Garden Valley Chief Discusses Contract, Funding

Cole Mayer, Mt Democrat, March 21, 2012

On Feb. 23, El Dorado County Auditor-Controller Joe Harn sent an e-mail to the El Dorado County Board of Supervisors claiming that the Garden Valley Fire Protection District breached its contract with the county. The end result would be Harn and his office not paying out over $131,000 in funding to the fire district.

The dispute began with Harn claiming the contract with Garden Valley Fire Chief Bill Dekker — a 10-year, $1 million (after benefits) contract — breached the contract with the county, where the fire department said it would do all it could to consolidate with other area fire departments to save the county money. The funding, a total of $600,000 to local fire departments dubbed Aid to Fire, was meant to be doled out over two years to mitigate costs, so long as the fire departments did not come back during that time to ask for more money.

Harn told CBS13 that "No one in the public sector gets a 10-year employment contract. It's unheard of." He later said that "It's my opinion this contract was executed with the sole purpose of making it more difficult for the Garden Valley Fire Protection District to merge with other districts."

Harn, in ...

http://www.mtdemocrat.com/news/garden-valley-chief-discusses-contract-funding/

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Garden Valley Fire Chief Bill Dekker Under Investigation (CBS)

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Fire Chief Bill Dekker responds to credit card allegation
Rebecca Murphy, Mother Lode News, March 21, 2012

After another online article by CBS13 news regarding Garden Valley Fire Portection District was printed on the Internet last week, Chief Bill Dekker was contacted for comment. As of this printing, he said he has not been contacted by the District Attorney's Office, which CBS13 stated has "opened a criminal investigation" to look into suspected credit card fraud.

"Garden Valley Fire welcomes an investigation," said Dekker in a phone interview. "There is nothing wrong being done here. There is a four-year pattern of harassment, which is a smokescreen to the real issue. That is,...

http://www.mtdemocrat.com/news/fire-chief-bill-dekker-responds-to-credit-card-allegation/