New commissioner appointed, other staff changes come to VIFR

Published 1:30 am Wednesday, April 20, 2022

There have been a number of comings and goings at Vashon Fire & Rescue in recent weeks.

Brigitte Schran-Brown

At a special meeting on Tuesday, April 12, the board unanimously voted to appoint Brigitte Schran-Brown to serve the remainder of the term of Andy Johnson, who resigned from his elected position on Feb. 23.

Shran-Brown is a former commissioner, chair and vice-chair of the fire board, who was elected for her six-year term in 2015. She did not run for re-election in 2021.

She is also a longtime volunteer emergency medical technician (EMT) for the district, serving in that role from 2011 to the present. Prior to that, she served as a volunteer EMT for the district from the mid-1980s to the early 1990s.

Schran-Brown applied to serve out Johnson’s term, which ends in November 2023, along with two other applicants, Nathan Green and former Assistant Chief Bob Larson, both of whom subsequently withdrew their names from consideration.

Schran-Brown, in a phone call, said she had applied for the open seat and returned to the fire board out of a sense of duty, despite having planned to devote herself to more personal pursuits after her previous commissioner term ended in 2021.

“Sometimes, you gotta do what’s right, but not necessarily what’s right for you,” she said.

Rebecca Nason

Staff member Rebecca Nason, who has worked for the district as its financial manager and district secretary, has submitted her resignation. A job notice for this position is now listed at vifr.org. At the April 12 commissioner’s meeting, commissioner Camille Staczek agreed to temporarily serve in the position of the board secretary and was elected unanimously by commissioners to do so.

Father Tryphon

Abbott Tryphon, who has served in a volunteer capacity as chaplain for the fire district as well as in a separate capacity of police chaplain for Vashon, has resigned from both chaplaincies. In an April 15 website post at abbottryphon.com, Tryphon did not directly state a reason for his resignations, but said he had been “blessed to serve the courageous and heroic men and women of law enforcement, and of those who serve our community as firefighters and medics.”

He stated that during the past 25 years, he had found chaplaincy to be a good fit for himself. Stating his age of 76, he said he felt some regret that “I am too old to give myself over to full-time chaplaincy, either to the military, or a big city police or fire department.”

In the fall of 2021, Tryphon received a religious exemption to Gov. Jay Inslee’s mandate that first responders be vaccinated against COVID-19 and had since worked remotely in the position.

Firefighter platoons increase in size

Following a vote by commissioners on March 30 to immediately increase minimum staffing for full-time firefighters/EMTs to four per shift — up from the district’s then-current platoon size of three per shift — Fire Chief Charles Krimmert has affected that change.

The motion to increase staffing passed by a 4-1 vote, with commissioner and VIFR board chair Candy McCullough being the sole nay vote.

Currently, the fourth added position is being filled by VIFR’s current force of nine firefighters, who receive overtime pay for covering the extra shifts.

At the March 30 meeting, a staffing committee comprised of commissioners Pam King and Camille Staczek presented a report that detailed the need for additional staffing.

“Based on conversations with frontline career staff, five frontline career staff are needed daily to reduce the liability to the district; six would be the best-case scenario on a daily basis,” the report said. “We understand that effort is required to meet these goals, but believe that the safety of the community, and the reducing the level of liability to the district is well worth the effort.”

VIFR’s budget currently calls for 13 full-time firefighters/EMTs, including shift captains. However, there are now only nine such staff members on deck, due to recent retirements by longtime veterans of the district, Jason Everett and Daron Buxton. Additionally, in October, the district terminated the employment of another full-time firefighter who did not comply with Gov. Jay Inslee’s vaccination mandate.

Two new full-time hires, culled from the ranks of part-time paid firefighters, are currently in training and will join the force in July — but their arrival will coincide with the retirement of another firefighter, Tom Bruskotter. That will leave only 11 full-timers on deck in July.

At the March 30 meeting, the district’s local firefighter’s union also presented a strongly worded letter, calling for additional hires.

The memo called VIFR’s current level of protection and service to the community “substandard and dangerous,” and said it had already resulted in sixty 24-hour overtime shifts this year, leading to staff fatigue and burnout.

“We have become complacent and entirely too comfortable with our current response model, which by design sets us up for failure when responding to concurrent or major incidents,” the report said.