“I will not compromise my values, until these two are removed or resign, I will not respond to any more calls,” Volk said.
There were other calls for Bainbridge and Commissioner Bill Kassel to step down, calls for them to reconsider and work to get along and demands for them to explain the chief’s termination.
As Martin described in a lengthy letter to local news media and spoke of to the gathering, he refused to further punish a member who had brought to his attention a misdeed by another member, who is a relative of Commissioner Kassel. Volk called it an attempt at retaliation.
Kassel saw it differently, and Bainbridge stood with him.
“One, he’s supposed to take direction from us,” Kassel said. “He refused to talk to us about projects, harassment charges.”
Commissioner Jeff Lee who voted no to appoint Adam Myer as interim chief, and who voted no about dismissing Martin said it’s hard to be a commissioner in Onalaska.
“I think we failed,” Lee said. “We never as a group asked him, we did it as individual commissioners.”
Myer is a former firefighter and fire investigator from the Chehalis Fire Department.
The conversation veered at times to disagreement about a new building, about deteriorating equipment, about a plan for keeping a fast-response vehicle parked at a volunteer’s house and even a past board of commissioners giving away “a chunk of the district to Salkum.”
Accusations that two of the commissioners violated the state open meetings rules by making decisions without Commissioner Lee led to a proposal for a five-member commission.
“We have no way to trust the two of you lifelong friends not talking business when you go hunting together,” community member Kathy Jackson said.
Martin has warned the loss of so many volunteers means citizens can expect a delay of twenty or more minutes if an out of district unit has to be called to handle an emergency.
Tobler spoke passionately about his concerns of a department down to 16 members.
He noted a one-person response on Monday to a rollover crash then a half an hour for a response to a 911 call about chest pain.
“When’s the last time any of the old members heard of a 30-minute response time?” Tobler asked.
Onalaska resident Pat Patterson, 74, stood and told of his worries about his and his wife’s well-being.
“I don’t want to wait for somebody from Salkum to come get me,” he said. “I don’t want my house to burn down.”
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Community members demand answers, suggest solutions at Lewis County Fire District 1 special meeting
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Rhonda Volk, far left, and Andrew Martin, second in from right, listen from back of room
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