Wood River Fire & Rescue chief to address unification pros, cons
BY ERIC VALENTINE
The nearly two-decades-long attempt at unifying north Valley emergency services remains stagnant, but south Valley officials will be all ears Wednesday, Feb. 12 at 4:30 p.m. when the Wood River Fire & Rescue chief will give a presentation on his firsthand experience with the successful 2014 unification of two Colorado-based fire departments.
“I’m not being brought in as the panacea,” said Fire Chief Ron Bateman. “I plan on sharing what I thought made us successful in Colorado and what I’ve been observing in my limited time here in Idaho.”
Bateman was named interim fire chief in September last year when longtime WRFR fire chief Bart Lassman retired and became the permanent fire chief in December. So he admits his Idaho frame of reference is limited. Nonetheless, Bateman says there are enough similarities to his Colorado experience and potential opportunities locally to warrant public consideration.
Bateman’s presentation will be open to the public and will be held at the Hailey City Council Chambers. He said he plans to speak for 35 to 40 minutes using a PowerPoint presentation he has put together.
“I want it to be a conversation. I’m not going to just be reading slides,” Bateman said.
Bateman said that Hailey’s new fire chief, Mike Baledge, will be in attendance and that the fire chiefs from the Sun Valley and Ketchum fire departments have been invited.
Colorado Success!
Quality of service and the safety of the crews actually doing the first responding jobs are the two things Bateman says are his top priorities.
“Those are of paramount importance and I’m the guy who’s ultimately responsible,” Bateman said.
And in Colorado, Bateman oversaw the unification of the Milliken and Johnstown fire districts, which led to a reduction in response time from 22 minutes on average to under 10 minutes on average. Bateman recalled one incident where a middle schooler went into cardiac arrest. Because emergency personnel reached the boy in 5 minutes rather than 15 minutes, his life was saved.
“That’s just one of a multitude of success stories I saw firsthand,” Bateman said. “There were a litany of lives saved thanks to our unification.”
Rekindling Unification?
Although the north Valley chiefs are being invited, Hailey’s entry into the unification discussion doesn’t necessarily mean a countywide merging of fire departments is imminent or likely. It means folks appear ready to start dialoguing again. And this presentation will look at both the challenges and benefits unification might bring, Bateman said.
What are the challenges? Bateman explains there are so-called logistic or technical challenges and then there are adaptive challenges. The logistics are about scheduling and planning and financing. The adaptive refer to the culture and mindset required to make mergers like this work.
“Frankly, it’s the adaptive challenges that are more challenging,” Bateman said. “This requires new conversations and dialogue at all levels.”
The old conversations—at least in the north Valley—have led to debate that has stalled multiple unification efforts between Sun Valley, Ketchum and Ketchum Rural Fire District over the years. The most recent debate saw Ketchum’s city council reject a merger proposal spearheaded by Sun Valley in 2019. That decision triggered the cancellation of Ketchum’s contract with Ketchum Rural who opted to make a deal with Sun Valley instead. Cut to: Ketchum voters approved a levy to fund a new fire station and Ketchum councilmembers approved the purchase of a new fire engine—two infrastructure matters that made the rural fire department leary of renewing its service contract with Ketchum again.