— from Norm Stamper —
Recently, I was privileged to work with fellow residents in a comprehensive study of Orcas Island Fire and Rescue: its history, current practices, and future challenges. This effort, led by Art Lange, was thorough, objective, systematic.
We found thoughtful, conscientious oversight by OIFR commissioners, and visionary leadership by Chief O’Brien. We found an agency committed to transparency, fiscal responsibility, and accountability.
Most important, we found an organization whose members, from professional staff to self-sacrificing volunteers, literally save lives.
Almost everyone on the island, it seems, has been touched directly or indirectly by OIFR’s prevention and education efforts, or by its firefighting or emergency medical services. We heard stories of islanders who, but for the rapid, skilled response of OIFR would have perished in a fire or succumbed to a life-threatening medical emergency. Others spoke of the agency’s enviable track record in saving property, and helping to protect and preserve our beautiful and delicate environment.
Evidence of the critical need for the upcoming levy lift may be found at online. Please join me in voting YES on Proposition One!
The assumption that less bureaucracy will impair service is fallacious.I’m sure the volunteers wonder why the tip of the pyramid is raking in all this money. It can’t be good for moral. When a clerk at Verizon, AT&T or Safeco earning peanuts see the CEO’s taking home hundreds of millions they don’t have much incentive to work hard. The volunteers are going to save your home or your life despite the inequity. The logic that a bigger paid staff are going to make things better is just wrong.
To speak to the comment above, morale is not negatively effected by the hard working handful of paid staff who is respected and admired by the firefighters and MET’s, but by non-supportive islanders that count on a timely and educated response from the volunteers, but don’t want to spend the money to keep them safe, educated, and equipment efficient. The money for the levy is needed to maintain the better equipment and facilities that were put into place by the last voted levy.