WHITE SALMON — On Feb. 22 the West Klickitat Regional Fire Authority (WKRFA) planning committee met for the first time as a new entity, and appointed subcommittee members, discussed the RFA vision and started to identify goals and responsibilities of the authority.
In November, constituents within the City of White Salmon and the Klickitat County Fire District 3 (KCFD3) voted to establish the authority — combining the White Salmon fire department and the KCFD3 — with the intention of having the WKRFA operational by Sept. 30, 2024. The WKRFA planning committee is comprised of three commissioners from the Klickitat County Fire Protection District and three commissioners from the White Salmon city council.
KCFD3 Fire Commissioner Tom Montag was appointed chair for the WKRFA planning committee and White Salmon city councilor Jason Hartmann was selected as vice chair.
Committee members went back and forth amongst each other to determine the best place to begin planning. Opening conversations centered around potentially outsourcing for help and the importance of building their financial independence.
“I think it would be a little foolish for this group to think that we’re going to be able to get all the way through this without some help from outside,” Eric Wilson said. Wilson was a member of the task force who recommended creating a regional fire authority.
Other members suggested reaching out to other fire authorities in the state of Washington for their RFA templates. The committee seemed split on the idea of hiring a consultant or advisor to help through the planning phase.
White Salmon City Councilor David Lindley said he doesn’t see the need for a facilitator until they begin to layout the tasks and fully understand how much money is at their disposal.
“So I don’t think just hiring someone to hold our hand through that is the answer,” Lindley said. “I think it’d be a smart idea to go back to our entities and say, ‘How much money do we possibly have to contribute to this?’”
Members decided to make four subcommittees to help divide workload as they create the new entity and transition operations. The four councils will be organized by governance, operations, human resources/finance and administration.
Hartmann, KCFD3 Commissioner Chuck Virts, KCFD3 Secretary Rozalind Plumb and Volunteer Firefighter Adam Brake are heading the governance committee. White Salmon Fire Captain Jess Wardwell is joined by Fire Chiefs Bill Hunsaker and Wes Long on the operations committee.
The transition guide was formulated to ease the transition and prepare for Sept. 30. The planning committee is not allowed to take legal action until that date, Sept. 30.
Planning committee members gave themselves until the next meeting to determine the level of service needed for each category, but a lack of reliable data in some areas is slowing progress.
“I wouldn’t even offer that setting goals for the first two years may be redundant. And maybe what we ought to really focus on is getting our data collection and focus on improvement year over year, and then set some goals a little further out,” said Wilson.
Montag added that admin has been working on the online reporting system and they will continue to improve stat collection. This will also help prepare them for submitting a budget by November.
The next WKRFA planning committee meeting is scheduled for March 22, when committee members will do a deep dive into each committee's responsibilities.
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