Northshore Fire District Battalion Chief Tim Osgood lives in Woodinville and is an elected commissioner of the Woodinville fire and life safety district. Recently, he went along with the dispatching of the department’s chief, a firefighter with 38 years experience and an individual highly popular among the residents of the area.
It will be interesting to see if Osgood’s re-election effort in November will stand the scrutiny of the commission’s decision, an employment separation bound to be a potentially costly one for Woodinville’s property owners and taxpayers.
Like Osgood, Woodinville commissioners comprise entirely men who hold or have held jobs only in other governmental agencies. They hold the reins on a $15-million annual operating budget, which supports 80 employees. Personnel costs of the department account for approximately $12 million of that budget.
True to government tendencies, Osgood’s commission is not forthcoming about the firing of Dennis Johnson. Chief Johnson was hired after a wide and costly search nearly four years ago. He had recorded a distinguished career as chief of emergency medical services in Boise, Idaho, a city of several hundred thousand, and prior to that was fire chief in Idaho Falls, Idaho.
Another commissioner, the recently appointed Randy Ransom, is on the two-commissioner executive committee that delivered the news to Johnson. The commission won’t disclose whether the termination was or was not for cause. Neither will it tell why the district paid a consultant what has been speculated to be as high as $40,000 to $50,000 to produce a performance review.
The review period in question was September 2007 to September 2008, a period in which Ransom wasn’t even on the board, yet he apparently participated in the chief’s dismissal. Ransom also professed “no desire to drag Johnson’s name through the mud,” a rather curious position, only leading to more public speculation over the justification for terminating the chief. Ransom is also up for election.
It appears this story, as they say, still has legs, even if somewhat wobbly ones.
What with the hotly contested card-room closing still providing varying degrees of glee or discontent in Kenmore on Bothell’s western flank, and to the east this brewing tempest in a fire house in Woodinville, Bothell can take a short break and be glad that it has put behind the city many of its publicly debated development issues, at least for the time being.
Interesting survey
Ever wonder what your 13-year-old neighbor thinks about his neighborhood? A school district survey of eighth-graders revealed some results that might surprise you.
Asked if they would have to move away, 80 percent said they would really miss their neighborhood.
Thirty-nine percent said it was easy to get beer, wine and hard liquor, but only 24 percent found it easy to get cigarettes, maybe indicating that fewer young people are taking up the habit.
Those analyzing the survey point to the incredible importance of one-on-one “encouragement” of the positive behavior of a young person and the role words of encouragement play in a young person’s ability to reduce the temptation to use drugs and alcohol. The more encouragement the better was the conclusion.
The survey showed that 65 percent said their neighbors told them they were proud of them for doing something well; they thought that 63 percent of their neighbors encourage them to do their best; and 38 percent of the early “teeners” said their neighbors notice favorable behavior and let the young person know.
The results were part of a survey exploring the living conditions of middle-school-age children in the Northshore School District. Perhaps the most alarming fact revealed that as many as 150 of those children surveyed reported themselves to be homeless, not a particularly conducive condition for learning.
John B. Hughes was owner-publisher of the Northshore Citizen from 1961 to 1988 and is active in local nonprofit organizations.
