GETCHELL — Travis Hots, the Arlington Heights fire chief who became well-known during the Oso slide disaster, said Tuesday that he is resigning from that post.

He gave his 90-day notice, letting the fire commissioners there know they’ll need to find a new chief.

Hots is also the fire chief for District 22 in Getchell. Those fire commissioners decided Monday night that they wanted Hots to serve as their chief exclusively.

That came about after a highly contested meeting regarding a proposed Regional Fire Authority.

Fire Districts 19 in Silvana, 21 in Arlington Heights and 22 in Getchell were discussing forming an RFA. But when much of the crowd objected to the RFA, and getting away from the use of volunteer firefighters, District 22 decided to step away from the RFA discussions.

“The decision was made to focus exclusively on our own issues,” Hots said. “There’s so much resistance in Arlington Heights to the idea of an RFA that our commissioners felt it would be difficult to pass it at this juncture. And as long as we’re not going to be part of their plans for an RFA, the commissioners didn’t want to share me with Arlington Heights as their chief.”

Because Fire Districts 19 and 21 share contiguous borders, they could still choose to form an RFA on their own. It remains to be seen what their plans are after Getchell’s withdrawal from the talks.

Branden Bates, who’s serving as interim fire chief for Arlington Heights, reported that the district’s commissioners have not yet made a decision, and will not do so before their next meeting at 6:30 p.m. Aug. 10.

Meeting fired up

This all follows the contentious July 29 meeting of the three districts’ commissioners, which saw the Arlington Heights Fire Station thronged with residents who wanted to make their voices heard.

During that time, Hots presented the results of a voluntary survey he’d submitted to fire districts throughout the county, comparing their staffing levels of paid part-time vs. volunteer staff, from 25 years ago to today.

Among the results, Hots noted that few volunteers live within their districts, and on average, less than one volunteer per district is certified by Emergency Medical Technician or International Fire Services Accreditation Congress Firefighter 1 standards. By contrast, almost all the paid part-timers in those same districts are EMT and IFSAC Firefighter 1 certified.

Hots quoted survey feedback from Darrington, Marysville and Silvana, as well as anecdotally from Tulalip, agreeing that they’ve seen staffing decline, and found it more difficult to recruit replacements.

“It’s the same trend all over,” Hots said. “It’s not just here. It’s throughout the region.”

Hots identified increased call volumes and duty requirements as possible culprits for the downturn in volunteers. He also warned that, if each individual district turns to paid part-timers to replace volunteers, they’ll soon be competing for the same limited number of staffers.

Hots presented the proposed RFA as a means of sharing that finite labor pool between the three districts, and pushed back against objections to “balancing out” the fire and EMS levy rates between the districts by pointing out that Arlington Heights has the third-lowest such rates in the county.

“If we take an average of those combined levies between the three districts, it’s only slightly higher than the county average,” Hots said. “It’s not especially high or low.”

The combined rate he presented to the commissioners, which he emphasized was only a preliminary figure, was $1.82 per $1,000 of assessed property valuation. The county average in $1.75.

Public speaks out

Even as Hots and the commissioners repeatedly reassured the public that any such measures would need to be approved by voters, members of the public wanted to speak right then.

Norm Nunnally, who’s spearheaded the self-described Concerned Citizens of Snohomish County Fire Protection District 21, argued that public input needs to be solicited during the development process, “not after you’ve put the whole plan together.”

“You shouldn’t be making plans already without opening the floor to the public to speak, because what we have to say could change the outcome of those plans,” Robyn Riley agreed.

A number of attendees claimed they’d been told they would have a chance to speak at the meeting, which was not made available to them at that time.

Following the commissioners’ meeting, almost all of the citizens who’d shown up convened their own informal meeting, behind the Arlington Heights Improvement Club building next door.

Nunnally accused the commissioners of violating the open public meeting act in the process of considering an RFA.

“Is this a regulatory or advisory committee that the commissioners are part of?” Nunnally asked. “They drawing up potential plans involving electrical systems, hydrant placements, water supply and taxing ability. And they never officially formed their committee within the minutes of any meeting.”

When Nunnally emailed a letter to Arlington Heights Fire Commissioner Jim Strago, detailing these concerns, he took exception to the fact that Hots responded to it instead.

“The commissioners are supposed to be responsible for supervising their chief,” Nunnally said. “What you’ve got instead is three commissioners thinking with one head, and it’s wearing a chief’s hat.”

Rick Isler, the former fire chief of Arlington Heights, warned that the “balanced” levy would be introduced in two stages, because a fire levy requires only a simple majority.

“And that’s from a total vote count of all three districts, so Arlington Heights could be against it, but we could still be forced into it, because the folks from the other two districts will want their taxes to go down,” Isler said.

Nunnally also took aim at the logos and branding for the proposed RFA that appeared in promotional materials, which he cited as an example of the district spending money without appropriations.

Isler voiced his concerns with how much of Arlington Heights’ south side is covered by mutual aid, which jeopardizes the area’s response time.

Sandy Baker, the former fire chief of Oso, joined the group after speaking with Hots following the public meeting.

“I’ve known Travis for years,” Baker said. “I told him I was insulted by the way he talked about volunteer firefighters. They’re not untrained. We did nightly drills. Our people were there because they wanted to be there.”

Recall petition

In the meantime, Nunnally is continuing to circulate a petition rejecting the proposed RFA, and has submitted recall letters for all three commissioners of Arlington Heights.

“Until they’ve killed it legally, we’re still going ahead with our plans,” said Nunnally, who wants the districts to follow proper procedures even if they withdraw from the RFA. “Getchell can’t just pull out right away.”

The next scheduled meeting of all three fire districts on the proposed RFA is 7 p.m. Sept. 30 at Station 94, at 2720 212th St. NW in Silvana.