Kirkland firefighters to city: Change station siting plan or don’t build at all

Published 5:00 am Friday, January 30, 2015

Kirkland firefighters told the City Council to either make changes to the proposed fire station siting plan or give the money for the new station back to taxpayers.

Megan Keys, accompanied by roughly 30 other Kirkland firefighters, read a letter addressed to the council stating that the proposed siting plan “contradicts the Fire Department Strategic Plan and Standard of Cover study recommendations,” though the letter does not state specific examples.

“The Kirkland Firefighters cannot support it,” the letter reads. “The plan simply moves service, it does not improve it.”

The letter further calls on the city to sit down with all “stakeholders.”

“With the absence of a plan that meets the recommendations of the Strategic plan we recommend giving the citizens their money back,” the letter concludes.

Meanwhile, the city says it has been trying to figure out just what changes firefighters want, other than adding more staff.

The council meeting included a presentation by Kirkland Fire Department Chief Kevin Nalder, who attempted to address concerns raised by the union as to the way in which the new proposed dual station option would affect service. Nalder argued that the new station would offer quicker response times to more places while offering minimal increase in workload for several firefighters who would be moved around during the relocation.

There are six firefighters currently at Station 27. Under the proposed plans, three would be transferred to Station 24, the same staffing size as all other stations in the city except for one. The city believes that while this means fewer firefighters at Station 27, the coverage area would also be divided with Station 24.

Nalder admitted that under this plan, six firefighters would take on an additional 205 incidents, but this could be solved by adjusting the station response boundaries for Station 21 north to Northeast 124th Street.

Following the presentation, council members expressed their continued support for the dual station option, with council member Dave Asher calling it the “logical conclusion.”

“It seems to me that the direction we gave in November is supported by the conclusion as I can see it,” he said. “I just don’t see where the confusion seems to be coming from the facts that I’m seeing. If someone else has the facts I’d love to see them.”

Deputy Mayor Penny Sweet said closer examination of the facts has made councilmembers more confident in their decision.

“I’m ready to move forward,” she said. “I hope that our citizens can look at this… and understand that our objective is to provide better fire service across the board to our citizens. That’s why we’ve taken it so seriously.”

“I think we’re moving in the right direction,” Council member Doreen Marchione said. “I’m sorry the firefighters didn’t stay to see it (the presentation).”

Continued tension

At the heart of the disagreement between the city and the union is whether or not the city’s proposal to create a new fire station on Northeast 132nd Street would have a negative affect on the effective response force for the Totem Lake and Kingsgate neighborhoods, which are inside Station 27’s current coverage area. The union has insisted this negative impact would be due to the city shuffling existing fire personnel to other stations rather than hiring more.

The city, on the other hand, believes the new station would better allocate personnel and resources and provide better response times by dividing Station 27’s large coverage into two areas.

The union has also brought up the issue of concurrency of calls, which is when a fire station has more than one call to respond to at the same time, saying response time data doesn’t take this into account. Nalder stated that for Station 27 there were 55 such instances during the study’s time period, roughly once a week.

The latest letter read at the council meeting by Keys repeated another accusation by the union.

“The Kirkland City Council should not allow politics, agendas or personal differences to dictate the outcome of the operational effectiveness of the Fire Department or the safety of our citizens,” the letter reads.

Numerous city officials, including Nixon and City Manager Kurt Triplett, have vehemently denied this allegation while turning the same accusation back at the union, which is in the middle of contract negotiations with the city. Triplett has previously told the Reporter that the firefighters and the union have had opportunities to voice their concerns and yet did not do so until around December. Having attended two fire department officer meetings since the first letter was published, one in December and another in January, Triplett said their criticism of the proposed fire siting location has relied on hypothetical situations and anecdotal evidence rather than actual data collected.

“We have not been given a particular reason,” Triplett said.

What has particularly baffled him and other city officials is the most recent letter recommending the city retire the bond levy leftover from Fire District 41 intended to pay for a new station. If they did so, it would result in no new fire station.

The proposed station was originally meant to be built on Big Finn Hill Park to consolidate Station 24 and 25 while closing both stations, something Triplett said never involved hiring more staff.

According to Triplett, there were two union members on the site selection committee and the siting process for determining where the fire station might be located. The recommendations, he said, came from the two year strategic plan, developed by a committee which also had union members on it. The plan concluded a new fire station in Juanita or east Finn Hill was needed.

Triplett said the city’s eventual plan after building the new Station 24 would be to move Station 27 to a new location west of I-405, but before this happens they would need the public to approve a ballot measure for funding.

The apparent conflict between firefighters and the city on the matter went public after Bryan Vadney, president of IAFF Local 2545, sent a letter to the council on Dec. 6 rejecting a proposed domestic violence resolution. At the end of the letter, he included a criticism of the proposed fire station siting plan. This, in turn, elicited a response letter from Kirkland Mayor Amy Walen and Sweet, who originally conceived the domestic violence resolution.

The union further articulated its opposition to the fire station siting plan in a Jan. 6 letter, in which Vadney also claimed that an internal poll conducted by the union revealed the firefighters overwhelming sided with the union. Additionally, the poll showed that roughly 88 percent of firefighters believed the city “is unlikely to change” its mind on the fire station siting and that firefighters’ input had “little value” to them, according to the union.

Council member and former fire commissioner Toby Nixon fired back in letter attacking Vadney, as other city officials have, for bringing union opposition up now rather than before. Additionally, Nixon, who lives in the Kingsgate neighborhood, challenged Vadney to bring up relevant details in his criticism of the proposed location.

Phone calls to Vadney seeking comment were not returned.