By QUINTON SMITH/YachatsNews.com
The Central Oregon Coast Fire & Rescue District board voted this week to offer its chief’s job to Jamie Mason, who has been serving as interim fire chief since mid-December when its former chief was placed on administrative leave.
Mason’s official hiring will take place once the board and he negotiate a contract.
Mason replaces Gary Woodson, 60, who was hired by the district four years ago but who was placed on leave during a personnel investigation in December. The board and Woodson this month negotiated a severance agreement, which has not yet been publicly disclosed.
Mason, 40, joined the district a year ago from North Lincoln Fire & Rescue, where he had worked for eight years. Before that, he was a trainer for the Oregon Department of Public Safety Standards and Training for three years, and was an active duty member of the Air Force, working eight years as a firefighter on bases in Germany and Idaho.
The fire district board decided earlier this month to forgo a wider search and interview Mason for the job after an outpouring of support from district staff, volunteers and from the Seal Rock Fire Department, which has an agreement with the Waldport-area district to share personnel and equipment. It interviewed him Tuesday night during a two-hour executive session, then voted in public session to offer him the job.
“It went really well,” board chair Tim Grady said of the interview. “I think it’s going to be a good relationship.”
Grady said the board was impressed with Mason’s ideas for long-term planning, working on a 20-year cycle for bonds, levies equipment and personnel.
The district, which serves the Waldport area, east to Tidewater and Five Rivers, has been in turmoil much of the last two years under Woodson, who was hired after working for the Oregon Department of Corrections and as chief of the city of Pendleton’s fire department. Firefighters criticized him for working only a few hours a day and chronic longer-term absences, lapsed training, lack of equipment repair and upkeep, and no progress on rebuilding a station in Tidewater. The result was constant staff turnover and departure of volunteers. Woodson and the district are also the subject of a $1.1 million federal civil rights and wrongful dismissal lawsuit by a former fire captain.
Mason told YachatsNews on Thursday his initial goal is to help the board, paid staff and volunteers get the district back on track. That means completing work on the Tidewater station within the next three months, restarting personnel evaluations which had not been done in at least two years, help decide the future of the main station in downtown Waldport, and continuing to explore the possibility of eventually merging with the Seal Rock department.
Mason said he hopes to provide the board with a 20-year plan that can provide a road map for finances, equipment, personnel, and how to handle any growth in the community.
“Our newest vehicle is 20 years old and we just did a $50,000 overhaul to extend it another 10 years,” he said. “Our oldest vehicle is older than me.”
The Central Coast District has three paid firefighters/EMTs and 18 volunteers. Mason said he hopes to increase the number of volunteers in the Tidewater area so they can help man the long-promised station when it opens this spring. The district plans to have an engine, water tender and wildland firefighting rig at the Tidewater station, he said, along with a 10,000 gallon water store tank.
