The Chehalis City Council temporarily reconsidered its Nov. 24, 2025, resolution regarding negotiations with Lewis County Fire Districts (LCFD) 5 and 6 relating to annexation impacts on the fire agencies’ service areas.
Both LCFD5 and LCFD6 are suing the City of Chehalis and Lewis County in Lewis County Superior Court, claiming the two jurisdictions denied the agencies the right to participate in interlocal agreement (ILA) negotiations, among other claims.
During the council meeting, Chehalis Mayor Tony Ketchum disagreed with the idea to revoke the resolution and asked city staff to remove specific deadlines that were in danger of being unmet while keeping the resolution in place.
The resolution is currently under review, but the dates will be stricken, according to City Manager Stacy Denham.
The resolution in question
The resolution, titled Resolution No. 28-2025, acknowledges that annexation would have an impact on the fire districts and that the city desires to enter negotiations with the fire districts. Additionally, the city said in the resolution that it “appears to be in the best interest of the City of Chehalis to confirm its intent to enter into negotiations with FD5 and FD6 to address the impact of the annexation” upon the adoption of the annexation ordinance.
The resolution included several deadlines that Denham told the city council during its Tuesday meeting were in danger of not being adhered to given the lawsuit. In the resolution, the city was supposed to enter into good faith negotiations with the fire districts, as well as the labor unions, on Jan. 1 to agree to service contracts or other appropriate agreements pertaining to the impacts of the annexation of the urban growth area (UGA).
Further, the city expressed its goal to enter such negotiations with the intent to reach a resolution by June 30 and vowed not to activate any statutory right to take tax levies from the fire districts during the 2026 calendar year.
Denham said the city met with both fire agencies and expressed how it wanted to move forward in partnership with them.
“We believed that Fire District 5 and Fire District 6 wanted to do the same thing. Unfortunately, I don’t necessarily believe that to be true at the moment given what has been said and what has been done since then,” he said. “We wanted to negotiate. We wanted to begin negotiations on Jan. 1. Unfortunately, even after our discussions with them, they chose on Nov. 25, just the next day [after] the City of Chehalis passed our resolution, they passed their resolutions as well. That resolution was to fight us 100%, to include litigation.”
Denham also mentioned that LCFD6 requested in its resolution that it wished for the city to reconsider its decision to annex. However, Denham said that wasn’t the exact same message he received during the Nov. 20 conversation the city had with the fire district.
“That is very light words compared to what we were told that day. What we were told that day was, ‘You are going to reconsider or we’re going to sue you,’” he said. “If that’s what they want to consider as requesting, that’s an interesting request.”
As it pertains to the city’s resolution, Denham said the lawsuit hinders the city’s ability to meet the deadlines it set.
“Even if we wanted to [negotiate], which we do, they have chosen to take a different approach, and they don’t want to negotiate until after they have fought this out legally,” Denham said. “With that, our resolution is pretty much going to be invalid unless they choose to drop their lawsuits and actually come back to the table. At this point, I’ve got no indication that’s what they wish to do.”
Denham told the council that, assuming the city doesn’t hear from either LCFD5 or LCFD6, the city would be asking to rescind the resolution.
Ketchum stood firm on keeping the resolution amid the lawsuit with the fire districts.
“I hear you, but for me, I want that resolution in place showing that the City of Chehalis is still here and the City of Chehalis is still willing to negotiate. I personally don’t want that resolution brought back to us,” he said.
When Denham noted that the city couldn’t meet the deadlines, Ketchum said the city can just strike the timelines from the resolution. Denham agreed.
The city manager told the council that, although the fire districts have stated that they want to continue negotiations with the city to discuss impacts of annexation, they actually want annexation to stop rather than negotiating. Denham said they also don’t seem interested in taking part in negotiations regarding a potential merger of the Chehalis Fire Department, LCFD5 and LCFD6, as the three departments had previously agreed upon exploring joint operations but not yet a full merger.
Denham further stated that the city “did everything we could” to ensure that the fire districts nor the community would be impacted negatively by the annexation and that the merger of the fire departments “was the best thing for everybody involved.”
Denham also stated that he would sign a joint defense agreement with Lewis County in contest to LCFD5 and LCFD6.
City manager’s response to fire districts’ claims
In an interview with The Chronicle, Denham responded to a series of claims made by LCFD5 and LCFD6 in their complaint filed in Lewis County Superior Court last month.
First, the fire districts claimed that both the City of Chehalis and Lewis County have failed to comply with the requirements of Washington state RCW 35A.14.296 and 35A.14.472, are beyond their legal power and authority, and are void for illegality due to their failure to follow the statutory process, according to court documents. In doing so, the city and the county already acted in bad faith, according to the fire districts.
However, Denham maintained that the city was legally authorized to pursue annexation through the method it chose, which was an interlocal agreement with the county. In RCW 35A.14.472, it states that “a code city … may collaborate with the county or counties where the code city is located to form an interlocal agreement regarding annexation of unincorporated territory within the urban growth area boundary.”
The fire departments cited RCW 35A.14.296, which states in part that if a code city is proposing to annex territory to include areas in a fire protection district, the code city must provide written notice to the governing authority. The notified district shall have 30 calendar days from the date of the notice to provide written notice of its interest in being a party to the ILA, according to the RCW.
The fire districts both confirmed in their complaints that the city provided them written notice of its intent to annex by letter dated Sept. 18, 2025. LCFD6 claims it provided timely written notice dated Oct. 15, 2025, that it was interested in being a party to the ILA negotiations. While LCFD5 did not provide a specific date of written notice, it claimed its written notice was given in a timely and appropriate manner.
RCW 35A.14.296 also says that “if timely notice is provided, such … district shall be included as a party to the interlocal agreement. If the … district does not approve the interlocal agreement, the annexation may not proceed under this section.”
Denham said the “under this section” clause is key, as the RCWs give multiple options across different sections for jurisdictions to pursue annexation.
“If that is the case, then we would just pull up the next RCW and then we’d move forward with the annexation,” he said.
Denham also responded to the fire departments’ claims that the city did not involve them in ILA negotiations, which is one of the primary claims of the lawsuit.
“The fire departments have sporadically said that we did not involve them in an ILA. That is correct. We did not involve them in an ILA with [RCW] 35A.14.296, but we did involve them in an ILA to move forward with merging the departments and making sure they were not hurt, and they were not going to lose anything,” he said. “Things were going to mix around a little bit, but the most important thing for us is that no services were going to be in jeopardy. In fact, the goal was to make sure that all services were going to be better than they were before because we were going to merge together, potentially and hopefully, and be able to provide a better service to our community.”
Additionally, the fire departments claim that their “service areas would be split by the annexation, and the annexation would create impractical boundaries with [the fire districts] being required to travel through [the City of Chehalis] to serve certain properties and individuals within [the fire districts’] service area.”
Denham said that claim is “interesting and misleading.” For LCFD6, its service area is already split, he noted.
“It doesn’t make any sense to me for them to say that. They currently have to go through the City of Chehalis to get to Adna or to Coal Creek,” Denham said. “Now, all of a sudden, that is becoming an issue for them when it’s been that way forever. The only difference here is that now their headquarters is going to be in the city limits versus outside the city limits, and they have to pass through the city to get to most of their service area.”
The Chehalis Fire Department also provides mutual aid to LCFD6’s service area when needed, Denham said. He claimed that annexation would not change either LCFD5’s or LCFD6’s routes or their response time.
Denham claimed that, through the proposed functional merger between the Chehalis Fire Department and the two fire districts, the city has “offered everything to them,” referring to the fire districts. He said the annexation and the merger of the fire departments have been discussed for 30 years and should not be a surprise to the fire districts. The city has been negotiating “the whole time” and has been trying to work with the fire districts “from day one to have a better outcome for everybody,” he added. Instead, Denham claimed that it is the fire districts that have chosen not to be a party to any negotiations and are pushing back.
“We’ve offered them people, we’ve offered them apparatus, and we’ve offered them opportunity. We’ve offered them everything that we can offer them, and we’re willing to put it in writing,” he said. “They were playing along that they were interested in this, and they’ve been involved in this from the very beginning. This is not a new thing, and this is not a surprise to them, and they kind of make it look like it is a surprise. They knew this was a possibility.”
Amid the conflict between the jurisdictions, Denham stated that the primary victims are the members of the community.
“It’s not because the City of Chehalis is annexing. It’s because Fire District 5 and Fire District 6 don’t want to merge, even though they both admit that merger is a necessity and will have to be a necessity and is probably where everything is going to go,” he said. “But, for whatever reason, they’re choosing not to now, and I don’t know why. The City of Chehalis has been very open, very transparent with them, and they have consistently pushed back, pretending to come to the table and then pushed back again.”
He assured the residents in the service areas for LCFD5 and LCFD6 that their fire service will, at worst, stay the same but it “should get a little bit better” through annexation and a functional merger.
“I can easily say that and I can easily promise that,” Denham said, adding that, given the fire districts’ current direction, the city would have enough funds to hire more firefighters and EMTs to service those areas if a merger does not happen.
Following the Nov. 20 meeting between the city and its attorney and the fire districts and their attorneys, Denham said the city agreed to write Resolution No. 28-2025 promising good faith negotiations “in order to appease them.”
He said the resolution is proof negotiations took place between the parties.
“Their concern was they didn’t trust the City of Chehalis and that we were going to bully them and that we were not going to negotiate fairly, which, to this point, I believe we’ve been negotiating very fairly and very transparently,” Denham said. “In order to appease them or make them happy or make them feel better, we went ahead and told them that we would be putting together a resolution.”
The city, county and fire districts have not had any discussions since the Lewis County Board of Commissioners approved its end of the annexation ILA on Dec. 2. Denham confirmed Thursday evening that the fire districts’ attorneys have reached out to the city’s attorneys and requested mediation between the parties.
To read more Chronicle reporting on the lawsuit from the fire districts against the city and the county, visit https://tinyurl.com/ye2yd8rp.
