January 5, 2023 Shelton Mason County Journal | ![]() |
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Former Fire District 12 chief Mike [Brown speaks to Mason County Fire
District 12 commissioners during public comment at the regular meeting
Dec. 27 in Matlock.‘JournaI photo Matt Baide
Fire 12: Anger simmers
continued from page
about it and it’s illegal to pay her af-
ter she’s fired. So they’ve been paying
her the whole year, there’s so many
things.”
Brown pointed out the fire district
did not host a budget hearing open to
the public before passing it at‘a spe-
cial meeting Nov. 30.
“There’s no legal arm to hold these
people accountable,” Mike Brown
said. “I want to talk to my senator
because the state needs to look at
putting something out so if this hap- v
pens to some other district in the fu—
ture, somebody can stop it. Right now,
they’re just bleeding the taxpayers’
money. It’s terrible. They bought an
ambulance, a second ambulance, they
didn’t need 'it. We do not transport
and even if we did transport, you can
transport with the one we have.” .
Brown said that no other fire de-
partments in Mason County want to
work with Fire District 12 because of
fire chief Walswo'rth.
“They’re acting surprised. We know
more than they do,” Brown said. “That
is terrible and it’s all open public re-
cords. I’ve tried to talk to commission»
er Pais several times. We had been
out two years, clear out to'2020, we
were still getting calls from vendors
because these guys hadn’t paid for a
year, they’re a year behind. I call com-
missioner Pais and tell him.”
' Fire District 12 is looking for a
new chief while Walsworth remains
the chief but is not paid a salary as of
Sunday.
The commissioners reported one
person applied for the fire chief posi-
tion, but they pulled themselves out of
the rlmning. This is not true, accord-
ing to Greg Schroder, the person who
applied to be fire chief. Schroder sent
an email applying for the position of ,
fire chief on Sept. 26.
After not receiving a reply, Schro-
der followed up on his application'on
Oct. 25 with another email. He re-
ceived a reply to his email application
from the admin@mcfd12.com on Oct.
25, stating “received, thank you.”
n
“I already knew about the FD 12
mess with the financials and all the
problems they were in and I thought,
well, this would be a good opportunity.
It would tell me how clean they are,”
Schroder told the Journal. “If they
reached out for a lifeline, get a new
chief in there, and if you were clean,
you could switch it around and it could
be a misunderstanding or this or that.
It could be an experience and this
thing could have blown away. They
didn’t do that. I truly believe they flew
the position just not to hire it.”
Schroder said he attended the com-‘
munity meeting in December and met
some community members.
“The only thing I can report on is
my dealings with them, that they re—
sponded back to my email, my appli—
cation and I’m still waiting to hear,”
Schroder said. “As far as them reach-
ing out to me or telling me I didn’t
qualify, I know I would qualify. I’ve
been in the‘fire service for 33 years.”
Schroder’s 33 years of experience
began in 1979 as a seasonal firefighter
for the California Department of For-
estry. His most recent fire service was .
as battalion chief and training officer
for the Wilton Fire Protection District
in Wilton, California. He, said he is
still interested in.being the fire chief
. of Fire District 12. .
V “They need to hire who they need
to hire, but on the other side, if you’ve
got'people applying for a position, you
need to interview for the position and
since you did receive and acknowledge
their application, you should probably
at least do a phone interview,” Schrod-
er said. “They haven’t even done that.”
Brown said the community» asked
if he would step back into the role of
chief, so the residents of Fire District
12 have options for a new fire chief.
“The whole thing is out of control.
They need to step down, they need to
let the public have their department
back,” Brown said. “They wouldn’t
let anybody in until 2 o’clock. That
is so unsatisfactory. This is not their
fire department. They work for the
people of this district. That is their
bosses.”
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