As the April 25 vote draws close, members of the combined firefighter’s union in Aberdeen and Hoquiam have been getting out to support the proposed creation of a regional fire authority in Central Grays Harbor.
Central Grays Harbor Professional Firefighters Local 315 is very much behind the move, said union Vice President Derek Jensen.
“The union firefighters want this. We’ve been going out in all three cities knocking on people’s doors and saying we want this,” Jensen said. “We think it would be best for communities they serve.”
The move would help create a sustainable organization to protect the residents of the three cities and push back against the mounting call volumes that threaten to overwhelm the capabilities of the individual departments by erasing the organizational boundaries, Jensen said.
“Obviously the union firefighters hope this passes. We think this is good for the citizens and the public,” said Jensen, who serves as an engineer and EMT at the Hoquiam Fire Department. “It keeps getting busier and busier. This will help bridge that gap.”
The consolidation would bring together the departments Aberdeen, Cosmopolis and Hoquiam into an agency detached from any city, funded in the same way the current departments are. That will give the Regional Fire Authority (RFA) the ability to respond faster and more effectively to the huge number of calls around the area, Jensen said.
“This will help a little bit with staffing our rigs more appropriately so we don’t have one person on a fire engine. We’ll at least have two on each engine,” Jensen said. “Utilizing all three departments that are involved — people have different specialties and we can pull that.”
Jensen said the unions consolidated last spring to better support the idea.
“We have been anticipating this RFA. We joined our unions — the Hoquiam union and Aberdeen union merged together,” Jensen said. “We think this will work the best.”
Consolidation is hardly unprecedented — Hoquiam and Aberdeen made a pair of attempts at consolidating in the last year, now adding Cosmopolis to the mix. Across Washington, other agencies have combined into regional fire authorities as a more sustainable model for future operations. Consolidating offers streamlined logistics, as it’s a single agency purchasing gear and backup equipment, rather than three departments all needing their own redundancies.
“Agencies around the state are doing this more and more every day, combining these jurisdictions together to become one,” Jensen said. “Consolidating their resources so, maybe we don’t need another ladder truck in 10 years because Hoquiam has one that’s 10 years old.”
Adding Cosmopolis offers the opportunity to bring the all-volunteer department’s expertise in raising volunteers to the proposed RFA.
“Nothing’s better than hiring the local people that were raised here,” Jensen said.
Jensen said the union was unequivocal in its support of consolidation, creating a better department for the firefighters and more efficient service for the residents of the communities it would serve.
“All of our union firefighters are in support of this,” Jensen said
For information about voting
Check out www.graysharbor.us/government/Auditors/elections.php
Contact Senior Reporter Michael S. Lockett at 757-621-1197 or mlockett@thedailyworld.com.
