Camas city councilors to discuss putting RFA proposal on ballot again

Camas officials will soon decide if they will resurrect a regional fire authority proposal that Camas-Washougal voters rejected less than four months ago.

Camas city councilors will discuss the issue during their regular meeting Monday and could approve placing the proposition on the November ballot.

At stake is the future of the joint Camas-Washougal Fire Department that combined resources in 2013. It has struggled to find a funding formula that would bring staffing levels up to where fire leaders say they should be without straining the city of Washougal’s limited revenues or placing an undue burden on Camas taxpayers.

Camas-Washougal Fire Chief Cliff Free told Camas officials earlier this month that the fire department’s interlocal agreement definitively lays out what will happen if city leaders decide to forgo sending the regional fire authority issue to voters a second time — or if voters reject the independent taxing entity a second time. The Camas-Washougal Fire Department will begin an unraveling process that would split it into two city-run agencies by the end of 2026, Free told Camas councilors during their July 7 workshop.

In April, Camas-Washougal voters rejected the regional fire authority proposition by a little more than 300 votes.

Clark County voting data showed that the ballot measure had high approval rates in Washougal but failed to gain traction in Camas.

Part of the problem, Free told city officials this month, was that, while all property owners in Camas and Washougal would have to pay $1.05 per $1,000 assessed property value to form the regional fire authority, Washougal officials were willing to return a much higher percentage of their taxpayers’ property taxes to make up for the costs. In Camas, taxpayers would have had to pay an additional 45 cents per $1,000 assessed property value.

“The ‘no’ campaign came and spoke,” Free said. “Their issue was not that it’s becoming a (regional fire authority), a taxing district with its own controls, but that the cost was too great.”

The president of the union representing Camas-Washougal firefighters, James Cliburn, said last month that union members agree $1.05 is the “bare minimum” rate necessary to fund the regional fire authority and are hoping city officials will bring the proposition back to voters in November. But they want to see Camas revise the proposal and lower costs to Camas taxpayers.

Most Camas councilors seemed to agree with that evaluation during the July 7 workshop.

“My interpretation is that voters were looking for sharper pencils,” Councilor Tim Hein said. “I don’t think they threw out the idea. They threw out the cost.”

But at least one council member disagreed.

“The people spoke, and they didn’t want it. I find it insulting to put it back to the voters,” Councilor Jennifer Senescu said. “I think the voters said, ‘No, we don’t want another taxing entity,’ and I think we need to move forward from there.”

Kelly Moyer: 360-735-4674; [email protected]