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Commissioners get down to the job at hand

by Pat Grubb

With an awful lot to do and not much time to do it, fire district #5 commissioners aren’t wasting much time at their meetings. In the last month and a half since deciding to leave North Whatcom Fire and Rescue Service (NWFRS), they have completed a budget, hired a bookkeeper, appointed a third commissioner and more.

One of the commissioners’ first orders of business in 2004 was taking care of fire chief Nick Kiniski who, as a NWFRS employee, essentially lost his job December 31 when the fire district terminated their contract with the larger fire service. The district was obligated to pay Kiniski according to the terms set by NWFRS and accordingly authorized a check for $8,355. Commissioner Bill Meursing was particularily incensed by the amount, saying “It never would have happened at a company I owned. It’s goddamn ridiculous.” Fellow commissioner Dave Gellatly pointed out that NWFRS had set the standard for severance, adding “I believe we need to treat employees with fairness and respect and as NWFRS had this in place we need to reimburse them for the payment.”

Commissioners accepted Kiniski’s later offer to stay on as volunteer fire chief while the district underwent a search for a new fire chief, albeit at a lower rate of pay than what Kiniski had been paid. Commissioners decided to individually research the process of hiring a new chief with a broad consensus reached on taking the same communityand consultant-based approach that had been used when hiring the former fire chief Mike Campbell and his predecessor Scott Chehock. The commissioners hope to have a search well underway in February.

In other business, commissioners have agreed on a budget that will see the district live within its means. With expected revenues of approximately $237,000, the district expects to spend $14,000 on new computers and software, $186,000 on regular operating expenses (including $52,000 for salaries) and $37,000 being placed in reserves.

One matter of urgency was to ensure that the Wellness Center did not suffer from the transition fromNWFRS to local fire district control. Commissioners agreed to hire Suzanne Kinsey as district auditing officer, read bookkeeper. Kinsey also works for the water district.

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