Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Sam.
[00:00:40] Speaker B: Well, welcome everybody to another edition of Unbolted live. I am M.J. bolt, your host. And with us today we have Dan Garner. Dan, thanks for being with us. We appreciate it.
[00:00:50] Speaker A: Thank you for reaching out. I appreciate that.
[00:00:52] Speaker B: You bet. Yeah. Dan is running for fire commissioner and Spokane county in district four, position one, right, Dan?
[00:01:01] Speaker A: That is correct.
[00:01:02] Speaker B: Okay, so Dan, tell us what it. What part of the county is that area?
Fire District 4.
[00:01:09] Speaker A: Sure. Spokane County. Fire District 4 encompasses the north part of Spokane County. So if you're heading north, say on Highway 2 roughly from Mount Spokane Park Drive, where the yolks is, from there all the way north to the Pend Oreille county line, to the east, it goes to the state of Idaho. And if you're heading north on 395, roughly the hatch Road exit, okay, from there north to the, to the Ponder county line, and then to the east or to the west, it goes to Stevens County. It's a total of 330 square miles. Has 10 fire stations.
[00:01:41] Speaker B: Okay, 10 fire stations. And how many commissioners sit in are elected for those positions?
[00:01:48] Speaker A: There there's three commissioners elected at large, and there's a new position up every two years, and it's for a six year term so that there's never a, you know, a whole new board, you know, they replace or a new commissioner. Their term comes up every six years.
So again, if there's three positions and they alternate every two years, that one would be up for reelection.
[00:02:12] Speaker B: Okay, awesome. It's good for a lot of people. You know, there's so many of us that don't know about these positions. And that's why I think this is a great opportunity to not just learn about you, but also, you know, exactly what this looks like and how important this is to the community. So thanks for, for informing us, you know, and filling us in. So, Dan, you are one of the recommended candidates by the Spokane county gop, and that's why I reached out to you, which is awesome. Thank you for going through that process. It's an important process that as the Republican Party of Spokane county, the official party, we believe we are doing service to our citizens to vet these candidates through a rigorous process. And then their representatives, the PCOs, actually vote on this endorsement. So it's not just a rubber stamp. Right, Right.
Yeah. Yeah. So that's awesome. So, Dan, I'm always interested when we talk to people that are running for office.
How did you get here? Tell us your story, your background, and why you are running for this position.
[00:03:18] Speaker A: Okay, that's a That's a very good question. So my life has been pretty much dedicated to public service. I started as a volunteer firefighter here in spokane county in 1990.
I then earned my degree in fire science technology down at SEC in 1991.
In 1992, which really wasn't that long ago. Right?
[00:03:39] Speaker B: It wasn't for me. It feels like yesterday. But you know, I graduated around 90, so.
[00:03:45] Speaker A: Okay, okay. So in 1992 I started my career as a full time firefighter fighter, then became a paramedic and promoted to lieutenant in 2002.
And then in 2009 I promoted to a captain and that was all with Fire District 9, which is just borders Fire District 4 to the south. I worked in Fire District 4, but I've lived. I'm sorry, I worked in Fire District 9, but I lived. I have lived in Fire District 4 since 1998.
And it's again, I retired as a full time firefighter, career firefighter in 2023 with over 30 years both as a career firefighter, captain, paramedic, instruct, fire firefighter instructor. I also have a extensive wildland firefighter experience. I even in retirement, I still serve on a regional incident management team for Northeast Washington.
Department of Natural Resources has hired me just on a temporary as needed basis to go out to the bigger fires. And I've done three of those so far this year as an incident safety officer. So my certification's all gone up. But to answer your question, when I retired, you just can't, I just can't give up and just sit here. And there's a fire station, you know, about a block away from my house here. I live in North Spokane by cattails off Highway 2.
[00:05:03] Speaker B: Okay. Yep.
[00:05:04] Speaker A: And I hear the fire trucks going out all the time. And about a year ago I went and met with the operations chief of Fire District 4 to ask how I could continue to serve. And I knew I didn't want to do the, the hard work, the physical, putting on the air pack, going in the, in the firefighter, in the fire anymore.
My body's a little bit on the, on the worn down side after 30 years of serving, shoulders and knees and back, of course. But I knew I wanted to continue to serve. So with discussions with the operations chief, we came up with the idea that they have a group of guys and gals that drive just the water trucks to the bigger fires. Because the north part of the county is pretty rural, there's areas with no fire hydrants. So I volunteered to do that. And I've also done a lot of instructing of incident commands. From my incident command experience, I've done quite a bit of instructing for the career firefighters there and some of the volunteers in Fire District 4. And then it just came about that I believe I could serve at greater capacity utilizing my vast experience.
I could serve better the citizens by being a fire commissioner than I can just driving a water truck.
[00:06:08] Speaker B: Yeah, for sure. You know, and as we kind of mentioned before, it's so important to have great people as our elected representatives. I always like to focus on the representative part. Right. And how better to be a representative when you have served in those shoes, you know, of a fireman for 30 years. Thank you for your service, by the way, and for serving the community.
And also you. You probably have built a lot of great relationships with the firefighters and the citizens of the community.
[00:06:37] Speaker A: I have, and that's why the firefighters of Fire District 4 have endorsed me over the. The. The other candidate. I think the other candidate has done a fine job given his experience, which his experience was just as a volunteer firefighter. He was a volunteer firefighter for some years, and then he's been a commissioner for the last 13 years. And I feel pretty strongly it's time to keep moving forward. And he doesn't understand, I believe, a lot of what it's really like to work in the fire station and what it's really like to work as a paramedic, a lot of those things. He just doesn't have the background that I do.
[00:07:08] Speaker B: Well. And times change, too, right? And maybe, you know, even what it was probably 15 years ago, it seems like in every industry, you know, the times change and what it felt like or what it was like 15, 10, 15 years ago is probably not even close to what it looks like now.
[00:07:25] Speaker A: Right, exactly. At the end of my career, what the job looked like was significantly different than the beginning of my career. Everything from using technology, the safety components, that is one thing that is a big passion of mine. Like I said, I'm an instant safety officer on a regional state team.
That's my job, to keep the firefighters safe. And there's certain things with Spokane County Fire District 4 that need changing. One is I don't have any now, but I do wear hearing aids. That was an LNI claim. Because of the years with the siren and the loud noises and Fire District 4, we need to get some hearing. Just simple things like hearing protection in the trucks that I think older generation just doesn't understand that and the decontamination of the contaminants when firefighters do go into the fire.
But most importantly for the safety of our firefighters and more. Even more importantly for the safety of our citizens is the laws, what's called the two in, one out law. If there's a fire in your house and someone's trapped, you have to have at least three people. It's Washington state law. You have to have at least three people on the scene before you can even attempt a rescue and go inside. And right now on Firestick 4, the majority of their engines and stations are staffed with two people instead of three.
So as a citizen, myself, as my family, yes, if my house were to catch on fire or a family member were trapped, or even a pet were trapped inside, the first fire truck on scene can't even attempt a rescue until the next fire trip gets on scene, I don't think that's acceptable. I think we need to spend a little bit more, and I'm not in favor of raising taxes. So Fire District 4 currently spends about 55% of their budget on staffing, and the national standard is closer to 85%.
So I would like to see more people on the trucks. You know, nice new fire stations are great. Shiny fire trucks are great, but it's the people that save lives.
[00:09:11] Speaker B: Yeah. Fire trucks can't do it by themselves, can they?
[00:09:15] Speaker A: Exactly, exactly. And. And even. Even on a medical call, for example, you know, a cardiac arrest takes multiple people to try and save that person. Two people just can't do it.
And then you're talking, you know, seconds, let alone minutes, count if someone's not breathing or someone's trapped in a fire. And that's why I'm very passionate about getting reallocating the budget to appropriate more funds towards staffing to get people on the trucks that save lives.
[00:09:45] Speaker B: Tell me a little bit more about. So in Northwest. And that's. My old stomping ground was over, actually, so I'm fairly familiar with it. It's been a few years, but, you know, it seems like you guys are. It's growing, too. The population, more and more people are moving out there. So is that creating also, you know, pressures on that district, you know, for fire resources? And then I want to clarify that you said that it takes three people by law, to enter a home. That's. That's, you know, to save somebody. And most of your firehouses only have two people that are regularly on staff.
[00:10:23] Speaker A: That is correct. So the first engine will get on, arrive on scene, they can start setting up, but they, by law, have to wait till the next fire engine and the next Resource comes on scene, which could be minutes, you know, easily minutes later. As you know, it's a rural area and the fire stations are spread out, so it's going to take a little while for the next, you know, might be just a couple of minutes, but if you're trapped in a fire, minutes count.
[00:10:44] Speaker B: Yeah. And then talk about the. The kind of sprawling population increase out there as well.
[00:10:49] Speaker A: There is quite a bit of growth going on. Of course, if the. At the north South Freeway or corridor ever gets finished, is going to continue to grow. But yeah, the Deer Park. So we cut. Like I said, if you. If you draw that line across roughly Mouse Camp Park Drive to the north, that area has changed significantly in the last 15 years. I mean, in 20 years. The house I'm currently sitting in was built in 1999. So 26 years ago, this was just the woods out in the middle of nowhere. So, yeah, the population growth at the south end of the fire district has grown significantly. As well as the areas around the city of Deer park itself, There's. If you. If you drive up to Deer park, if you haven't been up there in a while, you'll see lots of new construction.
[00:11:28] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:11:29] Speaker A: So. And where there's people that requires emergency services.
And just like every other fire department across this nation, the call volume has gone up and up and up every year. So there's more and more calls for help that needed, whether it's, you know, as simple as grandma fell out of her chair and he's helped back into her chair, Grandpa's not breathing, the house is on fire, there's a car accident. I mean, if you drive up Highway 2 or 395, the traffic on those roads are significantly more than they were 15, 20 years ago when the current board of commissioners were volunteers.
[00:12:03] Speaker B: Yeah, for sure.
[00:12:05] Speaker A: Yeah. Then the hazards out there are a deal.
[00:12:08] Speaker B: Yeah. We hear too often about awful, you know, accidents that happen on those roads. So is the trend going up despite population? Is that a trend that you're seeing nationwide is in more calls, like, even if the population's the same?
[00:12:27] Speaker A: Yeah, I. I believe so. I can't say that with any facts, but I believe it. And I think part of it is, is the society that we live in. You know, 15, 20 years ago, a farmer, you know, I can be gruff because I was in the business, cuts off his hand and I can. They would pick up their hand and drive themselves to the hospital. Yeah. Nowadays people sprain an ankle and they call 911. So the expectations from the public have Grown significantly, even if the population hasn't, which of course it has. But people are much more likely today because of the services we do provide. And Fire District 4 does provide paramedics and EMTs as well. And so we're the first ones on the scene to begin patient care. But whether it's the COVID issues that we had a few years ago, everything else, people are much more likely to call 911 today than they were in previous years.
So that does put a greater demand on the emergency services.
[00:13:25] Speaker B: Yeah, for sure. And, you know, I just have to tell a little story, because my son, we were in the garage, this was probably 10 years ago now, I think, and he, we got a new garage door, and he whapped the, the pulley, and it got caught up in the garage braces. Right. And so jumped up to push the thing through, and he came down and his finger didn't.
And I was standing right there, and, And I had no idea. And he goes, mom, I said, what? And he looks, shows me his hand, and it's missing the finger. And I'm like, oh, my gosh. And called the fire department. They're right down the street from me. They were amazing. I, I, I'm sure there's story after story.
They were so calm. My son has autism, and, and, and so, you know, like, just staying calm and keeping, you know, and talking them through stuff. They were just so great. And I just know there's story after story of people.
We just appreciate, you know, what our fire firemen do and fire women and just the whole things. I mean, you guys are out saving people's lives left and right. And like you said, sometimes it's a, you know, you've got a big old fire up there, like off of, you know, an elk that happened a couple years ago.
[00:14:41] Speaker A: And, you know, I do appreciate that. And a lot of people aren't aware that about 80% of our calls for emergency services are for medical. And that's where my, you know, decades of experience as a paramedic, not just the emt, but as a paramedic, can come in to help and make policy decisions because it's such a big part of our job.
[00:15:00] Speaker B: Interesting. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:15:02] Speaker A: And then you mentioned the elk fire, which was called the Oregon Road Fire, Again with the state. I did get called out both on. I spent nine days on the Gray Road fire in Medical Lake because I got called there first, which. That fire started about five hours before the Oregon Road Fire did.
Started a really bad day in Spokane County. In fact, it was Interesting how your mind kind of process this thing, because I was a brand new volunteer when Firestorm 91 happened. And I was on one of the brush trucks there by Mead High School.
Fires right around Mead High School there. And I kept thinking as I was driving down i90 here two years ago, you know, in the middle of night, it's two in the morning, there's fire on both sides. I90 is closed for nine miles. I kept thinking, well, at least it's not as bad as Firestorm. At least it's not as bad as Firestorm 91. And then also I realized, wait a Second, we had 180 homes in the Medical Lake area that were destroyed one life. And then my wife has also helped out on some of the teams at Dune Finance, and she was up on the Oregon Road fire helping out as well. And I Knew There was 100 homes up there and another fatality up there. And also I realized, wait a second, this was worse. Yeah, I did. Like I said, I did nine days on the Gray fire. Took a short break. I should have taken longer, but I took a short break and then did 15 days up on Oregon Road. So my wildland experience is vast in multiple positions.
[00:16:26] Speaker B: Wow, that's amazing. Yeah, that was horrific. You know, and people that were impacted in both those and Firestorm, you know, I lived right off of Colbert Road up there on the other side of the highway from you. And so. Yes, yeah, that was very impactful as well. But that's a good comparison because I. I remember that, you know, that was right after I graduated, and people thought that was so horrific. But this one, this one surpassed it, didn't it?
[00:16:50] Speaker A: Yes, and I was actually real close to that. There was a fire over by Midway in Little Spokane. I was on that fire and Firestorm, and then we were trying to hold it at the river, and with those winds, you jumped the river and went up the Triple Butte circle area, which sounds like it was pretty darn close to where you lived. So, yeah, I was right there as a new firefighter, you know, on the hose lines. It's been a long time since I've been the guy holding the hose. I'm more decision maker, policymaker, and the teams. But yeah, I was right there close to where you lived.
[00:17:17] Speaker B: Wow. Yeah. Amazing. So let's talk about some of these, you know, some of your things at your platform a little bit more. What's your vision, Dan, for the fire district for, you know, the next few years?
[00:17:31] Speaker A: That's a great question. Again, I think the budget needs to Be reevaluated and reimagined in that more of the current budget needs to go towards staffing, not overhead, not administration, not big buildings. It needs to get people on the truck. So my vision long term would be to get three people on every shift, on every fire truck.
At the short term, at least in the periphery, in some of the more populated areas, say in Colbert or up in the Deer park area, different stations, we got to at least start somewhere and get more and more people and better training, as well as their safety equipment.
[00:18:09] Speaker B: And you mentioned this before, but I think it's a good thing to clarify, especially for our conservative voters. We're not usually in favor of, you know, tax increases. Sure, you can do that without the, you know, increasing the taxes.
[00:18:22] Speaker A: That's my goal. And as a fire commissioner, it's not like the state legislator or anything. Fire commissioners don't say, okay, we're going to increase the budget, we're going to increase this tax.
We leave it up to the voters. So if there were a need, we would need to go to the voters and just explain why. And I think a lot of times people get told, we're going to raise your taxes, we're going to raise your taxes. And I'm not in favor of that. But if we need to, it's going to be up to the voters. I will work for them. Voters, it's going to be their decision. Whatever they, the voters decide what the budget is by approving. And there's three, there's three different forms of income. There's the, the property tax. You get, you have the little, the little pie chart that no one likes to see on your taxes. A little sliver of that is Fire District 4. And one. One way to increase funding is if we, we did need to is get a lid lift approved.
Say, for example, we have $1.50 per thousand assessed value goes towards the fire district. Well, that's a fixed number. And then as values go up, sometimes we have to readjust that number back up to $1.50 again, but that would be approved by the voters. The other thing, if we did have some large expenditures that needed to come down would be a bond. We need new fire trucks or new. But we'd have to explain why we can't. We don't just, like I said, we don't just go as, as the state legislator does and say, okay, we're going to increase this tax or that tax or this fee or that fee.
And then the last one would be a levy. If the voters wanted but that would be 100% for the voters. It would be my. My job to educate the voters about why it's so intricately important to have three people on each truck.
[00:19:57] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Is there a current levy right now up in District 4?
[00:20:02] Speaker A: There is an EMS levy, and to be honest, I don't know that specific percentage.
[00:20:08] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:20:09] Speaker A: How much per thousand? I don't know what that is, but I'm sure at some point that's going to expire and we would need to renew that if the voters. And again, it's up to the voters if they want to continue the level of service with paramedics that we have that you call 911 and those paramedics show up at your door within minutes.
[00:20:25] Speaker B: Yeah. And the. And those levies usually are three or four years. Is that right or is it. I'm thinking it's similar to school district, but maybe I'm wrong.
[00:20:33] Speaker A: It is. It is fairly similar. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:20:36] Speaker B: Okay. Yeah. So every, you know, the citizens have an opportunity to, you know, renew, usually, you know, a few years if it's like continuing on. So. Yeah, that's really important. And again, I invite you, you know, once you get into this position, we're trusting that you can come on and if, you know, there's any of those situations, you can help use this platform to help explain it, you know, and help people stay engaged. I think that's one of the big things is because our mainstream media doesn't talk about local issues.
You know, people don't. Aren't aware of how these different jurisdictions work and, you know, taxing, you know, parts of our. Of our budget work. And so it's very good. It's very good to have these conversations to help that transparency. Right.
[00:21:25] Speaker A: And on the dollar figure, no one likes paying taxes. I get that. Right.
But the other thing is your fire insurance for your home is based on the ISO rating. So there's a standard rating that the fire district gets, I think it used to be every five years and they've gotten it every three years where they reevaluate the fire district and they take into account staffing, how old are the trucks, training, how far, how long you can get water to areas. There's a whole evaluation process to get that ISO rating.
So based on the rating, the lower the rating, the lower your property, your. Your insurance rates are. So myself, I'm biased based on my experience. I would rather have my money go towards maybe taxes for the local fire district to improve the manning and pay less to. I don't want to say any specific Allstate, State Farm, Liberty, whoever. I'd rather have my money stay locally here to the fire district than to go to some corporate office in San Francisco or New York for insurance company. Because if we don't get the staffing anything else, our insurance, our insurance numbers are going to go up, which are probably going to go up anyway because of the Oregon Road fire. But I want to keep those insurance rates as low as possible. So again, I'd rather have my money go towards local taxes for the local fire district than to some corporate office.
[00:22:41] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm so glad you brought that up. I just learned about that last year when we were going through this process for our 2025 candidate or 2024 candidates. Sorry. And I had no idea that that was a thing. How can you know an average citizen find out what that rating is? Is. Yeah.
[00:22:59] Speaker A: You call the fire district and they'll tell you.
[00:23:02] Speaker B: Okay, all right. Because it obviously it depends on where you live and how far, you know, like you said, all those different.
[00:23:07] Speaker A: Well, if you go to get new homeowners, that's one of the homeowners insurance. That's one of the first thing they're going to ask, where's the nearest fire station? And then they also want to know, is it a manned fire station or a volunteer fire station?
[00:23:18] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:23:18] Speaker A: And then they take into account the whole district as well. But how far you are from the local fire station is a big difference in your insurance rates.
[00:23:25] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. Wow. Fascinating stuff. Dan, why do you believe people should vote for you over your opponent in this race?
[00:23:34] Speaker A: I have a couple of differences.
One, I've already mentioned his background. He's. He's done an okay job with his background. He was a volunteer firefighter for a number of years. He's been a commissioner for 13 years. And I just feel like he's out of touch a little bit with the, the boots on the ground, so to speak. And I've literally been in those boots on the ground recently.
And this, this, even this summer I was up on the Hope Fire up by Northport, the big really bad fire up there for, for I did 13 days up there just a month ago. So I more recently boost on the ground. I understand. I'm a year for the guys. They, they able to talk to me.
I'm able to understand the current regulations, current needs of what, what needs to be done. Whether it's equipment, whether it's staffing or whatnot is one difference. Another big difference. And I Don, put him down. But I'm here, I'm present.
He is a snowbird, so half the year he goes down to Arizona. And a lot of our calls, a lot of our structured fire calls are in the winter because of the alternate heating methods. And as you know, Those roads, Highway 2 and 395 get really dangerous in the wintertime. So I'm here and present year round.
[00:24:48] Speaker B: Gotcha. Yeah, those are important distinctions I think.
Very good. What, what are some other top priorities you've already mentioned? Staffing and some other things. Are there any other top priorities that you have for your fire district?
[00:25:01] Speaker A: Like I said, the safety issues, whether it's as simple as getting hearing protection on the trucks for the guys and gals or that turn out decontaminations. If we go, if I were to go into a fire when I was on the job, you come out and you don't know what contaminants because looking in your background, you have a quilt behind you that's probably not all natural fibers. The carpet is probably not all natural fibers. The cushion you're sitting on, it's not. So when those things burn, sets off a lot of different chemicals under, under varying conditions and that gets contaminated on the gear.
Then the firefighters come out and they, they. Most of the firefighters, four only have one set of gear. Where I worked we actually had three, which is expensive, but one we use was an old retired set we used for training and then we had two sets. That way we could go into a fire as soon as we get done.
We call it tag and bag it, have big heavy duty garbage bags, put our gear in the garbage bag so we don't contaminate the trucks. Go right back to the station, put our new, our clean set on and put that set in the cleaner and get it cleaning for the next fire.
[00:26:04] Speaker B: Wow. Stuff. You know, again, average citizen or at least me, I have not thought about that and thought about the implications of the, of my son and I have been watching a lot of Chicago fire. So we've been watching.
[00:26:17] Speaker A: Oh, don't watch that stuff. Let's go.
[00:26:19] Speaker B: I'm sure it's not quite real, but you know, you, the effects of the fire, I mean, you know what that does to like you said, these different. Connect these different, you know, things that you have in your home, you don't think about that, but yeah, and then if you're just constantly breathing that in, I'm sure that's going to jeopardize the health of the firefighters a lot more. So how important that is that decontamination.
[00:26:43] Speaker A: Sure. And on that note, we've come great strides over the years in the fire service, but I do lead a retired group for my old retiree group for my old fire district. I lead the retiree group. We meet once a month. And I hate to say it, but there's far too many guys with no prostates and because of cancer. And there's a lot high, high incidence of cancer because when I first started, we have the respirators. We would wear the respirators early on, but then to take them off to do overhaul in the house. But all those, like I said, look in the room behind you. All that stuff still off, gassing those chemicals.
So we've gone much better. But it was the best job in the world, don't get me wrong. But it was also the hardest job in the world.
[00:27:24] Speaker B: Well, and if, you know, I'm sure that's there's probably national trends on, you know, the amounts of cancer for firefighters and unfortunately. Right.
And so you've got to take, we've got to take care of our people.
[00:27:38] Speaker A: And in addition to that is the mental health toll that it takes because we see, you know, an average person sees four to five traumatic events in their lifetime. And as frontline firefighters, we see dozens a year. And that, that does play a toll. And I do volunteer as well for what's called a peer support team, where I've had myself and some other firefighters and police officers, but mostly firefighters have had some mental health training to go in when we have critical incident stress issues, where we go in and have critical instant stress debriefings with a therapist as well. They found that firefighters don't do very well talking with therapists. They're more likely to talk to other firefighters. So there's been a number of times where I've been called out to really bad incidents, fatalities, those kind of things to help defuse the situation. So that's another trend that we've improved.
[00:28:28] Speaker B: Greatly on that's so important. I had a, have a really good friend on the west side that's a firefighter and, you know, didn't really think through the different events that you as firefighters see almost daily or, you know, so much more frequently than the average citizen. And you, you know, like you said, the impact of that on their mental health. And if you don't have any, if somebody doesn't have a way to get some help or, you know, that it just piles on. So that is incredibly important. So I'm really glad that you have that experience, and you are aware of that and understand that's all part of it. Right. Because that's going to help our firefighters be better, last longer, and be able to continue to contribute. Right?
[00:29:14] Speaker A: Exactly. And it used to be when I first started, you'd have a fatality or a kid that was killed or whatever. Okay, get back on the truck. Let's go get ready for the next call. And now the trend is actually, let's take that crew out of service for an hour or two, let them go hop back to the station, take a shower, call their family, check from their family, maybe go on the treadmill a little bit and get in the right mindset to get ready for the next call.
[00:29:37] Speaker B: Yeah. Wow.
Yeah. So important. So important what? You know, you're connecting with your community now, Diane, Dan, you're getting your message out there. You know, you're campaigning.
Once elected, how do you plan to continue to connect with your community?
[00:29:53] Speaker A: Well, Fire District 4 has, in the past, they have a.
What's the term? It was a group of civilians.
I'll think about it in a minute. But it's a group, and they just recently kind of start to reform. The citizens. Citizens Advisory Committee. I want to listen to that.
You know, have my. My email available. Anybody can ask questions at any time. I'm more than happy to talk about fire EMS anytime also. And then I also want to get out and get in the stations.
I remember some, when I first started, some of the older fire commissioners as a. When I was a volunteer, on volunteer drill night, they'd come up, you know, they'd always bring donuts because, you know, it's donuts. But they. You got it. You got to be available for people and listen to what they. What their needs are. Because I don't want to be that guy six years from now where it's been six years since I've been on a truck, and I'm already lost touch.
[00:30:50] Speaker B: Right, right. Good. That's so important. And again, it's that representative role. People have to keep our electeds, you know, keep that in mind that you're a representative.
[00:31:00] Speaker A: Right.
[00:31:00] Speaker B: And elected by the people. So how are you going to stay, you know, connected to those people?
[00:31:07] Speaker A: Does participate in a lot of good community events. Cherry pickers, trot up on Green Bluff, the Settlers Day parade, all that stuff. And just being available. I just enjoy talking with people and answering questions.
I'm more than happy to answer whatever questions they have because, like, we've already talked about, there's a lot of things people just don't understand.
I think sometimes they think of, you know, old clearance on Leave it to Beaver. I sat around the fire station playing checkers all day long. That's not what the job is at all. Like I said, about 80% of it is medical.
[00:31:35] Speaker B: Wow. Yeah, Very busy. Dan, final comments. Is there anything else that you want voters to know about?
[00:31:41] Speaker A: You just know that I've lived here since 1998. I've lived in Fire District 4, 30 years on the job.
I'm still committed, I'm still serving my community, whether it's the big fires in Northeast Washington as part of a state incident management team. I also teach, I continue to, I teach within the fire district, but I'm also an instructor down at Spokane Community College as well. In the spring, I teach the wildland portion of the fire science program down there. It was kind of neat graduating us with a fire science degree and then going on and graduating with advanced life support degree.
But to be able to. Six years ago, I started teaching again back at the fire district. So it, it makes you feel a little old when these 18, 19 year old kids are there, you know, born in, in late, you know, 2005, 2006, 2007. It's like, whoa.
But I'm able to give back and I, you learn. I always encourage people to teach when you can because I don't think there's ever a class I ever taught where someone didn't ask a question where I had to think about it and I, well, I hadn't thought about it from that angle. So staying involved, giving to the next generation of firefighters and just being able to represent the citizens of the district to get us better.
Fire District 4 has a great future ahead of us with the growth that's going to be happening in the next five, 10, 15 years.
So I'm excited to do that and to take care of our citizens.
[00:33:05] Speaker B: Yeah, for sure. Where can people find more information about you or get in contact with you?
[00:33:12] Speaker A: That's a great question. And I have an email and I gotta pull it up here.
Let's see.
There we go.
Sorry for my delay here.
[00:33:27] Speaker B: That's okay. It's, you know, and yeah, traditionally, I don't think, you know, fire district commissioners don't campaign like in the traditional sense of the word. Right. As much. You don't see that as much.
[00:33:37] Speaker A: But I think it was for many years it was kind of the good old boys. Oh, we like, we like Joe Smith. So let's, he's a cool guy. So let's go ahead and, and and really, their background wasn't really taking into account.
So my Gmail is Dangarner. That's D A N g a r n e r.d4gmail.com.
[00:34:01] Speaker B: Awesome. Good. So if you want to get in touch with Dan, you know, reach out to him. It is email and. Or you can comment on any of these. The social media posts, which. Which is. This is, you know, presenting live on. And I'm sure we can get the message over to Dan. So, Dan, thank you again for taking time to come on here today. And again, Dan is the endorsed candidate in this race, District 4, position 1 for fire District commissioner.
And again, that's so important. If you want to find out about the other recommended candidates. If I said endorsed, I apologize. I'm not recommended because these are nonpartisan. Right. Races.
Recommended candidates, go to spokane gop.com and we've got a huge group of people that went through and vetted all these awesome candidates. So they did the homework for you. And Dan is definitely one of these awesome candidates that's running, and we so appreciate it. Dion, thank you for taking the time to spend with us today, but also for running for this. And, you know, it's. You're not getting paid big bucks here. You know, this is. This is kind of a labor of love, and. And we need, you know, people like you that have this great experience and also have a heart, you know, for doing what's right for the community. So thank you again and blessings, and we look forward to talking to you in the future.
[00:35:22] Speaker A: Thank you. God bless you.
[00:35:24] Speaker B: All right, you too.
[00:35:25] Speaker A: Bye. Bye.
