Fire marshal paid

Orcas Fire and Rescue has finally been paid the long-awaited $79,599 owed for fire marshal work provided to San Juan Island over the past two years. Fire chief Mike Harris said documents are still in the works that would officially move the fire marshal’s office to Orcas Island.

DH fire station landscaping

The winning bids for fencing and landscaping at the new Deer Harbor fire station have been awarded, at a total of $39,362. Eric Lum of Lum Volvo and Tractor won the fencing contract, for $6,132; Carol McCoy won the landscaping contract for $28,723, hand-in-hand with a two-year maintenance contract for $4,473 that includes weeding, pruning, dead plant replacement, new mulch and monitoring of the station’s water catchment system.

The fire district applied for a conditional use permit in 2008 in order to site the Deer Harbor Station, and though dialogue with the station’s neighbors-to-be the district agreed to additional fencing and landscaping screening beyond that required by county zoning.

“Costs of $20,000 were directly related to site-obscuring measures necessary because of public comment,” said Harris. “Maybe as much as half of that would have been used anyway in any landscaping plan that we adopted.”

“The fire department wants to be a good neighbor,” said the station’s permit coordinator, Teri Williams. “Part of county approval was making sure the neighbors were happy with what we were doing.”

McCoy received permission from the commission to sub-contract out some of the work with the other bidder, Greening and Greening, whose total bid came in just $33 over the McCoy bid. McCoy said factors in the cost of the landscaping include the need to bring in soil from off island and the restriction that the station use only catchment water for its landscaping. She said some of the work she has done for the district in drawing up the landscape plan has been as a volunteer.

9-11 memorial

Harris mentioned to the board that firefighter Ted McKey, who picked up the steel beam from the World Trade Center wreckage in August, was owed $800 in promised reimbursements for fuel and a per-diem for meals during the cross-country trip. Out of his total $1,300 in expenses, McKey had been paid $500 out of the firefighters’ association funds. Fire commissioner Jim Coffin stated, “I want all the money to be volunteer money,” and then he, Barbara Bedell, and Clyde Duke each offered a $300 donation to cover the remainder. An earlier cost estimate to ship the relic came in around $1,000, Harris said, but he felt it was more respectful to pick it up in person.