County fills vacancy on rural fire district board after recall

The Clatsop County Board of Commissioners on Wednesday night appointed Ed Van Dyke to the board of the Elsie-Vinemaple Rural Fire Protection District so the board would have a quorum after a recall election.

The appointment comes after the county clerk certified the recall of board chair Vivian McCann and board members Staciy Morrison and Wayne Carmichael. Board member Thomas Hecox survived the recall by three votes.

Elsie-Vinemaple

The Elsie-Vinemaple Rural Fire Protection District is guided by a five-member board.

Voter turnout in the April 30 election was 52%.

Jachin Crawford, a member of the firefighters’ association, filed the recall petitions in February after the board fired fire chief Mike Wammack. The board alleged Wammack had deliberately disobeyed board and county directives by making his own repairs and construction to Station 2.

The recall left only Hecox and Kerry Walsh — who was not targeted for removal — on the five-member board. By statute, county commissioners were required to appoint one additional board member to maintain a quorum.

With a quorum, the board can conduct business and fill the remaining two vacancies.

The county received 13 applications for the position. Commissioner Lianne Thompson, who represents South County, said Van Dyke’s application stood out to her because of his prior experience on the board from 2017 to 2023.

“When I looked at all the applications, I thought, how can we empower those two remaining members to have a third person join them and be most effective to do the job at hand, which is to get that district back at maximum function and help heal that community,” she said. “I saw that there's only one of the applicants who actually previously served on the board — that’s Ed Van Dyke. So for me, that was, as I would say, the most elegant and efficient way to empower the board to pick up and carry on with those essential community tasks.”

Since Wammack’s firing, residents have expressed concerns about response times and new volunteers who stepped up after several volunteers quit in protest of the board’s decision. On his recall petitions, Crawford alleged that the board had put residents in Elsie and Jewell at risk by compromising response times for critical fire and emergency medical services.

In response to Crawford’s claims, McCann told The Astorian, “We’re not compromising the services. The response time is the same, and we’ve responded to every call.”

Michael Carter, a chaplain with the Clatsop County Sheriff’s Office who has lived in Elsie for the past 24 years, urged commissioners to consider an applicant who supported the recall.

“We need to reaffirm our partnerships across the board with folks, with our neighbors, with everybody, and I think the only way forward is to course-correct the bad decisions that have been made,” Carter said.

Justin Wagoner, a former volunteer with the fire district who left after Wammack was fired, felt similarly.

“Ninety percent of our department has stepped down since they removed our chief,” he said. “We need someone who is a member of our community and is a resident of our community as chief, and we need some transparency from our board.”

After Wammack's volunteer status was terminated, the fire district board appointed Rob Davis, who had been serving as acting chief at the Vernonia Rural Fire Protection District, as interim chief.

Van Dyke had been assisting with managing operations for the fire district board at the time of Wammack’s dismissal. McCann said Van Dyke’s appointment was an excellent choice by county commissioners, and that the number of applicants showed a lot of engagement from the community.

“He has a very good understanding of the role of a board member and the responsibilities that come with the position,” she said. “So he won’t have the learning curve that someone who hadn’t previously served on the board would have … I’m looking forward to the board being able to move ahead and continue the good work that we’ve been doing to improve our district.”

Thompson said she was grateful to everyone who weighed in on the commission's decision and called on people in the community to work collaboratively moving forward.

“The heart of the community — that fire district — needs to be made whole,” Thompson said. “And I would plead with every community member to put aside consternation, grief and anger, to move forward, to be good neighbors, and to reestablish friendship again to come forward with common community.”

Van Dyke’s term is set to end after June 2025.

“I look forward to serving the people,” Van Dyke said. “It was sad that they thought that the fire department was on the wrong track and decided to do the recall, so I thought I’d step forward and hopefully have it continuing in the same direction it was going the last couple of months.”