The following is written by Angie Stubblefield, King County Fire Commissioner 28:
I desire to make it clear that I am speaking as an individual and not on behalf of the King County Fire District 28 board of commissioners.
A great amount of work has taken place in KCFD 28 since I was elected two years ago. It has been a tumultuous time, but we have made some major course corrections. The state of the fire district has improved immensely, but we still need your help at the polls in the next few weeks.
First, the good news: through fiscal responsibility, we have stabilized our budget. Despite a budget of tight margins, we have cut expenditures and have become more efficient. Our last district meeting revealed from our chief’s report that we are on our way to coming under budget this year. This is the first time in many years. We hired a new fire chief, Randy Fehr, who has been quite impressive and is doing an outstanding job. Personnel issues have improved and morale is better than it has been in years.
We are demonstrating transparency in our action by televising commission meetings and placing our meeting minutes and PowerPoint information on our district website. We are increasing our volunteer ranks and will be staffing the Cumberland and 212th stations. To those of you who reside or commute away from the city, this is a significant improvement of service. To further enhance service delivery for our citizens living outside the city limits, we have signed a mutual response agreement with KCFD 44. Recently, we adopted a district policy manual which holds all members of KCFD 28 accountable.
The district received a $1 million grant. We purchased a brand new ladder truck and engine – district voters paid 5 percent of the total amount. Both are capital items we have needed for a long time, but have not had the funds to purchase.
We are now working well as commissioners to solve the district’s problems. Voters of KCFD 28, this is where we need your help. Because of the Open Meetings Act, fire district commissioners cannot meet together in district committee meetings, as the City Council is able to do. Doing so creates a quorum, breaking the Open Meetings Act. Currently, two of the three commissioners cannot sit down to talk about district issues because that creates a quorum. With five commissioners, two can meet with the chief or participate in committee work, and not violate the law.
We simply need two more commissioners. Our horizon has many complicated capital needs to fulfill. This will require substantially more work commitment from commissioners than we currently have time to meet in board settings. We clearly need all eyes on this plan and other district details as our district’s future depends on clear and well thought out decision making to make things work. Being able to form working committees to deal with endless details (which include fact finding missions), is vital. More recently, the adopted policy manual had to be put together by one commissioner with the remaining commissioners overseeing the product of this work at board meetings. This placed a considerable hardship on one commissioner to do the heavy work to complete the district’s work. Two additional commissioners would allow vital progress to be made so they can extend the work of the board to cover more ground. There simply is not time with one or even two meetings a month to deal with all moving parts associated with these important details.
On the November ballot is a request for you, the taxpayers, and voters, to add two more commissioners to our fire district governance. The KCFD 28 board of commissioners is unanimous in doing a better job for you, our constituents. We are also in full support of this ballot measure. I believe I am doing what you elected me to do two years ago. Please continue to help us do a better job by voting to add two more commissioners to KCFD 28.
