Fire Chief gets positive review from all but Sammamish
September 1, 2009
By J.B. Wogan
Sammamish representatives on a regional fire protection policy board have challenged upbeat job performance ratings for Fire Chief Lee Soptich.Soptich is the executive in charge of Eastside Fire and Rescue, the interlocal agency that provides fire protection for Sammamish, Issaquah, North Bend, Carnation and two fire districts in unincorporated King County.
Lee Fellinge, one of two Sammamish representatives on the EFR Board of Directors, voted against the evaluation. Jack Barry, the other Sammamish representative, said he would have voted against the evaluation, too. (Barry was not present for the meeting.) The other six board members approved the evaluation.
Fellinge said the evaluation did not fully reflect Sammamish’s feedback.
“The substance was different than what we wanted,” Fellinge said.
He declined to go into further detail — he said he feared it would exacerbate Sammamish’s sometimes tense relationship with EFR.
Barry said he would have voted against the evaluation because of a protocol change at the Aug. 11 meeting.
EFR had scheduled its board to discuss the evaluation in an executive session, but the board opted to vote on the evaluation without discussion.
“I’m not sure I feel that that is a constructive way to handle an evaluation,” Barry said. “Without that, I don’t think I could have voted in favor of it.”
But Barry went on to say that his position was not a criticism of Soptich, but a criticism of the procedure and format for conducting the evaluation.
David Kappler, one of Issaquah’s two representatives on the EFR Board, said he was satisfied with the evaluation, but would have preferred a different procedure.
“We should have gone into executive discussion, so it could have been more of a discussion,” he said.
Kappler added that he knew enough about Sammamish’s concerns to think that a discussion was warranted. “I think cities right now, we’re especially concerned with finances.”
Kappler voted in favor of the evaluation and said the Issaquah city administration told him it was pleased with Soptich’s job performance.
The final evaluation was positive as a whole. The partners rated Soptich at a 3 (meets expectations) or higher in 17 of 19 categories.
In two categories, Soptich received a 5 (exceptional).
One category asks if Soptich maintains a cooperative working relationship with partner cities and districts.
The form indicates that Soptich “does not play favorites; partners seem happy.”
Soptich received a 4 (exceeds expectations) in that category, but in parenthesis the evaluation indicates that Sammamish disagreed with the rating. That was the only instance of a specific partner’s opinion being noted.
The Sammamish Review requested the individual partners’ feedback on the evaluation form to distinguish the final evaluation ratings from each partner’s actual comments.
Dave Gray, EFR’s finance chief, declined to release that information because it was part of the deliberation process.
Soptich received a 2 (needs improvement) for ensuring that firefighters and emergency medical technicians respond to calls in a timely manner.
The form said that the turnout time (90 seconds 90 percent of the time) is too long; furthermore, the form alleged that firefighters exercise outside, resulting in slower response times.
In contradiction to the direction listed in the evaluation form, the EFR Board changed the agency’s response time standards to slower than 90 seconds 90 percent of the time at its July 14 meeting.
Soptich also received a 2 for providing the EFR Board with timely updates.
Reporter J.B. Wogan can be reached at 392-6434, ext. 247, or jbwogan@isspress.com. To comment on this story, visit www.SammamishReview.com.
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