The Board of Directors of the Genesee Fire Protection District (GFPD) announce, with mixed emotions, that our Fire Chief, Jason Puffett, has resigned his position with Genesee Fire Rescue (GFR) to become a Division Chief of Wildland with Evergreen Fire Rescue (EFR), overseeing all wildfire-related activities, including fire response, mitigation and public outreach/education.  We are grateful to Chief Puffett for all that he accomplished while he was the GFR Fire Chief and for his leadership on the proposed Emergency Access Route.   His new job with EFR is a good career move for him and his work will no doubt benefit our District as well by reducing our wildfire risk from a fire originating in Evergreen and providing additional opportunities for collaboration between our Districts. 

The Board has begun a search for a new Fire Chief and hopes to have one in place in the next three to four months.  Our volunteer firefighters and Deputy Chief Auster will continue to provide the same excellent emergency response we have come to expect.  Captain Dorie Dalton will continue to offer her free home assessments for wildfire risk, including mitigation and home hardening recommendations.  We, the Board of Directors, will fill any gaps left by the departure of the Chief.  We expect that the residents of District will not perceive any changes.

The District leadership remains committed to building an Emergency Access Route on the south border of the District, currently spending about $90,000 on final engineering and construction documents.  At its May meeting the GFPD Board of Directors voted to postpone the mil levy election for funding of the project until May 2025.   We knew it would be a challenge to meet all the filing deadlines necessary for a November election, and late refinements to the siting of the Emergency Access Route meant we could not meet the deadlines.  The decision to postpone the election was made before receiving Chief Puffett’s notice.  Postponing the election allows us to complete the engineering and design work so that we have a shovel-ready project with good cost estimates.  It will only delay the start of work on the route, if funded, by a few months.  We will be using the additional time before the election to actively pursue alternate funding opportunities to make the needed mil levy increase as small as possible.  The latest information about the Emergency Access Route can be found on the GFR website (GeneseeFire.org).  The beginning of the Emergency Access Route section includes “What’s New.”  We expect our outreach/education meetings to resume in a few months and urge all members of the District to attend these meetings so that they can make an informed decision next May, and ask for clarification or further information.