John Scarffe, Nederland. Four candidates running for the Nederland Fire Department Board of Directors drew straws for Board elections during a regular Board meeting at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, March 4, 2020, at Fire Station Number One. Election for new Board members will take place on May 5, and the polling place will be at Station One in Nederland. 

The Board has the three seats open after Treasurer Nicholas Brodsky and Board member Joe Evans will not run again, and the seat for Beth Davis, who is running again. Ray Willis is on the Board and his position, as well as Chair Henry Zurbrugg’s are not up this year. 

The Board had four nominees, so they moved forward with the election during the meeting. Candidates were required to have a lot drawing as to who is first on the ballot, and they did not have to be present. The number one position on the ballot went to Todd Wieseler, number two to Patrick Richardson, number three to Iain Irwin-Powell and number four to current Board member Beth Davis.

The Mountain-Ear sent questions to each candidate and provides profiles of the candidates below. Names are in order of how they will appear on the ballot. 

Todd Wieseler

Todd Wieseler is running for the Board to promote a culture within the department that puts the volunteers first and realizes the value of their time given to this valuable service. A resident of Nederland for 19 years, he previously lived in Cardiff-by-the-Sea, CA., north of San Diego. Before that, he and his wife, who have been together for 31 years, lived in and around the Boulder area for five years.

Wieseler and his wife love their neighborhood on Bonanza Drive, but their lives could have been severely impacted had the Nederland Fire Department and other fire-fighting services not protected their home during the Cold Springs fire.

“After living through that close call, we have a very high appreciation for the work that our volunteer fire department does for our community,” Wieseler said.

He has previously served on the board of Raven Window, LLC, as vice president of operations from 2016 to 2017. Wieseler has no experience or training in firefighting, but he has relationships with present members and former members of the Nederland Fire Department, and his brother-in-law served as Fire Chief of the volunteer fire department in Hartington, NE., where he grew up. 

If elected to the Fire Department Board, Wieseler will work to ensure that equipment is properly maintained for the protection of the volunteer members and permanent staff and to enable their effectiveness in performing their emergency calls by encouraging the use of professional maintenance resources. 

He will help guide the implementation of effective training of the volunteer members through the establishment of better training materials and practices, leveraging other fire departments for “best practices,” and will establish a more positive culture within the member ranks and department management through improved communications with the Board and acting on the needs communicated.

“I see the Nederland Volunteer Fire Department as a key service to our community and feel that there are improvements that can be realized by a more active and committed Board,” Wieseler said. “I would like to be part of the paradigm shift that transforms the Board, making it more active in the strengthening of the department, promoting its value within the community and bolstering recruitment.”

Amidst the current coronavirus pandemic, the Fire Board elections will still be taking place because elections and voting are essential to maintaining democracy. To request a ballot by mail, send to P.O. Box 155, Nederland, CO, 80466, by email: Jim Harrison Election Official admin@nfpd.org, or by phone at 303-258-9161. You may also drop in your ballot at the Fire Department Polling place on May 5, 2020, 650 West 4th Street, Nederland, CO, 80466.

Patrick Richardson

James “Patrick” Richardson is running for the Board to ensure that volunteer and paid firefighters are trained properly and to improve services to the community. Richardson and his wife, Helen, moved to Nederland in 2006. 

Before moving to Nederland, Richardson lived in Castle Rock and Mount Baldy, CA, a small town like Nederland with about 350 residents. He started his career as a transport EMT in 1992 and then in 1993 started as a Volunteer Firefighter. 

In 1998, he started with Castle Rock as a Firefighter and Paramedic. As a Lieutenant, he fills in for the C-shift Battalion Chief in his absence. For the past 20 years, he has been the Wildland Team Lead and, in this role, he is responsible for the training of 65 line firefighters.

During the past 22 years, Richardson worked on fires from Waycross, Georgia, to Kettle Falls, Washington, including the Cold Springs Fire, where he worked as the Heavy Equipment Boss that pushed dozer lines around the Bonanza subdivision. He has received three Meritorious Awards, seven Unit Citations and one Medal of Bravery. 

As a volunteer, Richardson spent several summers running chainsaws for Saws and Slaws, which helps area residents with fire mitigation. As a volunteer for the Nederland Fire Protection District, he moved through the ranks to captain and training officer and taught at the Boulder Fire Academy.

Richardson made arrangements for volunteers in Nederland to come to Castle Rock and ride with him to see things from a different light and gain experience. Working with the Castle Rock Fire Department, he donated 1,000 feet of 1-inch and 1,000 feet of half-inch hose and nine nozzles for structural hoses to the Nederland Fire Department at a total value of $9,000. He also donated bunker gear along with donating his own time. 

Richardson has also served on the Boulder County Incident Management Team. Five years ago, Richardson had to pull back from participating in the Nederland Fire Department. 

Now he is running for the Board to provide much needed oversight to the Fire District and improve training and prioritize apparatus maintenance.

If elected, his top three priorities would be to institute an updated set of Standard Operating Procedures and Guidelines, including a true purchasing policy. He would look for accountability at the Board and administrative level to be accountable to taxpayers and fire department volunteers, who are also tax payers. 

“Leadership should be accountable to those people,” Richardson said. A third priority will be minimizing antiquated apparatus and properly maintaining the remaining fleet. 

The District does not use a detailed line item budget when it comes to spending almost $1,000,000.00 of taxpayers money, he said. The District purchases random used equipment that in many cases other departments have placed out of service.

To learn more, visit Richardson’s website at http://richardsonfireboard.com/. 

Iain Irwin-Powell

Nederland Volunteer Firefighter Iain Irwin-Powell is running for the Board to improve the accountability of both the Board and the fire chief to the staff and membership of the department and the taxpayers. He has lived in Nederland near the Community Center for almost 11 years.

Irwin-Powell moved to Nederland from London, England, where he lived for 20 years.

He works from home as a computer security and systems engineer for a healthcare nonprofit, where he has worked for about eight years. He has been married to his wife Sarah for 19 years. 

Irwin-Powell has been a volunteer firefighter and EMT with Nederland Fire for nine years from 2010 to 2019 and was a lieutenant when he left. He was the highest responding volunteer annually for most of his time at the department and has run about 1,800 calls in total.

He also is a Colorado Volunteer Mobilizer & Boulder Medical Reserve Corps member. He holds Structure Firefighter I & II, Hazmat Operations and EMT & Wildland Firefighter II certifications. 

If elected to the Board, he would improve the accountability of both the Board and the fire chief to the staff and membership of the department, and the taxpayers. “The Board currently operates in the dark, provides very little oversight and fails to do their due diligence before making decisions that have a massive impact on the department and the district,” he said.

A second priority would be improving the training of volunteers so that they feel confident and safe in the operations that they are called on to do. “I hope this will also improve morale and retention. Along with this, institute a series of Standard Operating Procedure and Guidelines, which tie into training and ensure that everyone understands the expectations of the task at hand. These things together create a confident, capable and motivated group,” Irwin-Powell said. 

He also would ensure that the board provides the oversight that they should. The current Board has admitted, on record, that they do not understand the financial information that is presented to them. “I have seen the records that they are presented with and they are totally inadequate. This is shocking to me given that they manage an almost $1million budget.”

Irwin-Powell wants to run for the Board because the current Board shows little respect towards the staff and volunteers of the department. “They brush off concerns that are brought to them as noise and allow an environment of fear and retaliation to exist within the department.

“They have been disrespectful, on the public record, to the volunteers of the department and have no place being in the position they are. They show little understanding of the functioning of the department and defer all responsibility to the fire chief. 

“This has led to an inverted power dynamic where the fire chief effectively runs the Board with almost no oversight. The Board fails to even manage itself according to their by-laws, having one member who has been effectively absent for almost two years, attending only four of 25 meetings.” 

For more information, go to https://nfpdboard2020.com.

Beth Davis

Current Nederland Fire Department Board member Beth Davis has been on the Board for two years and decided to run again. She has lived in the area for almost 40 years on Third Street, Magnolia Road, then north Gilpin County and Eldora the for the past 28 years.

Davis is originally from the Boston area and moved to Colorado from New Jersey. She is a respiratory therapist, who worked at Denver Health for 13 years before taking travel positions the past 2-1/2 years. 

“I will be home for good at the end of the month, and back into my little cabin in Eldora,” she said. 

Davis was Rookie of the Year in 2000 and came to the department as an EMT, where she was working for an ambulance service. “While I attended department fire training, most of my training was in the medical area. I came to EMS later in life, and it is a young person’s sport!”

In addition to serving on the Fire Department Board for two years, she was an active volunteer with the department from 2000 to 2012, then going on the reserve list. Her top three priorities for the Board in the next years include improving communication within the department, strengthening the cohesiveness of the department and clearly defining roles and responsibilities.

“I offer the perspective of having been a volunteer with the department. I also bring my experience working with a multitude of paid, volunteer and mixed agencies throughout the country, getting a feel for how they work. Being on the Board is a way I can support my community,” Davis said.

(Originally published in the April 16, 2020, print edition of The Mountain-Ear.)