Two of the four fire protection districts in La Plata County held elections for their boards of directors Tuesday, and the preliminary results are in. Because of a new law, members of the military have until May 14 to return their ballots, but the winners won by such large margins that those 83 votes cannot change the results.
Durango Fire Protection District
Voters selected three out of the six candidates running. The vote count was:
Patricia “Patti” Zink – 252 votes.
Kathleen Morris – 242 votes.
Wayne Barger – 238 votes.
Kitty Benzar – 80 votes.
Claude “Bud” Deering – 79 votes.
Carrie Cline – 65 votes.
Bill Meiers and Tony Whittle were on the ballot but had withdrawn their names by election time.
The top three candidates are scheduled to be sworn in at the next board meeting at 7:30 a.m. May 27.
“I’m going to have a huge learning curve,” said Zink. “I’ll be reading the director’s manual and doing lots of orientation to get up to speed.”
Morris was an incumbent and Barger had served on the Animas Fire Protection District before the consolidation, so newcomer Zink is bringing her experience on the board of the Hundred Club to bear.
“I want to look ahead and make sure the employees feel supported,” she said. “With the consolidation, they didn’t even know if they were going to have jobs. But you want a motivated person taking care of you.”
The number of eligible voters and number who turned out was not provided by DFPD.
Upper Pine Fire Protection District
These are the preliminary results for the board of directors for Upper Pine Fire Protection District. Voters were allowed to vote for 2 out of 5 candidates. Out of the 7,735 eligible voters, 203 votes were cast, for a 2.6 percent turnout. The preliminary results are:
Casey Cook – 143 votes.
Wayne Walters – 131 votes.
Bill Kourim – 66 votes.
Bill Faust – 30 votes.
Roger Pennington – 25 votes.
Cook and Walters, as the two highest vote getters, will be sworn in at 3 p.m. May 15. Cook is a captain with Upper Pine and has volunteered with the district since 2002. Walters has volunteered with the district since 2007 and was named Volunteer of the Year in January by the Colorado Department of Homeland Security’s Division of Emergency Management.
Pennington and Kourim were both incumbents who were defeated.
abutler@durangoherald.com
