The sad spectacle of Baker City’s fire department

Published 12:00 pm Monday, June 26, 2023

The damage done to the Baker City Fire Department, and to the community’s safety, by the misguided proposal of the city manager and city council’s acquiescence in 2022 continues to spread.

In the span of a year, the department has been decimated from a full-service agency that protects citizens from fires and responds to their medical emergencies to one that might actually be vacant for periods.

Interim fire chief Sean Lee told the city council on Thursday, June 22 that the fire station would be empty from 7 a.m. on Sunday, June 25 until the early afternoon, when one firefighter would return from out of town to work alone.

On other days to come, only one firefighter is on the schedule.

Based on the “current staffing and scheduling, it’s impossible to carry out day-to-day operations,” Lee said. “This fire department has to be stabilized. Immediately.”

Councilors responded by boosting the fire budget to hire an additional firefighter and switch three 40-hour-per-week employees to 56-hour, so there will be more people in the station at any given time.

It’s nearly inconceivable that such a vital part of the city’s duties could be reduced to such a debacle.

Worse yet, this was avoidable.

Although the financial challenges that City Manager Jonathan Cannon brought to councilors in March 2022 are real — expenses in the fire department were rising faster than ambulance revenues — the situation was not so dire that it required the city to act precipitously and stop operating ambulances in 2022.

But councilors did so anyway.

After voting 7-0 on May 10, 2022, to direct Cannon to write a proposal for ambulance service to send to Baker County commissioners, who by law are responsible for choosing ambulance providers, the city council reversed that decision two weeks later.

On May 24, 2022, the council voted 4-2, at Councilor Dean Guyer’s suggestion, to not respond. Councilors Joanna Dixon, Johnny Waggoner Sr. and Kenyon Damschen joined Guyer in voting for the motion. Mayor Kerry McQuisten and Councilor Shane Alderson voted no.

The result was that county commissioners, under time pressure that resulted from the city’s announcement that it planned to end ambulance service, hired Metro West, a private ambulance company.

Forgoing the approximately $1 million in yearly revenue the city could have collected from ambulance bills, councilors approved a budget that trimmed the fire staff from 16.25 full-time equivalents to 10.5.

But that was hardly the end of the attrition.

Over the next several months several other firefighters, some of them veterans with more than a dozen years experience, left for other jobs. Two firefighters, Travis Fields and Casey Johnson, said this May that they were disenchanted by the loss of paramedic duties and the excessive overtime, factors they blamed for poor morale.

Lee told councilors Thursday that five people have applied for vacancies, but none meets all the job requirements.

All of which has left the department depleted to a point unimaginable even six months ago.

The prospect, and now the apparent reality, of having a fire station with no firefighters, even for part of a day, is appalling.

Correcting this gross mismanagement will be difficult, but it might be possible to restore the fire department to its former dual role, including operating ambulances.

Councilor Beverly Calder suggested Thursday that city officials meet with their county counterparts, the public and rural fire districts to try to craft a solution. That would likely involve a property tax-funded fire district.

It’s a worthwhile endeavor. The pity is that it’s necessary.