City asks former rival to take over

For years, officials and residents of the town have accused Valley Fire of wanting to gobble up tax revenue by taking over their volunteer fire department. The large, suburban district always vehemently denied that charge.

But in an unexpected turn, Millwood officials have asked the fire district to take over.

Last week, Millwood’s town council unanimously approved an agreement with the Spokane Valley Fire Department that proposes annexation in the spring of 2005. Both the Boundary Review Board as well as Millwood and Valley Fire voters would have to approve the merger.

In the meantime, Millwood has asked its former rival to provide a contract for medical and fire protection services. Valley firefighters are expected to move into Millwood’s station in July.

Millwood has relied on volunteer firefighters for nearly all its 76-year history. A mill town, the first fire brigade was provided by Inland Empire Paper Co.

Millwood, which is less than one square mile, and Valley Fire have a long-standing rivalry.

Valley Fire Chief Mark Grover has a scrapbook of newspaper clippings in his office. One article, from December 1947, describes a service station fire. Valley Fire put out the blaze even though it was in the town of Millwood. The article ends with this quote from a Valley Fire Department captain: “We’d like to notify the people of Millwood that they should call their own fire department.”

Valley Fire officials often complained there was nothing “mutual” about the help they gave Millwood. Former Valley Fire Chief Pat Humphries said he remembers emptying out several Valley Fire stations to fight a fire in Millwood in 1998 because Millwood couldn’t get volunteers there fast enough.

“It was more proof to me that Millwood didn’t really have a plan for their fire department,” Humphries said.

Officials of Millwood say they have given as much to Valley Fire as they received in return. They sent out trucks during the 1991 firestorm and often showed up at medical calls outside the town boundaries to help out Valley Fire, said former Millwood volunteer firefighter Richard Schoen, who was with the town department for 25 years.

Schoen, who also served as a Millwood council member from 1988 to 2000, said he used to hear comments regularly from Valley Fire personnel about how they wanted to take over the town’s volunteer system.

“You don’t have to be an accountant or a rocket scientist to figure out if they could take over Millwood … with minimal expenditure on their part, it would’ve been a real plum ready for picking,” Schoen said.

Valley Fire would get approximately $600,000 in property taxes from Millwood, under current tax rates. Since Valley Fire surrounded the small town, it wouldn’t have to hire additional staff to cover the area.

In 1999, Valley Fire “forced Millwood’s hand” said Schoen.

Valley Fire asked Millwood to begin paying for training and automatic aid. The two departments have always had mutual aid, but the new agreement ensured that if no one from Millwood showed up on scene quickly, Valley firefighters would be automatically dispatched. Millwood paid $17,000 annually for the contract.

But it didn’t last long. Even with the money Millwood paid, Valley Fire commissioners felt Millwood was getting more in services than it paid for.

“For years I’ve been against this contract with Millwood,” elected Valley Fire Commissioner Ron Schmidt said in 2000. “Millwood is getting a free ride. They’re going to have to take care of themselves.”

So Millwood did take care of itself.

When Valley Fire told the town its automatic aid and training agreement wouldn’t be renewed, town officials began looking at ways to provide better fire protection.

Bill Clifford, Millwood’s chief at the time, said he presented the council with several options. The town could offer Valley Fire more money, annex to Valley Fire or hire a few full-time firefighters to quicken response times during the day, when many of Millwood’s volunteer firefighters were at work, Clifford said in a recent interview.

The council decided to ask voters if they would approve a bond and levy measure to hire three full-time firefighters, build a new station and buy a fire truck and equipment. Both measures passed.

“We’re just going to have our own paid department,” Mayor Jeanne Batson said in April of 2001.

Humphries said he’s not surprised Millwood’s department failed. Volunteer firefighting systems do not work well in an urban setting, Humphries said. He also thinks the town got in over its head by hiring full-time firefighters.

Schoen also said he thinks it’s getting harder and harder to maintain a base of volunteers and that the demise of Millwood’s department was, over the long haul, “kind of inevitable.”

“Things die natural deaths. That doesn’t’ mean you’re happy about it, but it still happens.”