The conflict within the Millville Fire Protection District that came to a boil on Jan. 11, 2010 when the Board of Directors voted three to two to institute an automatic aid agreement with the Shasta County Fire Department despite the objections of the Chief and volunteers, has continued to simmer over the past three weeks during closed session negotiations and in private conversations during which Directors have been asked to resign.

     On Jan. 25, 2010, Shasta County Supervisor Les Baugh, concerned that Fire Chief Devon Tassen might follow through with his publicly stated threat to resign if the Board approved the automatic aid agreement, moderated a private gathering so that key players in the dispute could discuss the matter with him, Shasta County CAO Larry Lees and Fire Warden Doug Wenham.  Directors Bob Buick and Steve Goedert were invited to participate as were Tassen and assistant chief Tom Graham.

     After the discussion with County officials, the Board of Directors for the MFPD held a closed session during which all five directors discussed the issue with Tassen and Graham.  When the Board returned to open session, Tassen announced that no action had been taken during the closed session and no decisions had been made, but he felt they were all making an effort to reconcile their differences and had made some progress in that direction.  He said he planned to meet with the volunteers on Jan. 26 to discuss their options moving forward.

     Baugh said after the meeting that he now felt confident that Tassen and the volunteers would not resign en masse, though he said they had mentioned the possibility of pursuing a recall movement against the directors who had voted for automatic aid.  “I’d like to see all those involved in this issue swallow their pride and move forward for the benefit of the community,” he said.

     Wenham said he thought the discussions had been “mildly successful” because they had given those involved a chance to air their grievances and averted the possibility of a mass resignation. He said that the volunteers seemed to be most angry because the three directors who had voted for automatic aid completely discounted the survey of residents the volunteers had conducted.   He noted that as far back as he could remember Millville had always been willing to be dispatched on automatic aid into other fire companies’ territories, but had never wanted to receive automatic aid from them, even before the Schedule A engine with paid firefighters was stationed in Palo Cedro.  

     Lees said only that he was optimistic the two sides would eventually work things out for the good of the public.

     In the weeks since the meeting, the three directors who voted for automatic aid—Bob Buick, Craig Dowling, and John Kessinger—have been talking privately to the volunteers one on one to see what can be done to heal the rift in the fire company, short of abandoning their support for automatic aid.  All three directors firmly believe that automatic aid will ultimately be beneficial to the community at large and protect the District from liability for not providing the community with the best fire protection available.     

     Tassen has been working on resolving the conflict as well, and to that end has asked Dowling to resign from the Board.  Tassen said he believed the Dowling’s resignation would be the “most expedient” way to resolve the conflict and would create “the least amount of tension in the community.”  Tassen has also asked Buick to resign as chairman of the Board and return the gavel to former president Steve Goedert.

     When we spoke to Dowling and Buick at press time, neither one intended to comply with Tassen request.

     The next meeting of the Board of Directors for the Millville Fire Protection District will be at 7:00 p.m. on Feb. 8, 2010.