Firefighters Support Prop 1
Vote YES on RFA
By John Burrow
IAFF L1760
By John Burrow
IAFF L1760
I was hired in June of 2002 by Northshore Fire Department. Northshore has been a department I have loved from the moment I got here. It is filled with great people who have a genuine passion for serving the public and positively impacting our community. My wife and I have been Kenmore residents since 2002 as well, raised our children here, and volunteered at various capacities in our community since we have called this place our home.
The Northshore Fire Department entered into a Contract for Services with the Shoreline Fire Department in 2022. This is common these days for smaller departments such as ours to merge and consolidate with other departments to maximize the efficiencies on the operations of our departmental practices and reduce costs to the taxpayer. This has been a blending of two similar cultures into the forming of one culture. As a result of our new culture, we have been identified as the PREMIER department in our area. We’ve captured the gifts and talents of our brightest technical rescue technicians and centralized the core group of them to be stationed in Kenmore at Station 51. These are firefighters that specialize in complex rescues in the areas of Trench, Confined Space, High Angle Rope (elevated), Structure Collapse, Machinery Rescue, and Auto Extrication. There isn’t a more educated and talented pool of technical rescue personnel in the region.
The primary differences between a Contract for Services and something more permanent like an RFA, is the Contract has the potential to not be renewed, and we could return to a department that is more expensive, and has less capability and dependence on outside agencies. Whereas a Regional Fire Authority (RFA), solidifies our progress, efficiencies, and tax savings and allows us to continue this direction with confidence and direction for the future.
Northshore Fire Department previously had access to only one aid car in our fire district. Our then Board of Commissioners created rules that prevented the firefighters from transporting our patients to area hospitals; rather, we were required to ask for a private ambulance company. We were permitted to transport our current and former Fire Commissioners, police officers and family, firefighters and family, or more emergent patients that required rapid transports to the emergency room without scrutiny of department leadership. This never felt okay for the firefighters; we felt everyone should receive the same treatment and benefit from their fire department. Under our current Contract for Services with Shoreline Fire Department, we now have 5 aid cars throughout the district, including an aid car in Kenmore and one in Lake Forest Park. This means that we can now transport regularly and are expected to transport our patients to area hospitals. This is a huge benefit to our taxpayer; it ensures continuity of care all the way to the hospital, provides reduced billing to a person’s insurance company (nobody will be turned to collections for not paying a transport bill like in the case of a private ambulance company), and provides a better service to our communities. The fees collected for fire department transports are reinvested to offset the costs of increased services that are provided in Kenmore and Lake Forest Park.
Prior to the Shoreline Contract for services, our Board of Commissioners could be described, at best, as dysfunctional. They burned out/terminated/forced to resign five Fire Chiefs in a four-year span. The board meetings were filled with arguing and infighting, they were an embarrassment to the firefighters. Their toxicity led to the resignation in protest of two Commissioners at the lack of cohesiveness and hostile environment that was produced. The firefighters, your firefighters, were left to feel confused and uncertain of our future, lost confidence in the Board’s ability to lead, and lost all trust in their ability to make good sound judgements, yet they touted they had the best firefighters in the area. Make no mistake, your firefighters were good but not at the hand of the culture created by the Board. It was the Company Officers and the Firefighters who put their heads down and focused on being good at our craft and providing the best service to our community.
The Board’s dysfunction rolled into our budget and did not pay for needed equipment for us to perform to our fullest potential in the field. There was more than one time when crucial equipment was required for us to perform an emergent task, but we had to wait for a neighboring agency with the correct equipment to arrive for us to complete our tasks in the most efficient manner. Firefighters are innovative and always have a backup plan to the backup plan. We always had a solution to a problem, but it was not uncommon for our plan to not be the “first” best plan due to the lack of support we received from the Board.
The outspoken majority of our toxic Board sought to regionalize and merge with Woodinville Fire and Rescue. A department that was two cities to the East of our nearest border. While the firefighters did support a merger, it was thought the Board would have championed one that made sense, like a neighboring agency such as Shoreline Fire Department. In a merger plan with Woodinville, the Board sought to eliminate valuable administrative staff and certain positions such as the Battalion Chief. This is the person that makes command decisions at large events such as traffic rescues, structure fires, cardiac arrest calls, and much more. Under their model of reduced service, they would expect that neighboring departments of Kirkland, Bothell, or Shoreline Fire would provide their Battalion Chief to help our citizens during their crisis. The plan was flawed and not well thought out. We had one of the more vocal Commissioners (who is now on the con committee for this RFA vote) spend money out of his own pocket to fund the signs and advertising for the Woodinville Merger. Our community listened to our firefighters, who opposed this merger; they voted down the merger by 80%.
Our voters made the firefighters feel validated, heard, overcome with relief, and, most of all, felt supported by the community they served. As it would turn out, Woodinville signed a contract for services with Eastside Fire and Rescue, a department headquartered in Issaquah. That would have been the fate of your department. Local leadership would have been located 45 minutes away depending on the time of day. We continue to feel grateful that our community supported their firefighters when they needed it most.
Like a bully embarrassed by public humiliation, that same outspoken commissioner who once supported the Woodinville Merger and who publicly opposed a Contract for Services to Shoreline is now publicly opposed to the RFA with Shoreline. He seems relentless in destroying our department and not supporting the voice of the firefighters. Prior to the Contract being signed, he would insist that a Contract for Services with Shoreline would cost the taxpayer more money in taxes, that the services the contract would offer were inflated, and that it wasn’t the right fit for the citizens of Kenmore and Lake Forest Park. Now that we’ve had three years of our Contract, he's saying it’s working perfectly; it has saved the taxpayer over $1.4 million, and we’re operating as one department on the streets, so there is no need to support the RFA.
About three years ago, there was a change in Board leadership. They listened to the voters, they listened to both City Councils, and they listened to the firefighters. Their decision to enter into a Contract for Services with Shoreline Fire Department has been nothing short of a blessing to the community. We took two cultures and created one culture by taking the best of both departments and blending them into one top-notch department. Prior to the Contract, Northshore could not recruit lateral firefighters and struggled to get a competitive number of applicants due to our dysfunctional reputation. Now, however, we are flooded with applicants that want to work for Shoreline because we have built a very positive reputation, known for good leadership, highly skilled firefighters, talented rescue technicians, and a good track to promote into the King County Medic One program as paramedics, a robust Fire Prevention office with access to 11 Inspectors (under Northshore we had one inspector and contracted with Bothell for their Fire Marshall), and a high morale.
This current Contract for Services was intended to test the waters for a future permanent merger with Shoreline. We have realized every forecasted benefit and then some. The last remaining portion to solidify is our Administration, this would be complete in the passing of the RFA. It only solidifies and maximizes our full potential and greater benefit to the taxpayers. Under the tax structure of the RFA, it will save an additional $.05 per thousand. That takes our tax rate from $1.12 to $1.07. At a recent Town Hall informational session, the outspoken former Commissioner (and head of the con committee) says the RFA shouldn’t be supported because the Contract is working, yet he’s advocating for higher taxes. This is the most confusing part of his argument, I don’t understand: Why would we not want lower taxes and get more product for our important dollars??
Your firefighters did not support the Woodinville merger because it didn’t make sense for taxpayers, and firefighters alike. Your firefighters support the RFA with Shoreline Fire Department and are asking for your support again for a very important part of our future and ask that you vote Yes on Prop 1.