Bonner County EMS sees shakeup

SANDPOINT — Bonner County EMS is enduring another personnel shakeup.

The department’s deputy chief and three lieutenants asked to be relieved of their managerial duties last month due to a lack of confidence in Chief Rob Wakeley. They expected to retain their positions as paramedics.

“The whole point was to get the commissioners’ attention,” said former Deputy Chief Matt Avidan, who some regard as one of the department’s most useful assets. “We had communicated to Rob and the commissioners that we were not intending to resign.”

But the moves were indeed treated as no-notice resignations from salaried positions with clearly defined responsibilities. The job descriptions made their field and office duties a package deal.

The county then amended its contract with Newport Ambulance to address the sudden loss of manpower and make sure there was no lapse in advanced life support services. The county is looking to fill the vacant slots with new hires, although those who resigned have been advised they can reapply.

The shakeup comes less than a year into Wakeley’s tenure as chief, a position with a notoriously high turnover rate.

Wakeley came to the post last September not only with paramedic experience, but with business experience as well. Even Wakeley’s harshest critics concede his skill with budgeting is unsurpassed.

But some within the department and others within public safety community question Wakeley’s professionalism and competence, particularly when he’s in the field.

“He has an enormous ego and his ego clouds his judgment,” said Avidan, who further contends Wakeley’s egotism leaves him blind to the fact that he’s in over his head and interacts poorly with others.

A Bonner County fire official under contract with Bonner County concurs that Wakeley is, in sanitary terms, a jerk, but he declined to speak on the record out of concern that patrons in his district would be financially penalized for his candor.

“I can’t really address that,” Wakeley said of the jerk allegation.

Wakeley said he is prevented from discussing the specifics of the interdepartmental strife because of county personnel confidentiality policies. However, he said accepting the resignations was a decision which county commissioners, their legal counsel, the county’s personnel director and a labor lawyer from the Idaho Counties Risk Management Program all agreed would be the most appropriate course of action.

“I have not made a major personnel decision that did not get unanimous support,” said Wakeley.

Wakeley admits he’s made some mistakes in his dealings with others and experienced no small amount of self-doubt during the turmoil.

“I’ve made mistakes, but none of them were egregious and none of them were malicious,” he said.

Those with the knowledge of the dynamics of the situation who also declined to go on the record maintain the angst toward Wakeley stems from an expectation that he would be mainly an administrator. Wakeley’s detractors were unpleasantly surprised to find that was not the case and resented having a superior who was a less qualified paramedic than they were.

Those sympathetic to Wakeley’s situation contend his critics attempted a mutiny that proved unsuccessful. Avidan disputes that notion and said commissioners were mainly looking to save face.

“I don’t think they wanted to admit they made a mistake,” Avidan said, referring to the board’s decision to hire Wakeley in the first place.

The department’s medical director, Dr. Ronald Jenkins, contends questions regarding Wakeley’s clinical competence are unfounded and views the entire situation as unfortunate.

Jenkins admits Wakeley is on the green side in comparison to other paramedics, but he’s gaining experience. Jenkins adds that he’s seen nothing in quality assurance reviews to support claims of incompetence.

“I get to review, as medical director, all the charts and all the reviews of every run he participates in. In that process, there were no major issues of his competence, and that is the forum we use to allow people to get privileging,” he said.