WCFA General Meeting – Online Zoom 1500 – 1700 October 30, 2021

The meeting was called to order by President Todd Graves at 1505.

President Todd Graves, Secretary Danielle Sims and 13 members were present.

The minutes from the last meeting were approved without reading them because they had been sent to the membership prior to the meeting. Motion to accept the minutes by Greg Bailey, seconded by Dave Rains. All approved.

The Treasurer’s report was presented by Danielle Sims. Account balances are as follows: Checking $37,508, Savings $60,078. The Profit and Loss report was reviewed. Income from all sources for Jan 2021 – October 30, 2021, was $90.473. Expenses for the same period were $60,513. Our net profit is $29,960. Motion to approve the Treasurer’s report by Mike Meyers, seconded by Susan Hanson. All approved

The following Training Committee topics were discussed:
Training updates and concerns for the coming year. NWCG shared guidelines that are similar to last season. Small classes, masks, have Zoom classes if possible. President Graves said he hoped area facilities would open up so he would not have to have classes at his shop. Last season we had online students be responsible to get a shelter deployment from an agency or one of our instructors. Danielle created a form and shared that the process had worked well, we will continue to implement this process for next season.

We let the membership know that we raised the Saw Class to the same price as the other classes we raised last year. We also let them know we raised instructors to $30 per hour.

We let the membership know that Danielle would begin working on the next RT-130. We also let them know about a problem that Danielle has been seeing while inspecting records. Some contractors are sending in records for Fire Department training that the new hire doesn’t seem to have an affiliation with the FD. We let them know that only RT-130 training can be done at FD for current employees that work for their departments and are returning to work for the contractor. New hires records can be brought over from a department if they show that they were part of the department for their training and not just using the department for training. We told them to ask first and not waste time and money following the wrong process.

Old Business:
At our last meeting we discussed creating a process to help employees move to another employer in the database. After much discussion we are still undecided if there is a way to implement this. We decided to table this until the spring meeting. Aaron Burkhart made a motion to table the discussion until the spring meeting, Mike Meyers seconded. Motion passed.
Danielle shared that after researching and filing 990-N forms from 2007-2020 and sending in an application to get our Determination of Non-Profit Status that we got our Determination letter in August. After talking with the IRS, they said we didn’t need to file all the back forms since the statutes of limitation has long past on those. However, on Friday, October 22nd, Danielle got 8 letters from the IRS saying we had penalties for filing those years late that totaled about $22,000. The next week she was able to reach the IRS and found out that we needed to send a letter explaining what we had been told about not having to file the back forms and we would most likely have the penalties removed. IRS said they are very busy, and it could take a while to hear back. The letter was sent to IRS and now we will wait for their reply. Members said we should post on our website that we have the declaration. Danielle will look into this.

We have been talking about reviewing and/or updating the WCFA By-laws for several years now. It was agreed that we would send a reminder to the board and have this done by the spring meeting.

We have also been working on Professionalism and Code of Ethics for the same amount of time. Todd sent this to the board members prior to the meeting and had received some back. He plans to have this updated and sent to the membership by the end of this year. After much discussion all concurred it is important that we need to have ethical behavior on fires.
We went over committee reports from PAC, Medical Services Committee and Legal Advisory. We confirmed that Jake Burkhart is the current chair of the PAC, Todd Graves is the Medical Services chair and Saul Labanauskas is the Legal Advisory chair. Todd has contacted Wayne Walker of Lifeline Ambulance to see if he would be willing to take over chair of the Medical Services committee.

Jake Burkhart joined the earlier board meeting to share updates from what he has learned since our last meeting. Todd shared what Jake talked about. There had been discussion about whether we have a contract or agreement. The Forest Service says we have an agreement but it’s irrelevant because we get federal funding. Jake says we are caught in the middle because Department of Labor says we have a Blanket Purchase Agreement with net zero. DOL says they see significant problems with this. It needs to be brought to the federal government. Discussion about getting a renewal on the Farm Labor License followed. Jake said the office in San Francisco is overwhelmed with new applicants that are realizing they need to be compliant. We need to be in touch with our Senators and Representatives because of this. Todd said he would be in touch with Jake to make a plan. Jake said we might need to split this into two committees, Federal and State. Jake said our state representatives don’t realize we have a private sector. We need to let them know we are available.

Todd had sent questions from an earlier Medical Services questionnaire to have those members weigh in again. Will Judkins, a member of this committee, says after conversations with the CO’s he doesn’t see this getting any easier. The Legal Advisory Committee has not had any action. Saul had to leave the meeting earlier and Todd said he would ask Saul to look into a lawyer to review our by-laws. A discussion was started on whether we should have a lawyer on retainer. After the discussion it was decided that with our use of one just getting one as needed would be sufficient.
Todd has recently attended a Fire Defense Committee meeting. Todd shared that the State Patrol is in charge of the Fire Marshall. The new guy at the State Patrol doesn’t have fire experience. FDC meets to update the Mayor and Fire Marshalls office. FDC says the COLA is going up 5-6%. They set their rates for State Fire Marshall by looking in VIPR for high and low bids. They use private rates to set their rates. Discussion followed. State Mob cost is high because of pay rates at departments. REM’s are being added to State Mob. State fire services are going to be listed in VIPR. Several of the members expressed great concern over this. Todd said he will bring this up at the state government and see what State Mob would be required to do under contract. This is a conflict of state against private industries. Lack of vaccination records for fire personnel could become a problem. Washington State makes up 25%-50% of fire personnel. Vaccination issue is a great concern to FDC.

We discussed if DPL is using closest resources. Most feel that they have been. Todd noted that the DNR will not be sending state crews out of state for the foreseeable future.

New Business:
Several members shared that their company was denied food peridium because agreement status if you can driver home you won’t get paid. They had signed documents that they would be paid. Todd said he would send a note to CO to get clarification. We talked about how Covid-19 will affect future contracts. Danielle shared a member from VIPR about a pilot project they used on one fire in California last season. It was noted that vaccination status may be part of the solicitation and part of records inspections.

We have three applications for new members. We have two new members who have responded with the appropriate documents. Michael Cramer of Westard Wildfire shared about his company and reason for wanting to join, then Frank Braun of The General Wildfire shared his information. They were excused while the members discussed their membership options. All agreed they should be invited to join. They came back in and were told their membership was approved with a one-year probation as per the by-laws.

We have election of officers that should have been done in the spring, but we were not able to meet. Saul Labanauskas is up for VP 2019-2021, one year position. Todd asked for a nomination of Saul (Saul said at the earlier board meeting he would accept the nomination), Greg Bailey nominated Saul, Tim Logozzo seconded. All approved, Saul is re-elected as VP for 2021-2023. Greg Bailey is up for EB #1, 2018-2021, three-year position. Greg was nominated by Reed Gracie and seconded by Tim Logozzo. Greg accepted the nomination and is re-elected for EB #1, 2021-2024. All approved

The board discussed paying the president and Danielle shared that with the membership. Todd will start at the current rate of $6000 annually based on if we can afford it to be assessed at the Spring meeting. We owe the president for 2020-2021 that should have been paid in the spring. Danielle shared kind words along with the membership about Todd’s work for the WCFA that has spanned decades. Todd is grateful and is encouraged to work for and with the WCFA.

Other new business is to reimburse President Graves for attending NWSA Conference in Reno this December. We had previously sent a board member to, but since we are still recovering financially, we plan to see where we are next fall and possibly send one then.

Aaron Burkart shared a local incident that happened as the Cub Creek 2 fire was starting up regarding 2 off duty firefighters and a private citizen who fired a gun at them. Aaron would like the WCFA to send the prosecutor a letter saying, in part, that the punishment of losing a concealed weapon permit for a short amount of time wasn’t harsh enough. Todd said he would follow up.

We also discussed virtual inspections and potential problems for next season.

Spring meeting date will most likely be mid-May.

Motion to adjourn meeting was made by Greg Bailey, seconded by Aaron Burkhart. All approved.

Meeting adjourned at 1742.