Nestucca Rural Fire Protection District Chief Jim Oeder took over as president of the Oregon Fire Chiefs Association in March and will lead the organization for the next year, coordinating lobbying and outreach activities.
Oeder said that his primary focuses would be on amending new health and safety rules that would negatively impact firefighting services and working to boost funding for services across the state that are cash strapped due to rising costs and demand, and restrictions on taxing.
“It doesn’t matter whether we’re Portland area, Tualatin Valley, Clackamas Fires or even smaller than us, your Bay City, Netarts,” Oeder said, “we’re all up against the same thing, service and your operating costs are getting to where we’re going to make cuts because we just can’t do everything anymore.”
Oeder took over the presidency of the Oregon Fire Chiefs Association (OFCA) after serving on the board of directors for the previous six years and holding the second and first vice presidencies in the last two years. The OFCA includes members from more than 300 firefighting services across the state and advocates for issues concerning them, as well as providing training.
Oeder has been a professional firefighter since arriving in Nestucca in 2009, following a 30-year career as a volunteer firefighter in Lebanon while working as a machinist.
In his role as president of the OFCA, Oeder has already traveled to Washington D.C. to meet with federal legislators but says that most of his advocacy work will take place in Salem.
Addressing the funding crunch hitting fire services across the state is the top priority for Oeder and the OFCA, as departments are caught between rising costs and stagnant revenues.
Oeder said that firefighting apparatuses and equipment have seen cost increases anywhere from 50% to 200% in recent years and that less features are now included as standard, driving costs even higher.
Combined with Measures 5 and 50 restricting property tax increases in Oregon, Oregon fire districts are being forced increasingly to rely on levies, like the five-year one that voters in Nestucca approved last year. “If it wasn’t like that, there would be calls that we couldn’t handle,” Oeder said of the levy.
While specific proposals have not yet been advanced, Oeder said that he has had discussions with State Senator Suzanne Weber, who represents Tillamook County, and is optimistic that supportive legislators will be able to deliver help in next year’s long session.
“We have quite a few senators and representatives very supportive for the fire service,” Oeder said, “and so there’s going to be a number of things that we’re able to look at.”
The other major issue that Oeder said he will be focusing his attention on is proposed updates to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s rules governing fire services.
The proposed rules update is currently in a public comment period which has been extended twice and contains provisions that Oeder said would put an undue strain on services.
As an example, Oeder mentioned a proposed rule that would require departments to check each of their self-contained beathing apparatuses daily. Especially in small services with multiple stations, like Nestucca, this would require copious staff time, hampering operations.
“My full-time crew with six fire stations, they would have to go to each one of those every single day of the week and I’m not gonna get anything else done with them,” Oeder said.
Oeder said that he had discussed the rules with federal legislators while he was in Washington D.C. in May and that he was hopeful the final rule update would be revised to reflect firefighters’ concerns.
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