A firefighter with Eastside Fire & Rescue puts water on a house fire in Preston early Thursday morning. (Contributed)

Firefighters and aid units from Eastside Fire & Rescue, Fall City, Duvall, Snoqualmie and Maple Valley, responded to a house fire in Preston early Thursday morning.

The residents of the two-story house called 911 at about 2:45 a.m. to report that their carport and garage were burning, and the fire was quickly spreading to the main house.

Firefighters arrived at the blaze in the 8300 block of 293rd Avenue Southeast to find flames coming from the garage and extending to the home.

The residents got out unharmed.

A lack of hydrants hampered firefighters efforts. Additional water tenders had to be called in to shuttle water to the scene.

A firefighter suffered a minor burn to the face.

King County is currently investigating the cause of the fire.

The Metropolitan King County Council passed a measure in a 5-4 vote June 20 requiring boaters and swimmers to wear life vests on the county’s major rivers from July through October. The law exempts fishermen who are 18 and older, divers and designated public swimming areas.

Children 12 or younger are already required to wear life vests while on vessels shorter than 19 feet long under current state law.

The King County Sheriff’s Office will enforce the new measure, which requires wearing a U.S. Coast Guard-approved personal flotation device on portions of the Raging, Snoqualmie, Tolt, Cedar, Green, Skykomish and White rivers in unincorporated areas.

First-time violators will get a warning, but subsequent violators could face fines of up to $86.

Support for the measure galvanized behind concerns about dangerous river conditions after a year of heavy snowfall.

The tumultuous winter flood season changed river channels and reoriented logs, creating a challenge for boaters and swimmers. The snowpack in some Cascade river basins is about 200 percent of normal.

Eastside Fire & Rescue leaders supported the measure after King County Executive Dow Constantine proposed it.

King County experiences about 23 drowning deaths per year, said EFR Deputy Chief Jeff Griffin.

In May, EFR responded to a drowning on the Snoqualmie River, after a 29-year-old man tried to rescue his dog. The agency’s service area encompasses large unincorporated areas, including Preston and much of the Snoqualmie Valley.

EFR board members offered unanimous support for the measure. Issaquah Councilman Mark Mullet said the requirement “seems like common sense.”

The ordinance calls for the county to post signs at primary access points to major rivers, and to join regional organizations focused on drowning prevent to promote life vest use.

“It feels a little bit Big Brother-ish, but, then again, it’s been an unusual year,” board Chairman Ron Pedee said.

Constantine, backed by public and health officials and organizations, called for the life vest rule. County Councilman Larry Phillips introduced the measure.

“This proposal will help save lives,” Constantine said in a statement. “River flows are unusually swift and cold this year due to a heavy mountain snowpack that is melting into King County rivers. Rivers are inherently dangerous places to play, but this year is bringing additional risks. The wearing of life jackets is as essential for swimmers and boaters as helmets for cyclists and seat belts for drivers.”

Sheriff Sue Rahr endorsed the proposal, as well.

“The vast majority of river accidents to which our Marine Unit responds could have been prevented if recreationalists had simply worn a PFD (personal flotation device), had been sober or had a better understanding of the dangerous nature of rivers,” Rahr said in a statement.

Their car, a Nissan Pathfinder, had stalled in three to four feet of water from the swollen Snoqualmie River, which runs alongside Reinig Road.

Firefighters arrived after receiving a 911 call at 3:32 p.m.

The father and daughter were sitting on the SUV’s roof when firefighters arrived, Capt. Mike Geppert said.

With water up to the car’s windows, the SUV had started drifting toward the river.

“The car was only 10 or 15 feet from the river current,” Geppert said.

Had it reached the current, the situation would have become much more dangerous, he said.

Firefighters reached the car before that happened. They carried the daughter and escorted the father to dry land.

The car was later towed from the water.

The man told firefighters he had driven down the road because there were no road-closed signs.

“So, he continued further and further on down the road, getting deeper and deeper into trouble,” Geppert said.

The road was closed after the rescue.

Geppert cautioned people from driving through standing water on a road.

“You don’t know what’s underneath it. You don’t know if the road’s been washed out,” he said.

Dan Catchpole: 392-6434, ext. 246, or editor@snovalleystar.com.

Where are you hurt?

Do you know your name?

Are you paying with debit or credit?

Beginning next year, Eastside Fire & Rescue will charge patients for ambulance rides in nonlife-threatening situations. The fire agency’s board of directors adopted the new fees in a 7-1 vote at its Oct. 14 meeting.

The board also considered charging fees for responding to car crashes, but voted 5-3 against it.

The estimated revenue from the new fees won’t make up the about $500,000 in savings EFR is looking for in its 2011 budget, according to EFR Chief Lee Soptich.

The fees were proposed as part of EFR’s attempt to come up with a budget for 2011 that meets rising costs and does not increase costs for its partners, which include North Bend and Fire District 38. Sammamish and other EFR partners have pushed the agency to not increase its costs.

To do that, the board either has to add fees or cut services, Soptich said.

The new fees, which the agency will start collecting in 2011, are estimated to raise $350,000 to $417,000, depending on the collection rate, he said.

Charging for car crash responses had been expected to raise an estimated $287,000.

Fairness was a key theme when the North Bend City Council discussed the city’s position on ambulance fees before the board of directors’ meeting.

Currently, patients in and around North Bend are much more likely than residents in Issaquah or Sammamish to go to a hospital in a private ambulance, which costs about $700, than get a free ride with EFR.

Who drives — EFR or a private company, usually American Medical Response — depends on the number of units in the area and the patient’s condition.

“Our current policy says we will transport when we have resources available,” Soptich told the City Council at its Oct. 5 meeting.

With only one aid car stationed in North Bend, the area is shorthanded to deal with another emergency during the time it takes to transport a patient to a hospital. Patients in the upper Snoqualmie Valley get free rides only about 20 percent of the time, according to Soptich.

One board member opposed the fees on philosophical grounds.

Fire Commissioner Ron Pedee, who represents Fire District 38, was the sole vote against the measure, which he has likened to double-billing residents already paying taxes for EFR.

“The agency has to use its resources for the best benefit for the most people,” he said.

Pedee supports EFR ceasing all transport in nonlife-threatening situations.

Instead, the agency should focus on its core missions — fire suppression and emergency medical services, he said. By state law, EFR cannot charge for those core services.

The agency does already charge for providing services outside its territory and for hazardous materials response.

The board agreed that the accident fee could be reconsidered to deal with budget holes in the future.

Dan Catchpole: 392-6434, ext. 246, or editor@snovalleystar.com. Reporter Caleb Heeringa contributed to this article. Comment at www.snovalleystar.com.

Where are you hurt?

Do you know your name?

Are you paying with debit or credit?

Beginning next year, Eastside Fire & Rescue will charge patients for ambulance rides in non-life threatening situations. The fire agency’s board of directors adopted the new fees in a 7-1 vote at its Oct. 14 meeting.

The board also considered charging fees for responding to car crashes, but voted 5-3 against it.

The estimated revenue from the new fees won’t make up the about $500,000 in savings EFR is looking for in its 2011 budget, according to EFR Chief Lee Soptich.

The fees were proposed as part of EFR’s attempt to come up with a budget for 2011 that meets rising costs and does not increase costs for its partners, which include North Bend and Fire District 38. Sammamish and other EFR partners have pushed the agency to not increase its costs.

To do that, the board either has to add fees or cut services, Soptich said.

The new fees, which the agency will start collecting in 2011, are estimated to raise $350,000 to $417,000, depending on the collection rate, he said.

Charging for car crash responses had been expected to raise an estimated $287,000.

Fairness was a key theme when North Bend City Council discussed the city’s position on ambulance fees before the board of directors’ meeting.

Currently, patients in and around North Bend are much more likely than residents in Issaquah or Sammamish to go to a hospital in a private ambulance, which costs about $700, than get a free ride with EFR.

Who drives — EFR or a private company — depends on the number of units in the area and the patient’s condition.

“Our current policy says we will transport when we have resources available,” Soptich told City Council at its Oct. 5 meeting.

With only one aid car stationed in North Bend, the area is shorthanded to deal with another emergency during the time it takes to transport a patient to a hospital. Patients in the upper Snoqualmie Valley get free rides only about 20 percent of the time, according to Soptich.

One board member opposed the fees on philosophical grounds.

Fire Commissioner Ron Pedee, who represents Fire District 38, was the sole vote against the measure, which he has likened to double-billing residents already paying taxes for EFR.

“The agency has to use its resources for the best benefit for the most people,” he said.

Pedee supports EFR ceasing all transport in non-life threatening situations.

Instead, the agency should focus on its core missions — fire suppression and emergency medical services. By state law, EFR cannot charge for those core services.

The agency does already charge for providing services outside its territory and for hazardous materials response.

Dan Catchpole: 392-6434, ext. 246, or editor@snovalleystar.com.

Yes, the economy has not turned around, but sometimes government cannot simply slice and dice its way to a balanced budget. All ideas are on the table for increasing revenue — including an Eastside Fire & Rescue fee for ambulance rides.

Hit by falling tax revenue, contract cities, including North Bend, are interested in keeping their expenses as low as possible. Necessity has produced some interesting ideas. Charging for ambulance rides is one worth examining.

This practice exists in other parts of the country, and indeed, in other parts of King County. No critically injured person has yet to be denied a ride to the hospital because they had a maxed-out credit card.

Most agencies, when pressed, admit they don’t invest much time and energy trying to extract payments from residents who can’t afford to pay. Most insurance providers cover the cost of the ambulance ride, and they do pay their claims. It doesn’t seem to matter whether the ride is provided by a private ambulance company or a public fire agency.

But it may not be that simple. It is possible that costs would end up being passed on to residents and businesses through higher insurance premiums. EFR should study that possible impact during its discussions.

There is also some concern about the idea of double charging. After all, residents already pay for the ambulance, the salary of the emergency medical technicians, the gas in the vehicle and everything else through their taxes. Should they have to pay a second time, whether it be through a direct payment or via higher insurance?

In a fair and perfect world, no.

But today’s reality is neither of those things, and is full of examples of government double-dipping. Taxpayers already pay tolls to drive on roads they paid to build, and fees to use park facilities that they already own. Taxpayers have put up with it, recognizing the fee model as a more equitable way of distributing costs.

Unfortunately, the charge for EFR to give medical transport to a hospital or to another waiting ambulance is probably necessary.

Call it the fire department equivalent of tolling.

Faced with the steadily rising costs of health care and personnel, and repeated calls from partners to limit their annual increases in contributions, Eastside Fire & Rescue is considering charging citizens for various fire services, from ambulance rides to car crash responses.

Sammamish officials have pushed the department to see what it would take to draft a budget with a zero-percent increase next year. EFR Deputy Chief of Operations Jeff Griffin said the administration is dedicated to trying for that, but said it may be a choice between staff or program cuts, or new revenue from fees.

The plans are still in the theoretical stages now, but will be presented as alternatives as the administration puts together its 2011 budget. Griffin told the board at its Aug. 12 meeting that many other local agencies, including Bellevue and Kirkland, were considering a fee-for-service model, which gives districts a more stable revenue source that doesn’t fluctuate like property tax receipts.

“The balance between what a society wants and what it is willing to pay for is delicate,” Griffin said.

Who gets a free ride?

He also highlighted the fairness issue. Currently, whether or not a patient gets a free ride to the hospital with EFR or pays approximately $700 for one with a private company is dependent on how many units are staffed near where they live and the severity of the injury. This naturally means that rural residents near Snoqualmie or North Bend are more likely to be charged for their ride than residents in more dense areas, like Issaquah or Sammamish.

Dee Williamson, the North Bend representative on the EFR board of directors, said it was unfair that people in North Bend and Snoqualmie had to pay for ambulance rides while people in Issaquah or Bellevue frequently did not.

If a fire department rig does not have to leave its area to reach a hospital, it can take patients there free of charge. If the rig would have to leave its area to reach a hospital, or if the rig were too busy, a private ambulance would be called.

“The issue becomes that people in Issaquah that are close to the hospital get a free ride,” Williamson said. “If it were equal, that would be wonderful, but we in North Bend never get the free ride, because the paramedics can’t leave North Bend.”

About 35 percent of patients in the area are transported by EFR, while private companies handle 65 percent. Griffin said that ratio would not change under the fee program; the agency would just recoup some of its costs and time spent carting people into hospitals in Bellevue or Seattle. Griffin said admitting a patient to Overlake Hospital Medical Center in Bellevue takes a unit out of commission for an hour and a half on average.

If the fee program were approved, the board would have to determine what to charge, whether it would bill patients itself or forgo approximately 15 percent of the revenues to pay an outside company to do billing. The board would also have to consider how hard to go after those who don’t pay — would it send them to collection agencies or forgive the debt?

Plan would generate needed revenue

All of those factors would affect how much EFR would make from the program annually, but Griffin estimated it could net the agency between $262,000 and $367,000. At the end of 2009, the district passed a budget that took approximately $300,000 from reserve funds and still had a $241,000 hole, which was made up by union employees forgoing wage increases and finding a cheaper health insurance plan.

At least one board member, Chairman Ron Pedee, said he is philosophically opposed to the idea. Pedee spoke at length against the proposal, calling it a “double billing” of taxpayers who have already funded the services with their tax dollars.

“Our job is to do the most good for the most people with the resources the public has provided for us,” he said. “It seems improper to charge them again for a service we feel is prudent given that they’ve already paid for it.

“Do we need the money? You bet,” he said. “But it’s disingenuous for public agencies to be grubbing around for fees they can tack on when the public has specifically said they don’t want that.”

To transport or not?

Pedee disagreed with the idea that charging patients for services would somehow make the system fairer. He suggested that if the aim was truly to make the system more equitable, the agency should consider getting out of the transport business completely, focusing local units on first response while letting the private companies handle transports.

“Fairness on a call-to-call basis is impossible,” he said. “It’s possible for me to experience response time ‘X’ and my neighbor to experience response time ‘XX.’”

King County medical directors are against districts charging for rides as well, Griffin said. The group feels that the fee would be double-dipping taxpayers who already pay money through their Medic One levy that is routed to individual districts for ambulance service — about $1.3 million dollars a year of a budget of more than $20 million.

The hospital administrators also fear that the elderly or those on fixed incomes might shy away from seeking medical attention, because they could not afford it and the fee would put pressure on emergency medical technicians to consider economic factors in their care.

Griffin downplayed suggestions that EMTs would have an economic incentive to transport people instead of giving them over to private services, saying that district policy still requires that departments prioritize keeping units in their regular areas over transports.

In its contract with private ambulance service American Medical Response, “it states that in the event of an emergency, we could have 25 additional ambulance trips into our area within an hour,” Griffin said. “We don’t want to lose that capacity. We have no interest in driving the private companies out of business.”

Caleb Heeringa: 392-6434, ext. 247, or cheeringa@isspress.com. Laura Geggel contributed to this report.

Surely, Tom Stapleton would have appreciated it.

A man whom his friends say thrived on making you smile would have loved seeing his fellow firefighters smile during his life celebration Aug. 17.

A man whom his friends say loved helping others would have loved seeing firefighters help firefighters attend the ceremony at Pickering Barn.

Stapleton, a cancer survivor and longtime Eastside Fire & Rescue firefighter EMT, husband and father, died in his sleep Aug. 10. The North Bend resident was 52.

Seven days later, crews from around the area filled in for EFR crews so they could honor their comrade.

Firefighters from Duvall worked in Carnation; firefighters from Snoqualmie filled in at North Bend; firefighters from Fall City filled in at the EFR station on the Sammamish Plateau, and Mercer Island firefighters worked in Issaquah.

The city of Seattle provided the Seattle Firefighters’ Pipes and Drums; the city of Bellevue provided an honor guard to go along with Eastside Fire Pipes and Drums.

Volunteers from EFR replaced paid personnel.

All of the replacement crews received large pizzas from EFR.

“We purchased pizzas as a small token to say thanks for letting us spend time with Tom and his family,” said Greg

Tryon, battalion chief for EFR.

Since their friend had not died in the line of duty, there was no parade of fire trucks on Gilman Boulevard on the way to Pickering Barn.

Instead, the trucks wore a dark diagonal stripe on their logos and firefighters wore a black “shroud” across their badges.

Above the badges, most firefighters wore something else as they reminisced about Stapleton.

“To know Tom was to smile,” said Tryon, who knew Stapleton for 17 years.

Smiling was a way for the firefighters to get a handle on the death of a man who had received a clean bill of health just a few months ago.

Anecdotes about how some people likened Stapleton to Cosmo Kramer mixed with tales about him and a fellow firefighter wondering how to split a stick of string cheese.

“Me being a nice guy,” EFR firefighter Rick Scriven said in a speech, “I gave him one-third of it.”

The crowd laughed.

On the next sentence, Scriven’s voice broke and he had to stop talking.

“We’d love to know why he’s not with us, but we don’t, and that’s equally hard,” Tryon said.

The celebration of life was an opportunity to reassure not just Stapleton’s family, but the families of other firefighters, too, said Jon Parkinson, a lieutenant with EFR who called Stapleton the best guy he had ever known.

“It’s a way to let other people in the department know that if something tragic happens to them, these very people will be behind you,” he said.

Sebastian Moraga: 392-6434 ext. 221 or smoraga@snovalleystar.com.

A proposal by Sammamish to contract with Fire District 27, in the Fall City area, has drawn the ire of some elected officials with Eastside Fire & Rescue.

“What you’re proposing to do is spend other people’s money,” said Fire Commissioner Ron Pedee, who represents King County residents outside North Bend, at an EFR meeting May 14. “I think this whole proposal is offensive.”

Pedee began his comments by addressing the Sammamish City Council as “You rascals.” He then called the council’s proposal to contract with Fire District 27, as “Madoff-ian,” after Bernie Madoff, a former stockbroker and investment advisor convicted in 2009 of running one of the largest Ponzi schemes in U.S. history and other kinds of fraud.

Sammamish plans to annex the Aldarra and Montaine neighborhoods by June. When it does so, Fall City’s fire department, which currently serves those areas, will take a huge financial hit.

The new configuration would also change the make-up of EFR’s finances. By adding those neighborhoods, Sammamish would have to pay more for fire services, and the city of Issaquah and Fire District 10 would have to pay less.

Sammamish has proposed paying Fall City for two years to soften the blow to that department. But the plan would mean Issaquah and Fire District 10 would need to delay their own cost savings.

Representatives from those two public agencies rejected the plan.

Issaquah City Councilwoman Eileen Barber asked how she could justify to her citizens missing out on cost reductions for 2011 and 2012.

“I don’t know that you can justify it other than in helping out our neighbor,” Sammamish Mayor Don Gerend said.

Sammamish is expected to annex the Aldarra and Montaine neighborhoods, worth about $205,000 per year in property tax revenue to Fall City’s fire department, by June.

Fall City’s fire department estimates it would lose $125,000 by not collecting half of 2010 property tax revenues from those neighborhoods. (That money would go to Sammamish instead.)

Even if Fall City hiked its tax rate up to the maximum allowed — $1.50 per $1,000 of property value — the department would receive less annual revenue after the annexation, according to Fall City’s fire chief, Chris Connor.

Connor said the annual shortfall in 2011 and 2012 could be as little as $7,500 or as much as $75,000, depending on future property value assessments from King County.

What the Sammamish proposal would have done is delay a cost decrease of $10,508 per year to Issaquah and a decrease of $37,632 per year to King County Fire District 10 until 2013.

The annexations don’t change how much money Sammamish’s fire protection provider, Eastside Fire & Rescue, collects — it changes the cost per partner, adding about $48,140 to Sammamish and dropping a like amount to other partners.

In the Sammamish proposal, Sammamish would have paid the Fall City fire department about $119,000 over two and a half years to serve as the primary fire and emergency medical responder in the Aldarra and Montaine neighborhoods.

It would have meant that the two annexed neighborhoods would pay the same amount of property taxes as everyone else in Sammamish, but would have received service from a fire department that has a lower minimum standard for staffing levels.

Fall City uses two-person companies, while EFR uses three-person companies on a fire engine responding to basic emergency medical calls and basic fire investigations.

Deputy Fire Chief Jeff Griffin said the standards are based on what Fall City and EFR can consistently provide at any time on any day. With volunteer firefighters, Fall City often meets or exceeds the three-person minimum standard set by EFR, Griffin said.

Sammamish’s proposal died with a 2-6 vote. Sammamish Mayor Don Gerend and Councilman Tom Odell, who sit on EFR’s Board of Directors, were the lone votes in favor of the proposal.

Sammamish has been embroiled in conflicts with its fire protection provider, Eastside Fire & Rescue, for more than a year over issues of transparency, expansion and the rising cost of labor. Historically, these disagreements have pitted civilian elected officials from Sammamish against people with personal experience working at fire departments.

But an elected official from Issaquah also criticized Sammamish in this latest controversy. In addition, the civilian representatives from North Bend and Issaquah voted against Sammamish’s proposal to the EFR board.

Barber said Sammamish wasn’t accepting the full responsibility of annexing the Aldarra and Montaine neighborhoods.

She recalled previous annexations by the city of Issaquah.

“We accepted the pluses or minuses for those annexations,” Barber said.

Sammamish isn’t legally obligated to help the Fall City fire department. The Sammamish council could opt to annex the neighborhoods and leave Fall City’s fire department in the lurch, without even the $119,000 it offered in the dead proposal.

In previous years, councilmen from Sammamish said the city’s annexations wouldn’t cause financial problems for Fall City, but they never specified exactly how they would avoid said problems, nor did they sign any kind of contract or pass any kind of formal resolution on the matter.

Staff from EFR are working on drafting other proposals to help Fall City, which the EFR board would review in June.

J.B. Wogan: 392-6434, ext. 247, or jbwogan@isspress.com.

Snoqualmie Fire Department responded to a fatal heart attack at a home in downtown Snoqualmie April 12. 

Eastside Fire & Rescue and Bellevue Paramedics assisted with the call to Southeast Beta Street, where a 46-year-old man had suffered a “massive heart attack,” according to a fire department official. 

The man was pronounced dead on the scene.

The department responds one or two fatal cardiac arrests in Snoqualmie each year, the official said. 

Here are the rest of the week’s reports from the fire department:

4/09/10 No calls

4/10/10

6:42 p.m. Snoqualmie emergency medical technicians, or EMTs, responded to the Snoqualmie Ridge area for a medical call. The patient was evaluated and then transported to Seattle Children’s by a private ambulance.

6:53 p.m. Snoqualmie and Fall City EMTs were dispatched to the Snoqualmie Casino for a medical call. The patient was treated and then transported to Overlake Medical Center by a private ambulance.

4/11/10 No calls

4/12/10

3:50 p.m. Snoqualmie EMTs were assisted by Eastside Fire & Rescue and Bellevue Paramedics on the scene of a medical call on Southeast Beta Street.

5:11 p.m. Snoqualmie firefighters responded to Cascade View Elementary for an automatic fire alarm. With the assistance of school district maintenance, the alarm was traced back to a malfunctioning HVAC unit. Maintenance will call a technician for service.

4/13/10

6:55 a.m. Snoqualmie EMTs responded to the Snoqualmie Casino for a 35-year-old employee with chest pain. Patient was evaluated and transported to Snoqualmie Valley Hospital by Snoqualmie’s aid car.

4/14/10

5:11 p.m. Snoqualmie EMTs responded to the Snoqualmie Casino for a 46-year-old female with dizziness. Patient was evaluated and taken home by her husband to rest.

4/15/10

4:30 a.m. Snoqualmie EMTs responded to Oakmont Avenue Southeast for a 46-year-old female feeling dizzy. Patient was evaluated and transported to Snoqualmie Valley Hospital by Snoqualmie’s aid car.

Eastside Fire & Rescue officials proposed public relations effort was met with scrutiny and support when presented at the agency’s March 11 board meeting.

The EFR board of directors reviewed a list of the agency’s 2010 goals, including its top one: to “increase the number of and quality of public relations programs in the community.”

Board member Don Gerend said he was concerned about unnecessarily spending on public relations in a time of tight budgets.

“That’s a red flag for me, because I’ve gone around with Sound Transit on this same issue,” said Gerend, who is also a Sammamish councilman.

The agency’s spokeswoman Josie Williams said any public relations efforts would be at no or very low cost to the agency, and would reap benefits for EFR in the end.

“We find that we can build advocates for what we do,” she said, adding that many people have trouble trusting their governments today. “They don’t really know what we do. We spend money. They know that.”

Building networks through social media is a key component of EFR’s strategy, she said.

Within the past year, EFR has started a Twitter account and Facebook page, and redesigned its Web site.

At the same time, the agency will continue its traditional public relations efforts as well, such as firefighters volunteering their time to attend local high school football games to make EFR more visible in the community.

Many members of the board voiced support for some degree of marketing.

“I recommend that we include public relations announcements to make sure that Eastside Fire & Rescue is more than squirting water,” said Dee Williamson, a North Bend councilman and representative on the EFR board. “We’re a far deeper agency than most people think a fire department is.”

Maureen McCarry, an Issaquah councilwoman and representative on the EFR board, said she has always been supportive of educating the public on what EFR does well.

McCarry asked that the public relations goal be reclassified from an administrative goal to a goal for Williams. In practical terms, the change makes Williams accountable for meeting those goals, rather than Fire Chief Lee Soptich.

After approving that change, the board voted 8-0 in favor of the agency goals.

J.B. Wogan: 392-6434, ext. 247, or jbwogan@isspress.com.

Eastside Fire & Rescue has filled its fire marshal position — and more.

The EFR board of directors hired Bud Backer, formerly deputy chief of operations at the Woodinville Fire & Life Safety District.

He will take over from his predecessor, Tim Pilling, who is scheduled to retire at the end of the month.

His credentials include serving as interim fire chief and deputy chief of operations for the Woodinville Fire Department between 2000 and 2010. He oversaw a $13.7 million budget there.

His starting salary is $114,691.

Backer was unemployed at the time of the hire.

The Fire Commission at the Woodinville Fire & Life Safety District did not renew Backer’s contract at the end of 2009, along with another deputy chief and the administrative manager.

Griffin said the agency hadn’t figured out the full scope of Backer’s responsibilities, but it would entail more than overseeing fire inspections and making sure buildings meet safety codes.

Backer would be a generalist who held the rank and title of fire marshal, Griffin said.

A combined 19 years of experience leaves agency

Two central figures in Issaquah’s firefighting organization announced their retirement this month.

Tim Pilling, the fire marshal for Eastside Fire & Rescue, and Dave Gray, head financial officer for EFR, both retire at the end of March.

Deputy Fire Chief Jeff Griffin paid tribute to Pilling at the March 11 EFR meeting, pointing out that Pilling was the agency’s first fire marshal.

“He set the tone for future fire marshals,” Griffin said.

Mike Sauerwein, administrative services director for the city of Sammamish, said Pilling was instrumental in establishing the plateau’s Fourth of July celebrations.

“Tim played a huge role in making that a fun and safe event,” Sauerwein said.

Pilling has worked for EFR since the agency formed in 1999. Prior to his time with EFR, he worked for the now defunct Issaquah Fire Department, the city of Issaquah and the city of Bothell.

He became involved in fire protection while volunteering as an emergency medical technician in southern California.

As fire marshal, Pilling was responsible for overseeing inspections to make sure buildings met fire safety codes.

“It’s been an honor. It really has,” he said.

Pilling referenced the cost of fire protection services, something that has come under fire in the past year.

“We’re delivering a Cadillac product at Chevrolet prices,” he said. “It’s going to be my motto until they tell me to shut up.”

Gray’s departure comes without a replacement picked. Gray oversaw the fire protection agency’s budget. He was in charge of a new effort to revise the process by which the EFR board reviewed future spending and revenue.

He said he thought a change in practices made it perfect timing for someone else to take over. Gray has been with EFR for eight years.

“I’m leaving here with more than I brought,” he told the EFR board.

Prior to joining EFR, Gray had experience in the private and public sectors, including as chief accountant for the San Juan County’s Auditor’s Office, as accounting manager for the northwest division of General Foods-Phillip Morris and general manager of Acme Poultry.

J.B. Wogan: 392-6434, ext. 247, or jbwogan@isspress.com.

Eastside Fire & Rescue has filled its fire marshal position — and more.

The EFR board of directors hired Bud Backer, formerly deputy chief of operations at the Woodinville Fire & Life Safety District.

He will take over from his predecessor, Tim Pilling, who is scheduled to retire at the end of the month.

His credentials include serving as interim fire chief and deputy chief of operations for the Woodinville Fire Department between 2000 and 2010. He oversaw a $13.7 million budget there.

His starting salary is $114,691.

Backer was unemployed at the time of the hire.

The Fire Commission at the Woodinville Fire & Life Safety District did not renew Backer’s contract at the end of 2009, along with another deputy chief and the administrative manager.

Griffin said the agency hadn’t figured out the full scope of Backer’s responsibilities, but it would entail more than overseeing fire inspections and making sure buildings meet safety codes.

Backer would be a generalist who held the rank and title of fire marshal, Griffin said.

When Eastside Fire & Rescue Chief Lee Soptich finally had a chance to reflect on 2009, one he counts as the most stressful of any in his 24 years as a fire chief, he said it was a mixed bag.

“It was the best of years and the worst of years for me,” Soptich said.

Despite the danger of layoffs and the unpleasantness of intra-agency conflict, EFR had a good year in terms of responding to emergencies, he said.

The partners who fund EFR, including Issaquah, were scrambling to address drops in revenue from sales tax and the frozen real estate market; they asked the agency not increase the cost of fire protection for 2010, despite likely cost increases from employee salaries and benefits.

But year-end data shows that firefighters are responding to calls faster, expensive fires were down from 2008, the agency did not exceed its overtime budget for staffing firefighters and no firefighters suffered career-ending injuries.

Soptich said the agency, which formed in 1999, has never had a career-ending injury. Nonetheless, it’s one of his top priorities every year.

With the help of cost-cutting measures proposed by the local firefighters union, the agency also avoided any layoffs.

Soptich said EFR has never laid off a firefighter. Before EFR formed, when he was fire chief of King County Fire District 10, he did lay off 13 nonfirefighter employees between 1996 and 1997. 

Response times

Kevin Bryson, data analyst for EFR, published a report showing that EFR firefighters have steadily improved their response times since January 2008.

Response times measure the time it takes between receiving a 911 call to firefighters suiting up and leaving the fire station.

In January 2008, firefighters met the agency’s standard about 60 percent of the time for 731 calls.

A year later, firefighters met the agency’s standard about 67.5 percent of the time for 745 calls. In December 2009, firefighters met the standard about 88 percent of the time.

From January to December 2009, firefighters’ average response time dropped 14 seconds for daytime emergency medical services calls, 12 seconds for nighttime emergency medical services calls, 20 seconds for daytime fire-related calls and 22 seconds for nighttime fire-related calls.

In a memo to employees within EFR, Bryson suggested that firefighters’ times improved as they became aware of their performance and started competing with one another to respond to calls faster.

EFR firefighters had a history of not meeting agency standards for response times.

Part of the problem, according to EFR officials, had to do with an unrealistic one-size-fits-all standard.

So, in July 2009, EFR established a more nuanced system of standards that reflected the practical differences between responding to a nighttime or daytime call.

Officials at EFR also say there is an inevitable lag for fire-related calls where firefighters need to don protective suits before leaving the station, so two standards identify responses with and without protective suits.

The previous standard required that firefighters responding to a call must leave the fire station within 90 seconds of receiving a call, 90 percent of the time.

In 2008, EFR’s actual turnout time was 146 seconds 90 percent of the time.

Bryson’s data shows improvement using the old or new standard. While the standards are more forgiving, firefighters are responding faster, too. 

Less expensive fires

The monetary losses incurred by fires were down in 2009, though you might as well chalk it up to luck, according to Wes Collins, EFR deputy chief.

Collins stressed that cutting down on expensive fires may not have anything to do with EFR’s performance in a given year.

“Tomorrow, Costco could burn down,” Collins said, pointing to an example where a single incident could inflate the amount of monetary losses due to fires.

He said it’s possible that EFR saw less expensive fires last year because people were quicker to dial 911 this year, or the buildings that had fires were less valuable than the year before.

Whatever the reason, fires this year caused $383,013 less in damages, down about 13.9 percent from 2008. 

Overtime was within budget

The agency also spent $70,000 less than it expected in overtime for staffing firefighters. EFR’s 2009 budget had $600,000 set aside for this purpose, but the agency spent $530,000.

Soptich said it’s a qualified success, since the agency had set $480,000 as a goal, and overspent that target.

The agency promoted a lieutenant to captain, making him a floating position that could fill in gaps and avoid overtime. Firefighters receive 1.5 times normal pay when working overtime.

EFR’s 2010 budget anticipates spending far less on overtime in 2010, setting aside $395,000.

If the agency pulls it off, it would mean a 26 percent reduction from 2009.

J.B. Wogan: 392-6434, ext. 247, or jbwogan@isspress.com. Comment at www.snovalleystar.com.

Following up on goals set in January, Eastside Fire & Rescue is in the process of uploading public records to its Web site in an effort to improve transparency.

Debbie Gober-Beneze, EFR’s executive administrative assistant, said five years’ worth of board meeting minutes are now on the Web site. Residents can read how their elected officials voted on fire protection policy issues dating back to 2004.

Leadership within EFR met in January to talk about the agency’s future. One goal that came out of the meeting was improved transparency and accessibility of public records.

Gober-Beneze said she is working on uploading some of the agency’s core documents, in addition to the meeting minutes. One is the “standard of cover,” which outlines the fire protection agency’s expectations about fire and emergency responses. The standard of cover includes how quickly firefighters are supposed to respond to a call. An annual performance report on how often firefighters met those expectations will be available.

Gober-Beneze is also uploading the interlocal agreement, the agency’s governing documents, which outline everything from who the partners are in EFR to how partners fund the agency.

These new updates follow a complete revamping of EFR’s Web site and the creation of both an EFR Twitter account and EFR Facebook group, all of which happened in 2009.

The agency also publishes an annual report and is scheduled to publish its 2009 annual report in April.

EFR provides emergency medical response and fire protection to local residents in Sammamish, Issaquah, North Bend, Carnation, Preston, May Valley, Tiger Mountain and Wilderness Rim.

To see EFR’s new Web site, go to www.eastsidefire-rescue.org.

Eastside Fire & Rescue Board of Directors has new dates and times for its public meetings. The board will meet at 4 p.m. on the second Thursday of each month.

The board’s regional and personnel subcommittee will meet at 4 p.m. the first Monday of each month.

The board’s finance and operations subcommittee will meet at 4 p.m. the third Tuesday of each month.

All three are open public meetings at EFR’s headquarters at 175 Newport Way Northwest in Issaquah.

Eastside Fire & Rescue has published new dates and times for its public meetings.

EFR’s Board of Directors passed a resolution Feb. 11 accepting the scheduling changes.

The agency provides emergency medical response and fire protection to residents in Sammamish, Issaquah, North Bend, Carnation, Preston, May Valley, Tiger Mountain and Wilderness Rim.

The board’s regional and personnel subcommittee is scheduled to meet at 4 p.m. on the first Monday of each month.

The board itself is scheduled to meet at 4 p.m. on the second Thursday of each month.

The board’s finance and operations subcommittee is scheduled to meet at 4 p.m. on the third Tuesday of each month.

All three are open public meetings at EFR’s headquarters at 175 Newport Way N.W., Issaquah.

In an effort to increase transparency and accessibility of public records, Eastside Fire & Rescue is uploading public records to its Web site.

Residents can now read how their elected officials voted on fire protection policy issues dating back to 2004.

Five years’ worth of board meeting minutes are now on the Web site, according to Debbie Gober-Beneze, EFR’s executive administrative assistant.

Leadership within EFR set the goal of improving transparency and accessibility of public records during a meeting in January to discuss the agency’s future.

EFR provides emergency medical response and fire protection to residents in Sammamish, Issaquah, North Bend, Carnation, Preston, May Valley, Tiger Mountain and Wilderness Rim.

Gober-Beneze said she is working on uploading some of the agency’s core documents, in addition to the meeting minutes. One is the “standard of cover,” which outlines the fire protection agency’s expectations about fire and emergency responses. The standard of cover includes how quickly firefighters are supposed to respond to a call. An annual performance report on how often firefighters met those expectations will also be available.

Gober-Beneze is also uploading the interlocal agreements which outline everything from who the partners are in EFR to how partners fund the agency.

These new updates follow a complete revamping of EFR’s Web site and the creation of both an EFR Twitter account and EFR Facebook group, all of which happened in 2009.

The agency also publishes an annual report and is scheduled to publish its 2009 annual report in April.

To see EFR’s new Web site, go to www.eastsidefire-rescue.org.

Eastside Fire & Rescue officials took strides at their first board meeting to make good on promises of change.

In his report to the EFR board, Finance Chief Dave Gray said he would make budget reports more detailed.

“Prior years, I have worked to limit the number of line items, as I felt there were so many it made the budget unmanageable,” he wrote in his January report. “We will be attempting to reach a balance between too much information and enough detail to achieve meaningful control.”

Gray also said that his finance team would meet with finance experts at other partner agencies to see if there are ways to report EFR’s financial information in a more user-friendly format.

The agency’s primary duty is to provide emergency medical response and fire protection to Issaquah, Preston, Sammamish, North Bend, Carnation, May Valley, Tiger Mountain and Wilderness Rim.

Representatives from the cities of Issaquah, Sammamish and North Bend, plus King County fire districts 10 and 38, met Jan. 9 to discuss the interlocal fire agency’s future. They resolved to work on making it more efficient and transparent, and to communicate better with each other.

Issaquah and Sammamish requested to have better information related to EFR’s budget.

The Jan. 14 EFR board meeting also featured a new activity where board members could make open comments. North Bend representative Dee Williamson had proposed it as a way to clear the air about rumors and to generate honest dialogue among board members.

J.B. Wogan: 392-6434, ext. 247, or jbwogan@isspress.com.

What began with promises to tell the truth, even if that truth was ugly or hurtful, ended with a hug.

Sammamish Mayor Don Gerend spontaneously rose from his seat and embraced Fire Chief Lee Soptich, provoking applause from a packed room in Issaquah’s Gibson Hall Jan. 9.

The hug came after almost eight hours of talks with stakeholders in Eastside Fire & Rescue. The sometimes tense conversations revolved around a few key issues: the job stability and morale of local firefighters, the tone and honesty of communication between elected officials, and the budgetary practices of EFR.

The agency’s primary duty is to provide emergency medical response and fire protection to Issaquah, Sammamish, Preston, North Bend, Carnation, May Valley, Tiger Mountain and Wilderness Rim. Nothing about the way firefighters operate on a day-to-day basis was subject to debate or criticism.

Instead, elected representatives from three cities and two King County fire districts met to mend the way they behave and communicate, and to determine whether the partnership should continue in its current form. The city of Sammamish, which is conducting a financial analysis of its current fire protection model, was at the forefront of the discussion.

The Sammamish City Council passed a resolution in April 2009 saying that it would explore other ways of providing fire protection. The FCS Group, a city consultant, is currently updating a 2006 financial study of fire protection options.

That resolution, several lone dissenting votes in recent months by Sammamish representatives and Sammamish’s opposition to expansion proposals led to the Jan. 9 meeting.

Ron Pedee, chairman of the EFR board of directors, said it was essential to know whether Sammamish intended to leave the fire agency. He talked about the role of being a partner and how that connoted an owner’s mentality, not a renter’s one.

Scott Percival, vice president of the firefighters’ labor union, added that firefighters in Sammamish were concerned about the repeated talk of layoffs in recent years. The constant threat of losing one’s job was affecting firefighter morale, he said.

But Sammamish wasn’t blamed for all of EFR’s problems.

“I’m hearing that Sammamish is the only one unhappy about the funding model. I don’t believe that’s really true,” said North Bend Mayor Ken Hearing. “I don’t believe anyone is really happy with the funding model.”

Eileen Barber, an Issaquah representative, said EFR needed to produce budget proposals with more detailed information, including year-to-year comparisons for better context.

Gerend, now a member of the EFR board, said he would like to see EFR’s agenda items include explanatory sections, so board members have a better understanding of what they’re scheduled to vote for at meetings.

Tom Odell, another Sammamish representative on the EFR board, said meeting minutes need to be more descriptive.

Those comments and more were condensed into a list of action items with loose deadlines for early 2010. Some of the highlights included:

• Re-examine and more clearly define what it means to be a board member and partner of EFR.
• Make public documents, like archived budgets and EFR’s interlocal agreement, accessible online.
• Review the current funding formula and other funding methods proposed in past years.
• Keep EFR apprised of all annexation proposals.
• Establish a time at EFR’s monthly meetings for board members to raise new questions or concerns.

The EFR board meetings also experienced a scheduling shift in 2010. To avoid conflicts with City Council meetings, EFR will now meet at 4 p.m. the second Thursday of every month. Meetings are open to the public and take place at 175 Newport Way N.W., Issaquah. Read the minutes of a recent meeting at www.eastsidefire-rescue.org. Click on “Meeting Minutes” under the “About Us” tab.

J.B. Wogan: 392-6434, ext. 247, or jbwogan@isspress.com.

Sammamish’s two representatives, Mayor Don Gerend and City Councilman Lee Fellinge, voted against the budget because it left too much unresolved.

“Lee and I dissented because we felt it wasn’t in balance and we thought that’s what the council would like us to do,” Gerend said at the Sammamish City Council meeting later that same night.

At the time of the meeting, the EFR was still in negotiations with the firefighters’ union to find ways of driving down labor costs for 2010. When the board voted 6-2 in favor of the budget, it did so with the understanding that the EFR administration would need to tap $300,000 in reserve funds and hope the labor union would help make up the remaining deficit.

Gerend and Fellinge were the only board members who expressed reservations about passing the budget.

“I felt awkward being the only one asking questions” Gerend said, adding that as a newcomer filling in for board regular Jack Barry, he had to get up to speed on complex, time-consuming fire protection issues in too short a time (about two days). He said he wished the board packet, which contained a breakout of the budget line items and cost comparisons from 2008 and 2009, had an explanatory section to give the numbers some context.

“You pretty much are taking them on faith,” Gerend said.

EFR is an interlocal fire agency that covers Sammamish, Issaquah, North Bend, Carnation, May Valley, Preston, Tiger Mountain and Wilderness Rim. Three cities and two King County Fire Districts have seats on EFR’s eight-person policy-making board.

In November, the board passed the revenue side of its budget, which came out to about $20.5 million. The 2010 budget shows no increase to the partners, though the expense budget grew by about $482,000. A variety of redistribution measures, including shrinking the equipment replacement fund and dipping into reserve funds, made it possible not to raise costs to partners.

Fellinge, who was sitting in on his last EFR meeting before stepping down as a councilman and Sammamish representative on fire issues, said the budget needed more dramatic reforms.

“It’s not a balanced budget, of course. We’re using reserves,” Fellinge said. “I just don’t see any changes in the continuing cost structure that say we’re not going to see the same problems in 2011.”

EFR Director Dee Williamson (North Bend) rejected Fellinge’s characterization that the budget was unbalanced, noting that this situation is what a reserve fund is for.

Gerend, as he scrutinized the budget, was concerned in particular with the item that called for EFR to spend $395,000 on overtime pay. If the agency pulls it off, that would mean a roughly 34 percent reduction from the $600,000 the agency has spent on average prior to 2009.

“It’s tough. It’s a difficult goal. We believe we can bring it down really close to this,” Deputy Chief Jeff Griffin said.

Griffin noted that new hires and a promotion of one lieutenant to floating captain had resulted in some cost savings in overtime pay. He said the agency was likely to spend less than $500,000 in 2009.

Better oversight or micromanaging?

Sammamish Mayor Don Gerend voiced a concern over the way the EFR board empowers Fire Chief Lee Soptich to spend the annual budget.

Gerend was sitting in for Jack Barry, who was out of town for the Dec. 8 meeting. The wording in the motion gives the chief the authority to spend up to about $20.9 million for 2010 operations. Gerend said the EFR board should set a limit to what the chief can spend without board approval. He referenced Sammamish policy, which requires the city Council to approve expenditures of more than $15,000.

In practice, this might mean a greater degree of oversight from the EFR board on the fire agency’s day-to-day operations.

EFR board chairman Ron Pedee said that Gerend’s suggested approach was philosophically at odds with how the board has operated in the past.

“The board’s policy, rather than micromanaging, is to set the policy. You’re suggesting that any variation of $15,000 for any line item would require the board to act,” Pedee said. “Sammamish operates in area where you don’t have a lot of employees and maybe that policy works within that kind of milieu. It hasn’t been our practice.”

John Magee, a board representative from King County Fire District 10, said he would be willing to discuss Gerend’s suggestion about more day-to-day management, but wanted to address it as a separate issue from approving the budget.

J.B. Wogan: 425-392-6434, ext. 247, or jbwogan@isspress.com.

A water tender transports water to a fire not located near a fire hydrant, and is used in EFR’s more rural areas, according to an agency spokeswoman. It also typically carries firefighting equipment, including various hoses and spray nozzles used against different fires.

EFR has accepted bids and expects the new water tender go into service in June 2010. The vehicle will be paid for from EFR’s Equipment Replacement Fund.

The Eastside Fire & Rescue Board of Directors passed a 2010 budget Dec. 8 that hinges on extracting $241,000 in concessions from the firefighter’s union.

Sammamish’s two representatives, Mayor Don Gerend and City Councilman Lee Fellinge, voted against the budget because it left too much unresolved.

“Lee and I dissented because we felt it wasn’t in balance and we thought that’s what the council would like us to do,” Gerend said at the Sammamish City Council meeting later that same night.

At the time of the meeting, the EFR was still in negotiations with the firefighters’ union to find ways of driving down labor costs for 2010. When the board voted 6-2 in favor of the budget, it did so with the understanding that the EFR administration would need to tap $300,000 in reserve funds and hope the labor union would help make up the remaining deficit.

Gerend and Fellinge were the only board members who expressed reservations about passing the budget.

“I felt awkward being the only one asking questions” Gerend said, adding that as a newcomer filling in for board regular Jack Barry, he had to get up to speed on complex, time-consuming fire protection issues in too short a time (about two days). He said he wished the board packet, which contained a breakout of the budget line items and cost comparisons from 2008 and 2009, had an explanatory section to give the numbers some context.

“You pretty much are taking them on faith,” Gerend said.

EFR is an interlocal fire agency that covers Sammamish, Issaquah, North Bend, Carnation, May Valley, Preston, Tiger Mountain and Wilderness Rim. Three cities and two King County Fire Districts have seats on EFR’s eight-person policy-making board.

In November, the board passed the revenue side of its budget, which came out to about $20.5 million. The 2010 budget shows no increase to the partners, though the expense budget grew by about $482,000. A variety of redistribution measures, including shrinking the equipment replacement fund and dipping into reserve funds, made it possible not to raise costs to partners.

Fellinge, who was sitting in on his last EFR meeting before stepping down as a councilman and Sammamish representative on fire issues, said the budget needed more dramatic reforms.

“It’s not a balanced budget, of course. We’re using reserves,” Fellinge said. “I just don’t see any changes in the continuing cost structure that say we’re not going to see the same problems in 2011.”

EFR Director Dee Williamson (North Bend) rejected Fellinge’s characterization that the budget was unbalanced, noting that this situation is what a reserve fund is for.

Gerend, as he scrutinized the budget, was concerned in particular with the item that called for EFR to spend $395,000 on overtime pay. If the agency pulls it off, that would mean a roughly 34 percent reduction from the $600,000 the agency has spent on average prior to 2009.

“It’s tough. It’s a difficult goal. We believe we can bring it down really close to this,” Deputy Chief Jeff Griffin said.

Griffin noted that new hires and a promotion of one lieutenant to floating captain had resulted in some cost savings in overtime pay. He said the agency was likely to spend less than $500,000 in 2009.

J.B. Wogan: 425-392-6434, ext. 247, or jbwogan@isspress.com.

Local firefighters raised more than $20,000 for children with muscular dystrophy as part of this year’s Fill the Boot campaign.

The annual effort is part of a national campaign run by firefighters that usually happens Labor Day weekend.

This year, firefighters from Eastside Fire & Rescue solicited donations on two separate days this summer, walking around central locations in Issaquah, Sammamish and North Bend. 

They raised $20,840 for the Muscular Dystrophy Association, which has set aside the money for a summer camp in North Bend for children with muscular dystrophy. The money will cover the cost of going to camp, as well as some equipment needs at the camp, according to Ryan Anderson, a spokesman for EFR.

EFR officials recently presented awards recognizing the donations to Issaquah’s Dave Kappler, Sammamish’s Lee Fellinge and North Bend’s Dee Williamson, who accepted on behalf of their respective cities.