4A ❚ WEDNESDAY, MAY 6, 2020 ❚ APPEAL TRIBUNE
Fire districts asking for funds in election
Bill Poehler
Salem Statesman Journal
USA TODAY NETWORK
Many fire districts have seen their
staffs stretched as the ranks of volun-
teer firefighters declined in recent years.
Three fire districts in Marion County
have levies on the May 19 ballot that
would help make up for that shortfall by
allowing the districts to hire more full-
time firefighters.
"Our numbers are down tremen-
dously over the years, as is Oregon in
general and nationally," Marion County
Fire District 1 chief Kyle McMann said.
Stayton Fire District
The Stayton Fire District’s operations
levy would replace an expiring bond
measure and allow the department to
hire an additional three full-time fire-
fighters with a slight increase in cost to
property tax owners.
The district's last bond, which was
passed in 2015 and is set to retire in
June, was used to purchase equipment
such as fire engines and made signifi-
cant repairs to the main fire station in-
cluding the fire sprinkler system.
The cost increase from the opera-
tional levy would tax property owners at
25 cents per $1,000 of assessed proper-
ty value and replace the bond, which
taxed residents at 24.5 cents per $1,000.
The district currently has five full-
time firefighters and they staff its sta-
tions from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday
through Friday.
The rest of the time, the district relies
on volunteer firefighters.
“This is a new thing for us,” Stayton
fire chief Jack Carriger said. “We just are
getting to the point where volunteers are
getting fewer and farther between.”
The Stayton Rural Fire District covers
107 square miles of Marion and Linn
counties, including Stayton, Elkhorn,
Mehama and the Little North Fork rec-
reation area.
The current five full-time firefighters
also perform tasks in the department
including
information
technology,
maintenance, training and administra-
tion in addition to responding to calls.
Despite efforts to increase the num-
ber of volunteer firefighters, including a
grant that has allowed the district to
hire a full-time recruiter, the number of
volunteers has waned in recent years.
Carriger said that until the recent
pandemic, call volumes the district re-
ceived increased significantly each year,
putting more pressure on the current
volunteers.
The levy would cost homeowners
about $62.50 per year for homes at the
median $250,000 assessed value for
the area.
If the levy passes, it would enable the
department to have staff firefighters
working at peak times including from 5
a.m. to 8 a.m. and from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m.
on weekdays and on weekends.
“We would look at augmenting those
times with those people,” Carriger said.
“It certainly won’t put us at 24/7. Three
people just doesn’t do that.”
The five-year levy would raise an es-
Marion County Fire District 1 covers 88 square miles including areas east of Salem and Keizer, and unincorporated
communities such as Brooks, Howell Prairie and Pratum and over 50,000 residents in rural parts of Marion County. MICHAELA
ROMÁN / STATESMAN JOURNAL
timated $239,000 in the 2020-2021 fis-
cal year and rise to $264,000 in 2024-
2025.
Marion County Fire District No. 1
Between the declining ranks of vol-
unteer firefighters and increasing call
volumes, the Marion County Fire Dis-
trict’s staff and resources have become
strained.
McMann said the district has 60 vol-
unteers, down from 125 when he started
in 2001. And he said call volume is up
48% since 2013.
That’s why Marion County Fire Dis-
trict 1, a special district separate from
Marion County, is asking voters to ap-
prove a new operations levy that would
tax homeowners 99 cents per $1,000 of
assessed value for the next two years
and allow it to hire two more firefighters
and a deputy fire marshal.
“This time we’re just asking for what
we need as opposed to saving for future
years,” McMann said.
The levy would cost $198 per year for
homeowners
with
the
median
$200,000 assessed value.
The district currently has 55 employ-
ees and covers 88 square miles includ-
ing areas east of Salem and Keizer, and
unincorporated communities such as
Brooks, Howell Prairie and Pratum and
over 50,000 residents in rural parts of
Marion County.
“We have mutual aid agreements
with all Marion County fire districts,”
McMann said.
The expiring four-year levy, which
was passed in May 2016, taxed property
at 71 cents per $1,000 of assessed home
value.
Voters approved bonds in 2008 that
were used to purchase and maintain
equipment and are expected to be re-
tired in 2022 and 2023.
If passed, the new levy would cover
that same equipment costs as well as
the new hires and potentially could save
property owners money in a few years.
“It won’t necessarily save them now,”
McMann said.
If passed, the levy would raise ap-
proximately $3,319,968 in 2020-2021
and $3,419,568 the following year.
McMann said the shorter two-year
levy lets the department ask for funding
when necessary in the future rather
than use long-term predictions for ser-
vice levels.
“It allows us to not get trapped also in
a second year when call volumes have
gone up or service demands are differ-
ent,” McMann said.
Hubbard Fire District
The Hubbard Fire District, which
serves 7 square miles of north Marion
County including Hubbard, is asking
voters to pass an operational levy for the
first time.
The five-year levy would tax property
owners 99 cents per $1,000 of assessed
value. It would cost an average of $161
per year for a property assessed at the
median $162,400.
If approved by voters, the levy would
provide funding for required mainte-
nance of equipment and vehicles, the
purchase of personal protective equip-
Racing
where he crashed into Johnny Knox-
ville.
On Sunday at Raceway Park, Ferran-
do won his heat race and briefly chal-
lenged leader Chris Mills, but placed
third after being passed by eventual
winner Ricky Thornton Jr., who also
won Saturday’s race.
Continued from Page 1A
The dirt ovals at Park Jefferson and
Raceway Park aren’t any different than
the hundreds of others across the na-
tion, except they are operating when all
racing in Oregon and other states is shut
down.
“I just don’t see racing happening in
Oregon this summer,” said Ferrando,
who owns GO Plumbing.
South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem re-
peatedly encouraged people not to at-
tend the races, but stopped short of
forcing them to be canceled.
Initially, a few hundred tickets were
going to be sold for each race with fans
being required to adhere to social dis-
tancing measures. Shortly after the lim-
ited number of tickets to the race went
on sale, the tracks announced they had
sold out.
Days before the races, however, both
tracks announced that after receiving
pressure from the South Dakota gover-
nor, county commissioners, Health De-
partment and the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention, they would no
longer allow fans to attend and refund
all tickets purchased.
The races went forward with empty
grandstands.
Racing without fans
A driver’s team prepares him for the sprint car races at Park Jefferson Speedway
on Saturday in Jefferson, South Dakota. PHOTOS BY ERIN BORMETT/ARGUS LEADER
Racing at an empty track
Drivers prepare to race.
“I don’t really pay attention much to
the grandstands,” Ferrando said. “It
didn’t really bother me.”
The only way to view the races was by
pay-per-view on the internet, and so
many people tried to watch that Satur-
day’s races were slightly delayed while
fans from throughout the world tried to
log on.
Since returning to circle track racing
in 2015 after years spent racing ATVs,
Ferrando has become one of the top rac-
ers of IMCA modifieds in the northwest.
ment and add two staff members to al-
low the department to be staffed 24
hours per day.
“Actually, Hubbard is doing well with
the number of volunteers, it’s just that
the call volume is going up,” Hubbard
Fire Chief Joseph Budge said. “We’ve got
27 volunteers there. Last year we had
715 responses. It’s over the kind of sweet
spot threshold for volunteers that are
busy taking calls. It’s too much of a bur-
den.”
Budge said the Hubbard Fire Dis-
trict’s Measure 50-capped rate for the
district of 80 cents per $1,000 of as-
sessed value was set in a time when the
district had an all-volunteer force.
“Really it takes around $2 per $1,000
to operate a professional, career staffed
fire district,” Budge said.
The levy would raise $326,030 in
2020-2021 and increase to $366,950 in
2024-2025.
The Hubbard Fire District has had
several bonds, including an ongoing one
that taxes residents 27 cents per $1,000
that is set to expire in 2023.
Staffing the station 24 hours a day
would allow Hubbard to enter into auto-
matic mutual aid agreements with
neighboring fire districts Woodburn and
Aurora and eliminate the current lag
time in mutual aid calls, Budge said.
“It can only happen when every-
body’s covering all their own calls
around the clock 24/7,” Budge said.
“What we can’t have is the people of
Woodburn or the people of Aurora sub-
sidizing the people of Hubbard.”
bpoehler@StatesmanJournal.com or
Twitter.com/bpoehler
The cars are designed to be an econo-
my class with some stock parts includ-
ing the frame and some suspension
parts – though the bodies are flat sheet
metal – but has gained huge popularity
among drivers in the United States with
its competitive racing. A number of for-
mer NASCAR drivers including David
Reutimann and David Stremme make a
living building and racing the cars.
Ferrando, grandson of local racing
icon “Papa” Tom Ferrando, won the
track championship at Cottage Grove
Speedway in 2017 and followed that
with the Willamette Speedway track
championship in 2018.
But the entry fields of the South Da-
kota races drew some of the best drivers
from across the nation, including for-
mer NASCAR drivers Kenny Wallace
and Ken Schrader.
In Saturday’s race at Park Jefferson,
Ferrando rebounded from a poor draw
to win the B-Main event and transferred
into the A-Main, where he went a lap
down before coming back to finish 15th
in a race where many cars didn’t finish.
“Hit a tire on the first lap,” he said.
“That put me ahead of the wreck. They
destroyed some cars in that wreck.
There were like four bent chassis in that
wreck.”
Ferrando knows wrecks. He ap-
peared in 2002's Jackass The Movie in a
demolition derby alongside family
members Terry and Zac driving in the
"Rent-a-car Crash Up Derby" scene
Races are usually a social affair. From
the time people sign in to enter the track
until they leave at the end of the night
they are constantly around others.
But in the South Dakota races, the
racers and their crews were kept apart
with the only people allowed in at a
maximum of 10 people per car and trail-
ers were required to be 10 people apart.
Ferrando’s crew of son, Gage, Matt
Freeman and his son, Paxton, and Chris
and Jojo Batalgia wore face masks and
gloves at all times.
In the days following the success of
the South Dakota races, dirt tracks in
Iowa and South Carolina have an-
nounced they will put on races under
the same restrictions and using similar
formats.
While in the Midwest for the race,
Ferrando picked up a new race car – the
ninth he’s had since 2015 – and left his
racing equipment in Iowa.
With Oregon’s stay-home order, it’s
unclear when racing will resume in the
state, and Ferrando isn’t taking any
chances.
In the past few days, Cottage Grove
Speedway promoter Heather Boyce said
her track will not race if fans are not al-
lowed.
“I’m going to fly back here a few times
a month to race,” he said while sitting on
a quarter-full plane bound for Oregon.
“I’m hoping to race in Iowa. They’re
thinking they’re going to be racing out
here.”
bpoehler@StatesmanJournal.com or
Twitter.com/bpoehler