By Deborah Frazier
Rocky Mountain News (Denver, CO)
Copyright 2007 Denver Publishing Company
EVERGREEN, Colo. — The board that oversees Evergreen Fire/Rescue promised Friday to stick with a volunteer department and work with firefighters to pick a new chief.
“This board will not and has not considered turning this into a paid fire department,” said Charles Dykeman of the Evergreen Fire Protection District Board.
Nearly 50 people, including about 25 volunteer firefighters, attended the board meeting following Fire Chief Joel Janov’s resignation Thursday.
Janov was at the center of more than a year of turmoil with the 85 volunteers over the board’s efforts to centralize decision making, impose an operations manual and limit the firefighters’ authority.
Janov was hired Jan. 1, 2006, on a five-year contract over the volunteers’ recommendations for a chief with fire command experience and a college degree in fire science or administration.
Janov, who didn’t have those qualifications, was paid $95,000 a year and will receive $71,244 in severance pay, said Jim Licko, of Webb PR, a communications firm hired by the board.
The volunteers had twice elected Janov as a volunteer chief but balked at his hiring.
At Friday’s meeting, the board didn’t respond to questions from a former volunteer firefighter and others about the unpopular reorganization.
“The chain of communications has to go up and down,” said Charles Simmons, an Evergreen resident.
He also chided the board for discouraging public comment by holding the meeting at 8 a.m. on a Friday instead of a weekday evening.
Mary Wamsley, of CPS, the firm hired to find a new chief, said the process would take five to eight weeks.
Janov, who originally was asked to resign in December 2006, stayed on until a new chief could be found.
Wamsley said the qualifications would be determined in the next two weeks.
“We’ll customize the search for the West,” she said. “We won’t bring in someone from New York City who has never seen a pine tree burn.”
Evergreen Fire/Rescue describes itself as the largest volunteer fire department in Colorado with 85 volunteers, but it’s no longer the largest.
James Payne, fire chief for the Wheat Ridge Fire Protection District, said his department has 106 volunteer firefighters and expects to have 150 within two years.
Payne, who went from being a volunteer chief to a paid position as did Janov, said the shift and other organizational changes went smoothly in Wheat Ridge.
“The board needs to understand who is doing the work and that they’re serving the community,” Payne said.