Fire 12 recall appealed

John Pais said state auditor’s report has errors

Matt Baide | Nov 24, 20220

Mason County Fire District 12 commissioners on Nov. 16 appealed a recall petition filed against them to the state Supreme Court.

Mason County Superior Court Judge Monty Cobb ruled all three recall petitions can move forward after a hearing Nov. 3. Kristin Masteller and Amanda Gonzales were the plaintiffs moving the recall petition forward.

They are hosting a community meeting at 1 p.m. Nov. 28 at the Matlock Grange to discuss the next steps for the recall petitions.

“The community has expressed a lot of disappointment that the fire commissioners have decided to spend more public funds pursuing an appeal to Judge Cobb’s decision on the recall rather than accept responsibility and step down,” Masteller told the Journal in an email. “They’re dragging these proceedings out unnecessarily with public funds going to a second attorney that should instead be going toward ensuring public safety.”

Masteller said several residents have agreed to collect signatures for each of the three petitions.

“Each week, more community members contact us to volunteer to support the effort, so we should have strong canvassing in each of the three commissioner districts,” Masteller said. “The community is fed up, tired of the excuses and finger-pointing. We are tired of our tax dollars being spent protecting people that have violated their

fiduciary duties. It’s time for us to finish this recall process so we can move forward and rebuild our fire department. Once that is complete, we can shift our focus to ensuring that the criminal investigation proceeds expeditiously so the prosecutor’s office can seek restitution for the FD 12 taxpayers. The community is committed to seeing this entire process through to the end.”

The commissioners opened meetings for in-person attendance at the Nov. 15 regular monthly meeting. Commissioner Albert Wilder commented on how the internal investigation is going, stating when the state Auditor’s Office had its exit interview with commissioner John Pais and the fire district’s attorney, they asked for supporting documents to see what the Auditor’s Office was basing its decisions on.

“They assured us they would release them as soon as they had that open meeting, now they’re not releasing anything to us. They’re delaying it,” Wilder said during the meeting. “They are not even releasing the documents to our attorney. So, until we can get the documents, we have no idea what the Auditor’s Office based their (report on). Our attorney is waiting, in the audit report, it said the auditor recommended their report be investigated by the prosecutor. It’s being investigated by an attorney who is working with the prosecutor. This takes time, had we gotten the supporting documents, when this report was read, what, September, we could have probably had this solved, but everybody’s hands are tied. We’ve given the attorneys everything we ever gave the auditor, they have that to look at but we do not have their supporting documents and that’s what’s holding all this up.”

Wilder said at the Dec. 27 commissioner meeting, they plan to have their recall petition attorney and the attorney investigating the audit report to give an update on “where things are at.”

“I’ve told people if everything they knew about what was going on here was in the audit report, I’d be upset as well,” Pais said during the meeting. “And with our attorney when we met with the auditor, he had asked her, ‘If we could prove there are errors in your report, would you change it?’ and she adamantly said no. And we know that there are errors in the report but she still wouldn’t change it. They said as soon as it was published, they would turn over the documents, and when we had to ask for them and they said they wouldn’t give them to us until Nov. 28, and the report was published in September. So for some reason, the auditor is dragging their feet on this and our attorney is upset with it.”

Wilder said they also pay taxes and don’t like seeing the money go to attorney fees.

“Unfortunately, my tax dollars and your tax dollars have to pay for these attorneys to fight all this stuff,” Wilder said. “I think we could have just got through this investigation and figured out the best course for the department going forward, but we just keep incurring more and more attorney fees. It takes away from the community. It takes away from the fire department. It takes away from everybody, us included. I pay taxes.”

The state Auditor’s Office released their accountability and fraud investigation reports in September.

“Unfortunately, the fire commissioners continue to hide on Zoom and shift blame onto us and the State Auditor’s Office for everything they have been called out on,” Masteller said. “They continue to spend money to pay their other attorney to investigate themselves. The same people accused of embezzlement, malfeasance and misfeasance are overseeing the ‘investigation’ and the commission publicly blames the SAO for not producing the fire district’s own records that they should already have. It’s an amazing waste of public resources.”