{"id":96588,"date":"2018-12-21T15:58:51","date_gmt":"2018-12-21T22:58:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/petitions-being-circulated-to-recall-los-pinos-fire-board-members\/"},"modified":"2018-12-21T15:58:51","modified_gmt":"2018-12-21T22:58:51","slug":"petitions-being-circulated-to-recall-los-pinos-fire-board-members","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/petitions-being-circulated-to-recall-los-pinos-fire-board-members\/","title":{"rendered":"Petitions being circulated to recall Los Pinos Fire board members"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Yard
Yard signs have been printed in support of recalling board members of the Los Pinos Fire Protection District.<\/span>Melanie Brubaker Mazur\/Pine River Times<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Members of a committee to recall all five board members of the Los Pinos Fire Protection District have held four public meetings this week in Ignacio and Arboles to inform residents of their concerns and ask them to sign recall petitions.<\/p>\n

In addition to recalling the five board members, the recall committee would like to see the board expand to have seven members. Ideally, new board members would include women and Southern Ute Tribal members who haven\u2019t served on the board in the past. Kevin Ratzmann, a member of the recall committee, said about 51 percent of the district\u2019s calls are made to tribal lands.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need more representation\u201d of the community, said Kathy St. Germain, a recall committee member who attended a public meeting Tuesday night at the Ignacio Community Library. \u201cWe\u2019d like to encourage more people to get involved.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ratzmann is the district\u2019s former deputy chief. He was fired Nov. 19 and is filing a lawsuit against the district, claiming wrongful termination and retaliation for presenting concerns about Chief Tom Aurnhammer to the board. Aurnhammer is currently on vacation and will retire at the end of the year. Former chief Larry Behrens is returning to the district to serve as interim volunteer chief.<\/p>\n

\"Recall
Recall stickers are starting to appear on vehicles around the Los Pinos Fire Protection District.<\/span>Melanie Brubaker Mazur\/Pine River Times<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

\u201cWe\u2019re still doing our job,\u201d one firefighter said, but added that several are looking to find jobs in other districts.<\/p>\n

Another firefighter said employees were told not to attend meetings of the district\u2019s board of directors and not to discuss any concerns with board members.<\/p>\n

Los Pinos employees serve the people of the district, not the board of directors, one of the firefighters said. They also have concerns about going on calls without having a supervisor to oversee the scene and make sure employees are safe.<\/p>\n

Ratzmann said the district plans to return a $120,000 state grant he obtained for emergency systems, including an ambulance. \u201cThis is equipment we desperately need,\u201d one of the firefighters said.<\/p>\n

To force a recall election, the committee needs to gather 300 verified signatures for each board member. The La Plata County clerk will verify petition signatures.<\/p>\n

Members of the recall committee are Kevin and Melissa Ratzmann, Bernie Cuthair, Craig Fisher, Tyrun Harris, Kathy Kent, Mike Olguin, Ellie Seibel, Kathy and Rene St. Germain, and Seth St. Germain.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

with firing of deputy chief, among other concerns<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":96589,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[1235,1953],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-96588","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-ignacio","tag-los-pinos-fire-protection-district"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96588","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=96588"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96588\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/96589"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96588"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96588"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96588"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=96588"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}