Woodinville Firefighters Planning Protest of Annexation Layoffs at Monday Meeting

The rank and file of King County Fire District 36 Woodinville Fire & Rescue is protesting the closing of Fire Station 34 and the laying off of six firefighters. Local 2950 will speak against the laying-off of six firefighters and the closing of the station at Monday’s meeting of the Fire Commission Baord. The meeting begins at 5 p.m. at Fire Station 31.

Members of the union have noted the layoffs of the six firefighters correspond with the expansion of the fire district's administrative staff by six people in the last 18 months, since Fire Chief I. David Daniels arrived in Woodinville.

“When the staffing plan is complete and Station 34 is no longer open, there will be more office administrators than there will be firefighters on duty providing fire and emergency medical services to the community,” wrote Tony Woods, Woodinville firefighter, in a letter to the editor.

Chief Daniels said he is surprised by the union's position cropping up now. He said the union was involved with talks about the station's closure and the firemen being moved to Kirkland. The district lost about $1.5 million in revenue in the annexation and cannot sustain the same level of staffing after the June 1, 2011 annexation.

"No one has lost their job," he said. "Originally there was going to be fourteen positions cut, I got it down to six, and I'm still getting beat up by local. I don't understand."

Daniels added that the administrative positions are necessary to run the district and oversee the $22 million budget. 

'When I got here the problems in this district were all administrative; operations didn't have a problem, but administration was a mess," Daniels said. "The labor union thinks they are more qualified than I am to run the district, but frankly, they are not."

In , Ted Klinkenberg  stated that the individual firefighters being transferred were not consulted before being told they would be laid off from Woodinville in favor of jobs in Kirkland.

“The transferees feel they were neglected throughout the annexation process and feel that they were used as pawns by Woodinville’s administration,” Klinkenberg wrote. “They also object to the closure of the Kingsgate fire station without any plan to provide coverage to the remaining portion of the fire district that Woodinville is still obligated to protect.”

In 2009, voters in the area rejected annexation of the Kingsgate unincorporated area of Woodinville to Kirkland, but the Kirkland City Council approved the annexation in a 6-1 vote.