Two former Lewis County Fire District 1 volunteers, including the district’s former chief, filed a request for a recall petition Wednesday against the district’s two remaining elected commissioners listing 11 alleged violations of state law.
District residents have called for the resignations of the Onalaska district’s commission chair Rich Bainbridge and commissioner Bill Kassel on several occasions since the pair voted in November to fire chief Andrew Martin. Since that vote, half of the district’s volunteers have quit, the third commissioner Jeff Lee resigned and the state Department of Labor and Industries closed the district’s main station due to dangers from asbestos, mold, mouse droppings, rotting wood and plants growing inside the building.
Many of the volunteers who have resigned in the past two months have said they would return if Bainbridge and Kassel left, but the commissioners have said they have no intentions of stepping aside.