Fire 12 recall petitions

Residents show interest in filling potential seats

Matt Baide | Oct 20, 20220

Recall petitions have been filed for Mason County Fire Protection District 12 commissioners Brian Jutson, John Pais and Albert Wilder.

According to the documents, Wilder, Pais and Jutson “committed several acts of misfeasance and malfeasance and has violated his oath of office through neglect and a knowing failure to faithfully perform the duties imposed on him by law.”

Wilder and Jutson had 17 listed allegations in the petition and Pais had 16 listed allegations. The allegations cited are attributed to the state Auditor’s Office fraud investigation and accountability audit reports, and the reports from the Auditor’s Office are included as part of the petition filed for recall.

The commissioners canceled their regular monthly meeting scheduled for Tuesday. Pais told the Journal in an email the meeting has been rescheduled to next week “due to family issues.”

Mason County Chief Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Timothy Whitehead told the Journal he is still working on drafting the petition and ballot synopsis and hopes to have the documents filed within the next couple of days. After filing the paperwork, the court has 15 days to hold a hearing on the validity of the recall petitions and decide whether it will go to the voters.

Matlock hosted a community meeting Oct. 1 to discuss the state Auditor’s Office reports.

Amanda Gonzales and Kristin Masteller are the two names signed onto the recall petition documents. Masteller grew up in Matlock and moved back to the area six years ago. Gonzales is a member of the Mary M. Knight school board.

“The meeting was very well attended despite short notice,” Masteller wrote in an email to the Journal. “People are very frustrated with the lack of access to fire meetings and information they’ve requested, and they are justifiably outraged after reading the findings of the State Auditor’s Office. What was impactful to me, was seeing how frustrated they have been for so many years and hearing how some of them have been intimidated from speaking out because they fear repercussions or retaliation from the fire district staff. That was terrible to hear. It made me sad that an entire community had been dealing with this for so long, unsure how to organize against it. But at the same time, I was really encouraged to see them standing up for themselves and being supportive of a thoughtful and organized approach to instituting changes in the way our public fire district is being managed. They’re looking forward to next steps.”

Dave Persell, who has lived in Matlock for 30 years and attended the Oct. 1 meeting, told the Journal Oct. 4 that the fire department wanted to build a new building for a training center and house new vehicles. Fire District 12 bought the property from the school next to the fire station. He helped clear the land for the building to be built, and the levy lift was approved for vehicles and a training center, but none of it ever came to fruition.

“I’m personally pretty irritated about that considering I have more invested than most people in the community,” Persell said. “I got along fine with them up until this whole audit thing happened and now looking at that report, and I have both hard copies, half of it is misunderstanding and half of it is inexcusable and I feel personally assaulted by it because that’s our tax money. It didn’t just fall out of the sky. Some of it certainly looks like stealing, and some of it is just wasting it on stuff. Did we really need all of that stuff? I don’t know. It sure looks like nobody’s watching the hen house. The hen house is full of foxes.”

He said he has yet to hear any news about the plans for a new building. Persell said the more people are learning in the community, the more upset they’re getting.

“Our community has run a successful volunteer fire department for generations. Literally decades upon decades of a rural community looking out for its own people,” Masteller said in an email. “I think there’s a lot of past generation volunteers that were very proud of their service to our community and would like to see our fire department held in that high esteem again, instead of this current embarrassing and unfortunate chapter in what has otherwise been a long-storied history of community service and resiliency.”

Persell said he was apprehensive about what the meeting would entail, but said Gonzales and Masteller were organized and had an agenda, stuck to the agenda and the meeting was informative. He made hard copies of the Auditor’s Office report so others could read it who didn’t have the ability to access it digitally.

“We need that because most of us are trying to figure out what the heck is going on and we feel like we’re just in limbo and held hostage because our money just keeps getting spent on all kinds of stuff and we don’t seem to have any control so we’re trying to get control over our tax money,” Persell said.

Persell said he is unhappy about paying for the audit report and the potential of taxpayer money being used to pay for an internal investigation about the allegations. He said if the allegations are true, action must be taken.

“If you stole from me as a taxpayer, you need to be held accountable and you need to be gone, fired,” Persell said. “Anybody that’s associated with it needs to be fired. The three commissioners, all three of them, need to step down. Even if they weren’t involved directly with the possible theft, they were supposed to be keeping an eye on what’s going on and looking at that report, obviously, nobody was paying attention and doing their jobs, so all three commissioners need to stop down for the betterment of the community.”

Masteller said she is unsure what to expect from the recall.

“I understand why the threshold is so high, because if it weren’t then you’d have citizens attempting to recall elected officials every time they disagreed with the smallest of decisions. But I will say, if this isn’t a poster case for exercising the ability to recall, I don’t know what is,” Masteller said. “One of the most frustrating things for our community is that absent of an upcoming election or recall, there’s really no other way to ensure accountability. There’s no legal oversight from the state or county to ensure that people elected to these positions of trust are following the law and their fiduciary duty to protect the public’s assets. This case is a clear example of gross mismanagement over the course of several years. There’s a willful indignation at play here from FD12 staff and commissioners that makes this situation different than simply not filing receipts appropriately or forgetting to post a meeting agenda. As those following this issue over the last year are well aware, more effort has gone into trying to exclude the public and the media and hide or deflect accountability than if they’d simply improved their processes to be more transparent. That is a clear warning sign that things are not right at FD12. The voters of our district should be given the opportunity to set things right now that the state audit is complete and the matter has been turned over to the prosecuting attorney and sheriff’s office to investigate. We aren’t operating off of gossip, speculation or ambiguity; the SAO actually doubled down on their findings of misappropriation in their report. Pat McCarthy, the actual state auditor, attended the exit conference to emphasize how serious this is. That’s unheard of. I don’t know how it can be much clearer that changes need to be made. If they won’t step down on their own, I hope the judge will allow the voters to decide and permit us to move forward with collecting signatures.”

Masteller said that if the commissioners are recalled, community members have shown interest in filling the vacant seats and running in the next election.

Masteller, who is general manager of Mason County PUD 1, understands the need for transparency about what is happening with organizations that serve the public.

“I had to have conversations with my board members at my job and my associates at the entities I volunteer with to let them know that I was planning to move this issue forward in what would likely end up being a very public process, and to make sure that they supported that,” Masteller said. “I got into public service 14 years ago because I wanted to make a difference in the community that I lived in. I absolutely believe that we have an obligation as public administrators to make sure we are transparent and open when we conduct the public’s business. When people that are elected or appointed to leadership positions in public agencies start to shut down transparency and take the “public” out of the public processes, that should be a huge red flag to everyone. I am fortunate that I work for a group of elected officials that wholeheartedly agree with me on that point and support my efforts to help my community.”

Persell recalled a moment where he heard a commissioner say “all this stuff that’s going on, some people should just mind their own damn business.” Persell said he didn’t have a response at the time, but he has a response now.

“My response now is ‘Hey mister, that’s taxpayer dollars and as a taxpayer, that is my business,’ ” Persell said.