— from Pierrette Guimond —

I have lived on Orcas Island for 23 years now and I have seen a lot of changes. I came here to live in a small community without knowing very little about this place except that I could find a small home at the end of the road.

After working for the airlines as a flight attendant, I was trained in emergency procedures but did not pay too much attention as to what was available here in case of an emergency.

It had never been my priority as I always landed safely; now everything is about being safe and it is great that we have so much more available to us now.

My questions are: Is the best possible use of our money being used to protect us? I have attended the fire department meeting for over 10 years now under three different Chiefs and I was happy to have a local, Kevin O’Brien, being chosen as our new Chief.

Is the Fire Dept along with our volunteers doing a great job? No problem there, we are very lucky—but the next question:

Do we need to give the department as much money as we gave them for the 1999 levy which was for capital expenditures?

We are in good shape with structures and equipment. So why are we building such top-heavy management? Is this really necessary to keep us safe?

Money has been spent on unnecessary expenditures and that is why I am asking questions.

$4,500 a month for a temporary CPA? Why did we not try to find a local person to do this job or give back the accounting to the Auditor like it used to be and a lot cheaper.

Chocolates, greeting cards, pencils, food (lots of it), nice hotels, flying in Chinese food, and shopping at Costco, and being paid for mileage, etc. Why not order from the local store and get a discount and support our local businesses?

So why not ask questions?

This department and the volunteers have done a very good job since the 23 years that I have lived here but now is the time to ask the hard questions: why so much money now ?

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