Union firefighters and Fire District 28 management have been accusing Citizens for Smart Taxes of lying to the public about district mismanagement. Citizens information is backed up with documents from the fire department, city of Enumclaw, Washington State Auditor’s Office, The Seattle Times and Enumclaw Patch.

Fire District 28 has been spending thousands of taxpayers’ dollars on two-page ads. Much of the content is self-promotion. From a taxpayer’s point of view, should a government agency use taxpayer money to tell you how wonderful they are and brag about all the charity stuff they did? Is this charity or self-promotion with an end game?

The chief stated in his letter, the commissioners are “volunteer elected officials” and “receive a very small stipend for attending meetings.” Fire commissioners receive $114 per meeting. Most commissioner meetings last under 30 minutes. Minutes times are found  on the fire district website.

Is $114 for a 10-minute meeting “very small”?

From 2010 to 2012 the fire chief received $49,000 in raises bringing his total compensation to $189,000 per year. Source: Fire District 28 office.

Fire District 28 spent $309,794 on a mobile home. Five real estate agents stated that $85,000 paid for the mobile home was many times what they sell for.  It was sold to the district by commissioner Dave Hannity. Source: Enumclaw Patch, The Seattle Times’ front page Sunday edition, Oct. 28, 2012, and Washington State Auditor’s Office. Then there’s the half a million dollars paid for property to build an new station with too many problems to list here.

There is much more to this story than a simple letter can address.

Ask yourself: Are politicians and government agencies in America out of control? King County Fire District 28 doesn’t understand that us citizens working for private companies are struggling with less pay (or no pay) and don’t want another tax raise again. Private citizens and the companies they work for are the source of almost 100 percent of all government revenue.

Oct. 16, 2013, Courier-Herald you’ll find the Fire Department’s ad to convince voters for raising their taxes. Add wages and overtime and personnel benefits numbers, $2,671,761. Confirmed by the Fire Department, there are 19 employees. Do the math. Average total compensation per fire district employee is $140,617.11.

And now they want more money. Really?

Ted DeVol

Enumclaw