A2 The Reflector August 12, 2015News

informed the district that the city was exercising an option in its six-year contract, no-tifying CCFR officials that it would withdraw from the agreement on Jan. 1, 2016, one year prior to the expira-tion of the deal.

Battle Ground then sent out a Request For Proposal and CCFR and Fire District 3 each submitted proposals by the June 1 deadline. In July, Battle Ground officials announced they would enter into negotia-tions with Fire District 3 on a new contract, which is expect-ed to be reached this fall and go into effect on Jan. 1, 2016.

In addition to the loss of the Battle Ground contract, which was worth $1.9 million in an-nual revenue, CCFR’s request to establish a Regional Fire Authority (RFA) was defeated by voters within the district’s boundaries in a April 28 Spe-cial Election.

Bartel said it would be un-

fair for anyone to perceive that the decision to terminate Mason had anything to do with the loss of the Battle Ground contract or the defeat of the RFA proposal.

“By no means was this a reflec-tion on him for us losing the Bat-tle Ground contract,’’ Bartel said. “We were talking about making this change for a year or two. We didn’t want to make a change right in the middle of this whole pro-cess and negatively affect Battle Ground’s decision or the RFA. Now that we’re through those things, we feel this was the appro-priate time to make a change.’’

Bartel and other CCFR offi-cials heaped heavy praise on Ma-son for his time with the district.

“This is not a knock or a neg-ative against Dennis Mason,’’ Bartel said. “I’ve worked with Dennis. He has a ton of talent and he’s well respected in the community and in the other fire districts. He has a long history of working for the citizens of this area. For the past year and a half he was talking about it was time for him to retire, but that he just couldn’t make up his mind when he wanted to do it.’’

Mason didn’t return a voice-

mail message left by The Re-flector for comment on this sto-ry. Bartel said Mason’s last day would be Aug. 31.

“We’d like to thank Dennis for 30-some years of loyal and contiguous service,’’ said CCFR spokesman Tim Dawdy. “He re-ally shaped the fire district and what it is today. He was a tru-ly great fire chief and leader. He will truly be missed by the firefighters and commissioners. They just believed it was time for a change.’’

CCFR Division Chief Shaun Ford recently appeared before the La Center City Council, an-nouncing the layoffs. Ironically, Ford is one of those who will be departing the district, also on Aug. 30. some of the dismissed CCFR personnel will be allowed to continue with the district until the end of the calendar year.

Despite the bad news, Ford said there is one beacon of hope.

“the rest of the (CCFR) dis-trict is growing, so we can get back to where we were sooner rather than later … but it will take a while,” Ford said. “And it will hurt right now.”

Ford assured the La Center councilors that fire and rescue services in the remaining CCFR district – which includes the cit-ies of La Center, Ridgefield and Woodland – will not be disrupt-ed or diminished by the fire dis-trict’s layoffs. That pledge was repeated to The Reflector by both Bartel and Dawdy, who visited the Woodland City Council at its meeting on Aug. 3.

Fire District 3 Assistant Chief scott sorenson indicated that his district was sensitive to the plight of those CCFR firefighters look-ing for work. He said Fire Dis-

trict 3 officials provided CCFR leadership with lateral applica-tion materials for the firefighters affected by the layoffs.

“We’re sensitive to that and we’re trying to work with them to work something out,’’ Sorenson said. “The application period is now open. We don’t have a con-tract yet (with Battle Ground); we’re still in negotiations for that, so everything we are doing is preliminary.’’

sorenson said his district was accepting the lateral applications only from CCFR firefighters.

“We will consider their train-ing and their experience in their existing position and compare that to what our requirements are and then process the applications accordingly,’’ said Sorenson, who is filling in for Fire District 3 Chief Steve Wrightson. Wright-son is recovering from surgery and is expected to be out for about eight more weeks.

Leadership from both Fire District 3 and CCFR pledged to make the transition of the Battle Ground fire service as seamless as possible.

Bartel said the CCFR commis-sioners would discuss the plan to replace Mason at their next meet-ing (Wed., Aug. 12) and then he hoped an interim chief would be named by the following meeting on Aug. 26. He said it was the commissioners’ desire to have a permanent replacement in place within six months and he didn’t believe the interim chief would be the next permanent chief.

“We want to take our time and do the process right,’’ Bar-tel said. “We will take as much time as we need to the select the right person for the long-term position.’’

Fire & RescueContinued from page A1

ChairContinued from page A1

this new council together to do some positive things,’’ he said.

Dalesandro reached out to Boldt shortly after the results were made available Thursday afternoon, leaving his fellow can-didate a voicemail message.

“I did leave him a voicemail,’’ Dalesandro said. “I congratulated him. He did run a classy cam-paign that was all positive as far as I could tell he was all about the issues and his record. I would love to get his thoughts about joining together in a pledge in that spirit moving forward.’’

Part of his message for change was Dalesandro’s desire to change the recently negative po-litical culture in Clark County, which he believed had an impact on the race for the chair position.

“I’m sure it’s why turnout was so low,’’ Dalesandro said. “I think we have an opportuni-ty in this race to make this dis-tinction for ourselves but also for our supporters not to personally attack the other side. I think we have the opportunity to change the politics in Clark County. We have to change the culture. I look forward to chatting with Marc and doing that.’’

Boldt told The Reflector that he was interested in participat-ing in that type of campaign with Dalesandro.

“It’s going to be a good race,’’ Boldt said. “Mike left a message for me, essentially the tone of it

was that he wanted to talk about what we’re for and not that we’re against the other person. I look forward to a really good positive campaign, which is what I think people are looking for.’’

Madore was conciliatory in a Friday post on his Facebook page.

“Only the top two candidates advance to the General Election in November,’’ Madore wrote. “That means that our existing Clark County leadership team will re-main intact and will be joined by two new members in January.

“I will continue to fulfill the responsibility as your chairman this year to ensure that our citizen team is successful making wise choices with the public resourc-es entrusted to us,’’ Madore said. “Flawed and fallible as we all are, we each serve at your pleasure. I will continue to rise each morn-ing, salute, and report for duty Sir! Then go to work doing my best to help our team accomplish great things for our community. Our job is to faithfully serve our bosses (that’s you) by diligently working together toward a pos-itive vision for the future, with courtesy, honor, and good will.’’

There were 250,720 voters reg-istered in Clark County prior to the Aug. 4 Primary Election. As of Thursday, 64,423 ballots had been counted for a turnout of 25.69 per-cent. The election will be certified on Tue., Aug. 18. The first chair term is through 2018, after that terms will be for four years.

To view results from the Aug. 4 Primary Election, go to www.clark.wa.gov/elections/results/ .

Harpe introduced them as Mon-ster and Rockstar.

“We're going to eat them and dad didn't want to waste the good names,” he said.

Preparing goats for the fair is hard work, and the weeks lead-ing up to the event get stressful, Harpe said, but they’re reward-ing. His favorite thing about rais-ing goats is showing them and the stress disappears once he ar-rives, he said.

When he has downtime, Harpe said he takes time to explore the other parts of the fair, as well as the various other livestock categories.

“It's nice to see what the community is doing,” he said. “It's kinda cool to see kids us-ing their imaginations to put stuff together. And it's nice see-ing people put work into some things like, just, goats, horses, pigs cows, sheep. Putting work into the animals, trying to make them better quality.

“It's a fun time,” he said. “It's a lot of work you put into it and it's nice that people appreciate it.”

FairContinued from page A1

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