Fire district in Mason County losing insurance; public calling on two fire commissioners to resign

Things are tense within the community of Matlock as Fire District is set to lose its insurance once it expires on May 17th, meaning the district won’t be able to respond to any emergency.

West Mason Fire has come out and said they will provide aid to the district in the meantime, another district has also agreed to staff it; however, some in the community worry about response times and overall service.

“It will be longer. It will be. We won’t be getting the service we paid for and need,” resident Julia Fogassy said.

The district says the reason they aren’t able to receive insurance is because of two of their current fire commissioners, Kelli Walsworth and Cinda Compton. Both have ties to a fraud investigation in 2022 from the State Auditor’s Office that claimed they misappropriated $200,000 in public funds.

The investigation also shares other jarring numbers about the misappropriated funds. The state auditor recommended to the district to file a police report about the loss of public funds from January 1, 2017 through July 31, 2022, but as of Aug. 17, no police report had been filed.

During an emergency meeting on Wednesday , the public and fire commission were told if both Walsworth and Compton were to resign, they would become insurable again. Yet when that idea was presented to them, both Walsworth and Compton stood their ground and said no.

“Why do I need to step down? I did nothing wrong,” Compton said during the meeting.

“If it was illegal, then there would be charges. So, nice try,” Walsworth said during the meeting.

The other Fire Commissioner in District 12, Nick Jones, believes those two should step down.

“The community doesn’t want you guys around and it would be best for you to just leave,” Jones said.

With everything that has transpired in recent years, many in Matlock are hoping that they will still get the emergency services they need.

“Without full information, we don’t know how to act. We don’t know how to protect ourselves,” Fogassy said.

The Mason County Commission during a meeting Thursday says they plan to have an emergency meeting on the situation around 9 a.m. to discuss if they need to proclaim an emergency declaration on the matter.

KIRO 7 reached out to both Walsworth and Compton for comment. Walsworth responded and told us she had no comment at this time.