Chief: West Mason Fire needs help

If you live in the West Mason Fire District, fire chief Matt Welander wants to talk to you.

The district’s August EMS levy failed despite getting a simple majority, with 436 votes or 54.5% of the votes voting “yes,” but it needed 60% to pass. The levy measure failed to get a majority with 423 “no” votes for 53.07%. Welander said he was sad to see the results of the election and wants some answers on what he needs to do to get some help from residents.

“I’ve obviously not done a good enough job of explaining the realities of the position of the district,” Welander told the Journal. “I don’t know how to help people understand and the question is do they understand and not care or do they not understand and I’m not doing a good job of selling it? That’s what it comes down to. In Washington, you literally have the ability to vote yourself out of fire protection. You can vote in commissioners who don’t know anything, you can vote in commissioners who will hire chiefs with no certifications or experience. You can do all kinds of stuff. You can vote down every spending measure to the point you can’t keep the doors open. You can literally vote your fire service away and it’s not the fire service. We always say it’s a fire department but the reality is and firefighters aren’t ever going to tell you this, we’re all ambulance companies that own fire trucks.”

West Mason Fire is going to run the EMS levy again in November and ask for half of what they were asking for in August. The levy would allow the district to hire some emergency medical technicians, staff the ambulance and bring in revenue with the ambulance to make up some of the money and get full crews, according to Welander.

Welander said 60% to 80% of calls are medical calls. When an EMS levy can’t pass, he said that is tough and they are the only fire district in the county without an EMS levy. The district was able to pass a lid lift in 2016 and 2020.

According to data provided by Welander, West Mason Fire covers 92 square miles and has responded to 496 calls this year through Aug. 9. Among Mason County fire districts, West Mason had the fifth most calls, and has a tax rate that is the lowest in the county. The aggregate tax rate is 10th out of 11.

The district ranks ninth among districts in tax valuation per square mile.

Even if the EMS levy in August had passed, the aggregate tax rate would be under $1.50 per $1,000 valuation, which would put them in the middle of the county fire districts.

Welander said nobody knows what is going on in Matlock with Fire District 12, and they have stopped attending the county fire chief’s meetings.

The data shows calls for West Mason Fire have increased by 287%, the budget has increased by 165% and the value of the district has increased by 173%. In 2021 and 2022, the district responded to 998 calls each year.

“We have more calls than we’ve ever had. Our tax rate is basically the lowest in the county. We’ve got some of the oldest equipment. We’re doing more than we should with the amount of money,” Welander said. “We’re good at it, we’re good at functioning with nothing. I’m working basically 24/7. My wife is going nuts. I don’t know how long I can keep that up.”

Welander said they do get some volunteers, but it takes a year to get a volunteer trained and ready to respond to calls.

When asked whether they could get to the point of not being able to respond to calls, Welander said they’re already there. There was a call last weekend where no one from West Mason Fire could show up, but Central Mason Fire responded due to it being an advanced life support call.

“It’s a thing, we don’t want it to be a thing. We don’t want to jeopardize our EMS license, we don’t want to jeopardize our transport license because if we lose the transport license, then we lose the ability to transport and we lose the ability to make the revenue off of that, which ultimately keeps the taxpayers money home,” Welander said. “Every time Central or District 4 or somebody else transports one of our patients, that patient’s money, insurance, whatever, is paying for that other district’s fire protection. Why would you want that? Everybody wants a transport license, everybody wants to be able to pay their own way, do their own thing and that’s what we’re trying to do. We’re not spending money on other stuff that we need, our engines with the exception of one, are all from the ’90s. Of our four stations, two of them have bathrooms, there’s one shower in all four stations total. It’s not like we’re spending money on other stuff, but we need staff.”

Welander said he wants to know why people voted “no” and whether it’s they don’t want fire and EMS service or if they don’t understand the reality for the district. To the people who don’t know it’s a problem, Welander said the district is busy and people have to pay for that. To the people who are voting themselves out of fire protection, Welander wants to know why.

“This is protection for the sick and injured. This is the car accidents, this is for somebody stuck in a tractor, this is a heart attack, this is all of it that goes along with it. That’s the majority of our calls, stats don’t lie,” Welander said. “But it’s also the only thing that we do that really doesn’t pay for itself because you have to have a certain amount of taxes, but it’s the only thing where your taxes are truly a multiplier. The more you’re able to fund as far as your ambulance transports and that sort of thing, the more you’re able to keep in the district as far as your ambulance insurance and all that. The other part of it is any of the districts around us that don’t have an ambulance or transport license, now we can negotiate with them and start transporting some of their patients and make even more money.”

Welander said there have been talks with districts about a potential merger, but it is a hard conversation to have because districts want to keep their identity. He said they have talked to Central Mason and Fire District 4, but nothing has come of it.

If the EMS levy doesn’t pass in November, Welander doesn’t know what the district will do or what will happen.

“We’ve talked about how to keep the two employees and secretary that we have and we’re not sure how to do that,” Welander said. “We don’t have enough volunteers or money to keep all four stations open so maybe we sell some property, maybe we offload a fire truck. We don’t know, and that was one of the conversations we had in our last strategic planning meeting. We just don’t know.”

He said the district will continue to write for grants and try to gather as much funding as they can. Welander said he wants to hear from the people of the district to understand what the district can do and how they can help everyone in regards to the levy.

“If people have questions, I want them to come and talk to me. Come to the commissioner meetings, come to drill, talk to volunteers, come hang out, come see what we do during the day,” Welander said. “We’re so transparent it’s ridiculous. We have nothing to hide, partly because we don’t have enough money to build up walls. It’s true, we have two full bathrooms between four stations, we have one shower between four stations. We have two bedrooms between four stations, and they’re not really bedrooms, they’re converted office space. By all means, if someone thinks they can do it better for cheaper, come give me the ideas, come tell me how. I absolutely crave the input from not just the people that love me but the people that hate me too. The people that just don’t want to part with another nickel, I need to talk to them.”