Where can you find the most irresponsible people? Don’t look too far.

The new fire chief is about to blow the lid off of financial responsibility.

5.85 acres? Does this include a golf course or baseball field? Sounds like a new country club. 70 percent increase in taxes, did I read that correctly? Surely that must be a typo. Nobody in their right mind would suggest that kind of tax increase in this economy.

I drove from the fire station to the new location and it will take our emergency crews two minutes just to get back to the old location which is in the middle of our city. The new location on the southwest side of town makes no sense. Does time not matter in a medical emergency? Maybe they should get out of the ambulance business and stick to firefighting. How many fires a year do we have? Why not have the private sector handle the ambulance side of the business? You need a ride to the hospital, you pay for it.

And why would you spend millions on a new station when the taxpayers just spent thousands of dollars on the old station and it only cost you $100 a year in rent for the current facility? And you want to spend $1.25 million at the Cumberland station? That would be the most expensive piece of property in that area. Now that the chief has created his own district he has no one to answer to other than his three fire commissioners. Not sure who they are or how they got appointed, will work on that next week. I will also work on the fat pay raise the chief got after the district was formed. I’m sure it’s in line with other municipal jobs. Cities and states are going broke and this is another example of why. I can’t think of another state agency that acts like this; as a district they answer to no one but themselves. You can’t fire them. You can’t even vote them out. What you can do is vote down their tax levy.

To our firefighters and volunteers this is not about you, you are a great bunch. Your leader that is taking our town for a ride must be stopped. An elected official would never survive this type of arrogance. The new fire district is less than a year old and has proven to be a big mistake. Stay tuned for more.

Mike Qualls

Enumclaw