SEELEY LAKE — Residents have been raising concerns about the Seeley Lake Rural Fire District for several months now, and on Tuesday night, community members came out to voice their concerns to the Fire Board during one of their regular meetings.
It wasn’t just community members raising concerns, however, as members of the Fire Board also took several actions based on what they had seen themselves.
Watch the video to learn more about the concerns being voiced:
The board meeting began with a contentious dispute amongst the board members over the accuracy of the previous meeting's minutes, which Seeley Lake Rural Fire District Board of Trustees member Shirley Goudzwaard claimed were inaccurate due to her comments not being placed in the minutes.
“My concern is, how are we going to redo the minutes from last month? Because we always destroy the recordings, which I think is illegal, but we do,” said Seeley Lake Rural Fire District Board of Trustees member Susan Monahan.
“I think that it's very illegal and we should be keeping copies of the minutes,” added Goudzwaard.
The minutes were ultimately passed by the board by the two trustees who voted, with an agreement made that future minutes will be more specific and recordings of the meetings will be posted and transcribed.
Once the minutes were passed, the board opened the meeting up to public comment on non-agenda items.
Community members took the opportunity to voice their concerns, largely about Seeley Lake Rural Fire District Chief Dave Lane.
“There are concerns. I've been listening to the community. I've been talking to people in the community. And I'll be honest with you, what I'm hearing about is fear that we might get into a position of life and death and not be able to have what we need in... receive what we need in certain circumstances,” said one Seeley Lake resident.
“While I don't know all of what's going on, I do know that you have lost amazing members with some incredible abilities due to lack of leadership. People don't leave jobs, volunteer positions or institutions. They leave leadership,” said another Seeley Lake resident.
There was resounding support for the volunteers at the meeting, however. One volunteer, Michael Richards, also came to the defense of the chief.
“I can share with a lot of you that the members trust, respect, and have faith in Chief Lane's leadership and ability to manage our personnel, physical assets, budget,” said Seeley Lake Rural Fire District volunteer firefighter Michael Richards.
Chief Lane acknowledges what the community said during the meeting, but largely says the community is misinformed.
“There's a lot of bitterness, but they're feeding off each other. And the lies, I'm sorry that I couldn't hold it in at one point, but the lies that are being told, the baseless aggression towards me is unacceptable,” said Lane.
The board also approved a motion for an audit of the department, tabled their second quarter budget due to disputes over spending, and approved a motion to have a third party evaluate the department.
Details of the motions were not fleshed out during the meeting, and the board stated that they would revisit them during their next meeting.
