SEQUIM — Candidates for a Clallam County Fire District No. 3 commission seat clashed on district staffing during a forum.
Sean Ryan, 53, of Port Angeles — who is challenging appointee G. Michael Gawley, 72, of Sequim for the Position 1 seat in the Nov. 3 general election — believes the district needs more full-time employees and fewer administrators.
He made his remarks at a Tuesday forum hosted by the Clallam County League of Woman Voters at the Sequim Transit Center.
“Right now, if there is a structure fire in downtown Sequim . . . and there is an automobile wreck on [U.S. Highway] 101, we don’t have” enough full-time employees to respond to both and must rely on volunteers, said Ryan, owner of America’s Elite damage restoration service and repair company.
The district — which extends east of Deer Park Road to Gardiner in Jefferson County — is “actually at a point where we can’t handle all the calls the way they are,” Ryan added.
Gawley disagreed.
“Right now, we are in good shape,” he said, adding that district residents “are well-protected.”
Gawley said the district is approaching more than 6,000 annual calls for service and that “we are serving them very well.
“The concept of just simply throwing more bodies on the payroll isn’t necessarily a good one,” said Gawley, who was appointed to the seat in February 2014.
“We have a budget to maintain, and we have to stay within those confines,” he said.
“The idea of putting more [full-time employees] on the street may make for a convenient slogan for campaigning” but would be costly to implement, said Gawley, who retired from the Federal Aviation Administration in 2005.
“That is money out of your pocket,” he said. “This has to be paid for.”
Too many chiefs
Ryan said he believes the district is top-heavy.
“We have four chiefs and probably 37 people, so that is one chief for seven guys? We are way overstaffed up top.”
Gawley said each of the four positions — one chief and three assistant chiefs — is needed.
“I think the idea that we have too many chiefs and not enough boots on the ground is simply not true,” Gawley said.
“In today’s age, we have a very complex department. Right now, all four of those guys are very . . . busy setting up the department and keeping things running smoothly. It is a difficult job.”
The two also debated how to attract more volunteers.
The district currently has 61 adult volunteers and 64 explorer volunteers, who are high school students.
“We pick up about 10 volunteer recruits every year, and during the year, we lose about 10,” Gawley said.
“What I have suggested doing is a more careful screening of volunteers. I would rather have five volunteers that stay with us for a long time than 10 volunteers who are going to drop out in a year or two.”
He said he also has encouraged a more comprehensive exit interview to find out why volunteers leave “and see if we can’t correct that problem,” he said.
“Volunteers are a very important part of the department, and we are trying to get as many as we can.”
Ryan said more could be done to attract volunteers. He proposed offering incentives, such as medical insurance.
“It would help a lot because most of the volunteers have regular jobs” and pay for their own health insurance, he said.
The two agreed that a shortage of volunteers has driven up the cost of fire insurance for district residents, especially in the Lost Mountain area, where the station is unmanned.
Lost Mountain
“The folks at Lost Mountain, I am very sympathetic towards them, and they need to be assured that we will send everything we can up there in the event there is an incident,” Gawley said.
“We tried to recruit volunteers from the Lost Mountain area to man that station, and we had one individual express an interest and he backed out at the last minute.”
Currently, “manning that station up there full time is simply not feasible,” he said.
Ryan said a solution would be to “set up some kind of a rotation where” the Lost Valley station “is manned at least 12 hours a day.
Other debates
The forum featured four races. In addition to the Fire District No. 3 commissioner race, it presented hopefuls for the Clallam County Board of Commissioners and the Sequim City Council and the Park and Recreation District 1 Board of Directors.
Incumbent County Commissioner Jim McEntire, 64, a Republican from Sequim, faced off against Mark Ozias, 45, a Sequim Democrat who is executive director of the Sequim Food Bank.
The Sequim City Council candidates at the debate were Brandon Jannise, 30, a retail associate, and Pam Leonard-Ray, 56, executive director of the Dungeness Valley Health & Wellness Clinic, for Position 1; Susan Lorenzon, 61, an independent distributor with AdvoCare, and John Miller, 60, retired from Safeway Inc., for Position 2; and incumbent Candace Pratt, 77, a retired bookkeeper, for Position 7.
James Russell, also running for Position 7, declined to attend and did not send a representative.
Gill R. Goodman, 74, of Sequim, a retired Coast Guard captain, was the only candidate for Park and Recreation District 1 to attend.
His opponent, Bill Jeffers, 46, of Sequim, a retired banker, did not attend and did not send a representative.
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Sequim-Dungeness Valley Editor Chris McDaniel can be reached at 360-681-2390, ext. 5052, or cmcdaniel@peninsuladailynews.com.
