Originally Posted by chief 8101
I don't know who it was that you heard "admit" to transferring patients to a different ambulance for transport etc but it was not the fire chief. I am the fire chief for that area and unfortunately there is not enough time and room here to explain all the reasons for why things are done a certain way when it comes to EMS transports etc. It boils down to a tiered response system with BLS first responders and ALS transport medic units that come out of cle elum.
Chief, is it not true that an ambulance transfer will take place? I was also there in court. I heard ya'll talking before the hearing, I spoke to you and had hoped to ask you a couple of questions about this issue because I didn't know much about it, but you were distracted and busy I guess because you didn't respond to my hello and hand. I listened very carefully throughout the hearing. The FD's lawyer referenced you as the SME that could speak to the transfer, so if I misspoke to that, ok, but maybe you would care to answer to it now. Because your lawyer admitted it, FS's lawyer beleagered it, States Lawyer brought it up, even Judge Suko brought it up during the FD's redirect. The answer to all those was that YES, people would be transfered to a different ambulance for transport. It is an very central point to this argument. I would make the point that this is a good place to explain why ya'll do things the way you do. Many of the folks affected by your intended actions are on here . . . . There must be a way you can condense the info and help us understand.
All of upper kittitas county works on a tiered response system for EMS calls. The ALS paramedic units operate out of Kittitas County Hospital District 2 and are stationed and based out of Cle Elum. When you call 911 in Kittitas County the call is answered by Kittcom in Ellensburg. They then dispatch the appropriate agencies to the call. For example, if a car wreck occures at MP 61 on I 90, KCFD 8 and KCHD 2 are both dispatched. Depending on the nature of the injuries, KCFD 8 personnel will get on scene and stabilize the patient, package them for transport, and have ready to go into the medic unit upon arrival or put in our aid unit and meet them somewhere between cle elum and the accident scene. We are a strictly volunteer agency and as such we are not licensed to transport and don't have paramedics or drugs etc available. We are a BLS service. If there are more patients than the medic unit can handle, we will and have transported patients to the hospital directly. The medic unit also does not have any four wheel drive vehicles so if the roads are bad we will often transport the patient to a location that the medic unit can access without four wheel drive. This is the same system used throughout upper kittitas county for all fire departments.
As for why the winter rescue equipment is not stored at Stn 83 instead of 82...if we store it at Stn 83 and Stn 83 is not accessible in the winter...what do we do for the calls where we need the equipment for responses out of the Kachess sno park, gold creek sno park, cabin creek sno park, price creek sno parks, or to access the homes in our district that are not accessible with a wheeled vehicle in winter time? We have a responsibility to our residents and taxpayers to have the equipment that they pay for available to respond to calls for them as well, not just people in the crystal springs sno park area.
So, with the equipment at 82, every time it's needed, volunteers have to drive to 82, hook up to the trailer and haul it to where it's needed. Correct? Would it not make sense to store it at 83 where it can be instantly used by volunteers there? As for using it other places, could your trailer not be kept in the snow park and the sleds run onto it by the same volunteers and then hauled to where they are needed?
Maybe I'm missing something here, but I can't see where that reaction time would be one bit longer than the current system. I would also speculate that a small secure fenced in area could be set aside for the trailer's secure storage. I would be curious to know how many people use the various snow parks and compare the response time from each location. I would also think that information could be valuable to you if it proved your point.
Also, those agencies have a responsibility to the people that pay for the winter care of the snowpark, snowmobiliers.
If the winter rescue equipment was stored at Stn 83, then none of the volunteers could access it that respond from other areas of the district. With it being stored at Stn 82, it is easily accessible to all the members of the district and can be taken to where it is needed. If it was stored at Stn 83, it could potentially be faster response to calls in the Crystal Springs area IF the volunteers that live by that station were home to respond, if they were not it would actually make the response times slower and would make the response times slower to every call outside of the crystal springs area. Also, it should ne noted that even though there are 5 sno parks located within KCFD 8, KCFD 8 does not receive a single penny from state parks or the USFS for fire or rescue services provided to those areas. Our budget is entirely made up of grants that we write, dontations, and property taxes from property owners within KCFD 8 of which State Parks and USFS do not pay into. Winter rescue equipment responses are split with approximately 50% being the crystal springs area and the other 50% spread out among the other areas.
There was no land available for the fire dept to use for building the station except for where the station was built. The land is all either federal or state land, ask the snoqualmie pass fire dept how many years it took to get USFS land to build a station on. If we were to build a fire station on the state parks leased land we would have to do it to the new "critical infastructure" standards that the state and county are now requiring for the fire depts. No longer can you get away with a simple garage, they have to meet all the same requirements as full time paid dept buildings do and based on what KCFD 7 has spend on their recent stations it would be 1-1.5 million dollars to build a new station out there.
I also listened closely to this point, because I didn't understand the high estimated cost of a new building. I have no difficulty understanding how it could be regulated into a cost that high now, however when you did build the current building (I won't call it a garage, as I've never seen it) it was stated in court, and the FD's lawyer did not refute the point. that it was built with the consideration and understanding that it would not be accessible in winter. Is this true? If it isn't true, why was this point not argued in court? If it is true, what condition has changed that now makes it imperative to operate this station (is that a correct term? I don't wish to offend) during a time period that the FD initially agreed not to operate it during?
Good question and this is where the USFS likes to play on the misunderstanding that they llike to portray on this point. When the station was first constructed, we could not afford to heat or insulate the building and we could not afford EMS equipment etc to place into the building so it basically acted as a storage facility and housed wildland equipment etc. Also, at the time the building was constructed, the closure order for FS RD 5400 specifically exempted "fire fighting forces and emergency providers in performance of their duties". This to us meant that we were exempt from the closure order and when we needed to use FS RD 5400 in the winter we would be able to do so. Even the ranger at the time agreed with that interpretation, but said "you will need to plow when you receive a call and then respond to it". This didn't make any sense to us and was the basis for the first lawsuit with the USFS on this issue. They then changed the closure order and removed that portion from it, it is now the only closure order in the United States that we can find that no longer has that exemption in it. USFS pulled state parks into the lawsuit and we had an agreement with them to lease some property at the entrance to the sno park to move the station onto and until we could afford to move the station they would provide a "back road" to access our current station. We were all prepared to sign this agreemend between state parks, fire dept, and private property owners that the road would go through and then the USFS bullied state parks into not signing the agreement for the back road at the last minute, once again putting us in a position with no winter access.
Unfortunately the USFS has done a very good job of blackmailing state parks and spinning a bunch of lies that people seem to have bought into on this subject. If the USFS had not lied and backed out of their agreements and promises to the residents and fire dept in this area, none of this would have happened. We have been trying to negotiate in good faith with the USFS for years on this issue and they keep stringing us along and lying and forced us to take court action. None of us wanted to go to court on this issue and fight this battle, but we had no choice. We have given the USFS 5 different alternatives on how to solve this problem and they keep coming up with BS reasons that none of them will work.
I would again raise my above point/question about agreeing in the beginning to operate #83 only when access was possible. I certainly understand first hand how difficult the FS is to deal with and how frustrating it is to accomplish things with ANY entity that is that large. I do however have a real problem with someone telling me that they are doing me harm in the name of the safety of the public. Really? I would echo Judge Suko's question about statistics to show how many times #83 would be used during the time it is now, by agreement, closed due to lack of access. Can you help us with that data? Again, seems like good info for you to have and would help people understand that think the FD's reasoning for tearing up a lane up the groomed trail is BS.
Again, we have given 5 different options on how to solve this problem, some of the solutions involve reusing the side road that the USFS tore out and others involve sending different user groups out of different exits of the sno park onto the trails. State parks has been willing to look at each of these ideas and even supported some of them, but each one gets shut down by the USFS. As for the data on how many calls stn 83 would respond to while closed etc, any of those numbers will be rough approximations as it is impossible to guarantee how many calls for service will come in etc, but we run approximately 100 calls per year...if the station is closed from Dec 1 until April 1, that is five months or approximately 40 calls. Since we are a volunteer dept we cannot guarantee a response from each station for each call, but I would safely say that we are looking at least 20-30 calls that don't get responded to by stn 83 because of the station closure. Part of the real problem is that we are an entirely volunteer department and we are located in an area that is mostly second homes and we have very few full time residents. Two of our full time residents that are EMT's both live next to Stn 83, that is why it is so valuable of a station for us to have in service.
Guess what, we are now back to where we started with putting the road back in that the USFS tore out a few years ago to start this whole battle. This is the road that they agreed to us using as a solution for winter access and then the next year said "well it wasn't in writing so it doesn't matter if there are 20 witnesses to what we said" and then tore the road out two days before we had a meeting set up with them to discuss the issue.
This statement really makes it important to KNOW if ya'll agreed to operate the station (?) with the understanding of no access in winter. It speaks to your credibility, and to the validity of written and non written statements. But in the absence to that information, did you build the (torn out) road or did FS? Was all FS protocol followed? For example, before a shovel full of dirt can be turned over an archeologist must clear the work site area, listing of all material used and impact studies must be completed, statements of conformity to building standards must be met etc. Did that happen? If it didn't I can assure you that FS will not proceed and I can understand them tearing it out.
The road that the USFS tore out had existed for many years, and was constructed long before the fire dept was involved. The road was 95% on private land and only had about 150 feet of it that crossed a small corner of USFS property. USFS approved us improving the road and using it and agreed to that being a long term solution, then in the fall of the next year they changed their mind and tore the road out before we could meet with them (tore it out the end of the week when we had a meeting with them on Monday) and then told us that since it was not in writing their agreement with us didn't count, even with all the witnesses that were there when the agreement was made. The USFS likes to use their red tape and regulations like a weapon at their convenience, they had no problem with a person using a D6 cat up there this year to improve an old skid road without all the studies being done, but tore out an old improved skid road that they had agreed to us using?
I would be more than happy to set up a time to meet with anyone interested at Crystal Springs and show you how and why we operate the fire district the way we do and show you what the different options for a solution have been that we have offerred etc.
We have spent a lot of money and resources to have proper training and equipment available to help out the winter recreation community, and all of us are winter recreationalists....probably none more than me. I have snowmobiled in this area since I was 6 years old and am very involved in snowmobiling and the snowmobile industry....
I can assure you that no one is higher on my list of AWESOME people than a volunteer. Be it Military, Law, Fireman, Police ANYONE that sets aside their time to make my life safer and better deserves all of our admiration. I am also glad that you are an outdoor recreationist and I applaud you for being involved with snowmobiling and the industry, however, as long as you are talking about taking actions that the vast majority of people involved oppose, you are not 'one of us'.
Again, before people jump on the bandwagon of criticizing the fire dept, please take the time to meet with me and see first hand what and why we do things the way we do and have the facts and experience available to make an informed decision on the issues.
I again applaud you for offering to meet with anyone at the site and help present your side, I think that's a great thing for you to do and I admire you for being willing to do it. Have you gone to any snowmobiling clubs and talked to them already? Did I miss your booth at the WSSA show where you could have reached out to a huge section of the snowmobiling community? Have you mailed out any flyers with information about what you feel needs to be done and contacted the people that will be affected by the legal actions you propose, before you walked into court?
It would seem to me, that you have a legal obligation to the FD (which in effect means the people you serve in district 8, correct?) but you state that you are 'one of us', and I would think that would lead you to work with us, instead of grouping us into the pie with FS and State whom you have called "blackmailers" and "liars". And you most certainly did lump us all together when you walked into that court room.
If that wasn't your intention, then you have the floor to make it right. If you didn't give it any thought, shame on you for that.
I assure you, please believe me when I tell you that I assure you, that I completely understand how difficult it is dealing with the FS, but in my eyes, you are so frustrated with them, that you have run over us.
That is why you see the reaction you do on here.
That is why you should have approached us before you threw us under the bus.
I have never used CS snow park.
I don't know any more about you than what you have shared on here (Thank you) but I took a half day off work and passed up dinner with my Wife to come hear for myself what your point was because you had never offered it to me before taking legal action that will, yes it WILL, impact ALLOT of sledders.
One more thing (thank you for reading this far) as a Fireman, I'm pretty sure you enjoy respect from most people. Yeah, I know there's always someone not happy somewhere, you took to long, you didn't save my house, the ambulance took too long the ride was bumpy, BUT, all in all, people would go out of their way to help you if they saw you having trouble beside the road, they throw money in your boot at an intersection and they want their kids picture taken with you and your truck. As you stated you are a member of the snowmobiling community, so you should know that we don't enjoy that public admiration. We fight for every foot of riding area, every snow park and every grooming dollar and we get lied to and cheated by nearly every government agency there is. People are lining up to shut us out of areas that we have ridden in and used for our whole lives. We are over sensitive and suspect of anyone on that list that takes a shot at us. And a shot is a shot, real, or perceived.
Your stance in court without talking to this community first added you to that list.
I can understand your frustration over feeling blindsided by this issue, but we have made several attempts to educate the snowmobile community about this issue. There are even tons of old posts on snowest relating to this issue over the past years where I tried to put out info on what was happening over the years. (not sure if they can be accessed from the new forums or not)
We have held public hearings with winter user groups, USFS and State Parks up at Snoqualmie Pass over the issue, have attended WSSA meetings and gave presentations, have sent copies of our paperwork and proposed solutions to the WSSA representative for our area and the WSSA president. We used to have the area rep for WSSA attend all of our fire commissioner meetings to keep updated on the issue and what we were doing to try and solve the problem, etc. We really have made a lot of attempts to keep the snowmobile community appraised as to what was going on and the reasons why. That is why it is frustrating to see all the misconceptions being spread about and us villified. I really believe that if the snowmobile community were to know all the facts of what has transpired and the different solutions that we have offerred to the USFS to solve this issue then the snowmobile community as a whole would be supportive of what we are trying to accomplish. We do NOT want to shut down the sno park or negatively impact the winter recreationalists in that area, we just want to be able to provide emergency services to those that need them in a timely manner and to the best of our ability.
Monty Moore
Fire Chief
Kittitas County Fire District 8
206-617-4521 cell
