Lynnwood fire chief to also lead district as consolidation nears

Published 10:00 am Friday, July 1, 2016

By Evan Smith

When Lynnwood’s fire chief also becomes chief of Snohomish County Fire District 1, it will mark a big step toward forming a single fire agency for south Snohomish County, perhaps by forming a regional fire authority.

Lynnwood Fire Chief Scott Cockrum will be chief of both the Lynnwood Fire Department and Fire District 1 as of July 11 and head a combined administration of the two departments.

The city and the fire district have approved a two-year interlocal agreement, an agreement that can be extended for one-year intervals.

Rank-and-file firefighters will continue as employees of either the city or the fire district. Officials in Lynnwood say that fire and emergency medical response and station staffing will remain unchanged and that fire trucks in Lynnwood still will say “Lynnwood Fire Department.”

The Fire District 1 board unanimously approved the agreement to combine management of the two fire agencies June 21. The Lynnwood City Council did the same thing six days later.

Neither the city nor the fire district will get money from the other. The agreement says that the city and fire district recognize that the mutual benefits of blended management is full compensation for services.

The two agencies still will have separate budgets, payrolls and purchasing.

The city and the fire district say that the length of the agreement will give them time to continue working on establishing a regional fire system for south Snohomish County.

Fire District 1 includes unincorporated areas from south Everett to the Snohomish-King county line. District 1 also provides service by contract with the cities of Edmonds, Mountlake Terrace and Brier. It operates 12 fire stations, including those owned by the cities of Edmonds and Mountlake Terrace.

Cockrum now will lead Fire District 1’s 241 employees at the 12 fire stations that serve the 200,000 residents in the unincorporated communities of south Snohomish County and the cities of Brier, Edmonds and Mountlake Terrace, while also leading the Lynnwood Fire Department’s with two fire stations and 56 employees to serve more than 36,000 residents.

As Lynnwood chief, Cockrum has had discussion with Fire District 1 Interim Chief Brad Reading about combining fire service by forming a regional fire authority.

Reading has led Fire District 1 since former Chief Ed Widdis retired in March.

Now, discussions will widen to include Lynnwood City Council members and elected District 1 commissioners.

One possibility is a regional fire authority.

A regional fire authority is a special-purpose government entity that takes over fire protection from at least two cities or districts.

Other possibilities are either having Lynnwood join the fire district or giving Lynnwood service by contract with the district.

Lynnwood now is the only south Snohomish County city with its own fire department. Edmonds, Mountlake Terrace and Brier get service by contract with District 1, and Woodway gets fire protection by contract with the Shoreline Fire District.

Lynnwood Mayor Nicola Smith said in May that she had made looking at regional fire protection a priority when she hired Cockrum shortly after she took office more than two years ago. She called looking at regional fire protection part of what she has called “A new day for Lynnwood.”

Discussions this year have been strictly between Lynnwood and Fire District 1. They haven’t gone as far as they did in 2013, when council members from Lynnwood, Edmonds, Mountlake Terrace, Brier, Woodway, Mill Creek and Mukilteo, and fire commissioners from fire districts 1 and 7 met to discuss forming a regional fire authority.

Those discussions ended after participants dropped out one after the other.

Reading said in April that this time discussions on regional fire protection might be different.

He noted then that the discussions from three years ago involved three council members from each of seven cities and towns, and three commissioners each from of two fire districts. Both Reading and Smith noted advantages to having fewer people at the table.

Reading said that a planning group for a regional fire authority could write a charter for the organization. The local rules could set the size and method of election of the board, and the tax system.

Such a charter would need to be approved by voters.

A regional fire authority would have its own tax base.

Cockrum was part of a regional fire authority among suburban cities and districts around Sacramento, Calif., before he came to Lynnwood. He says that joining more than a dozen fire departments saved money and provided better service by consolidating training, purchasing and other functions.

Consolidated training and purchasing here would provide better service, he said in early April, because fire fighters from nearby communities would know how to use each other’s equipment, something that’s needed when fire fighters from one community need to provide aid for a fire in a nearby community.

Two nearby RFAs are the North Snohomish County Regional Fire Authority combining two fire districts around Stanwood and the Valley Regional Fire Authority in south King County that includes Auburn, Algona and Pacific.

Evan Smith can be reached at schsmith@frontier.com.