QUILCENE — A rare Sunday morning Quilcene Fire District No. 2 commissioners’ session produced a newly named commissioner but under fractious circumstances.
At the 9 a.m. special meeting, Debbie Randall was selected by Commissioners David Ward and Mike Whittaker to replace Bob Rosen, who resigned after “one or two meetings,” Commissioner Mike Whittaker said Sunday.
But the real fireworks are expected at the regular meeting at 7 p.m. today at Station 21 at 70 Herbert St., Quilcene, said Deputy Chief Moe Moser, who attended the 30-minutes-or-so meeting Sunday — which he was glad was over in time for him to attend church.
“It’s all going to come out” at tonight’s meeting, Moser said.
Rosen quit over differences he had with Ward and Whittaker, Whittaker said.
“He had philosophical differences with the other two commissioners, and he decided to resign,” Whittaker said.
“There were a bunch of unfounded rumors he chose to believe. We have to run a district. We’ll deal with the unfounded rumors down the road.”
Whittaker would not say what the rumors were or describe the philosophical differences that were at issue.
Rosen and Randall did not returns calls for comment late Sunday afternoon. Nor did Commissioner Dave Ward, the board chairman.
Moser said the controversy was over $800 a month the district has paid Ward since December to interpret computer files created by the late Fire Chief Bob Wilson, who died in April 2009 of cancer.
The commissioners “created the job,” Moser said.
“Wilson had a bunch of files under Zip drive. He was supposed to decipher them all or something like that and find out what was in them.”
A Zip drive is a disc that stores data and can be removed from a computer.
Volunteer firefighter Harry Goodrich also applied for the vacancy, Whittaker said.
“We’re moving on,” he said.
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Senior Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-417-3536 or at paul.gottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
