Garden Valley Fire Department, Garden Valley, CA 95633

This website is for information purposes to notify the residents of Garden Valley, Kelsey and Greenwood of the corruption, criminal history, sexual deviant acts and hatred of gay men by the current employees, fire board members and a former fire board chairman of the Garden Valley Fire Department.

Your taxpayer dollars are funding this past and continued corruption and hatred.

The Garden Valley Fire Department is a mismanaged, crooked fire district located in El Dorado County California. It is suppose to serve the taxpayers of these communities, but the people responsible for it's management have had other hidden personal and financial agendas and goals. This website is updated often due to the constant ongoing corruption, at taxpayer expense, that is discovered at this fire department. Check back often to see updates.

The emergency response area of this fire district consists of approximately 60 square miles bordered in the north by the town of Georgetown and to the south by the city of Placerville. This Fire district has 3 fire stations. The main staffed station (Station #51) is located at 4860 Marshall rd, Garden Valley Ca 95633. They have an outlying volunteer station located at 9751 Highway 193, Kelsey Ca 95667 (Station #52) and another at 3813 Highway 193, Greenwood Ca 95635 (Station #53).

This corruption began in November 2007 when Fire Chief Bill Dekker was hired by this Fire District as Fire Chief. Bill Dekker, Assistant Chief Linda Szczepanik and elected Fire Board members hid Dekker's Criminal, Sexual Deviant and Alcoholic background from the Public. Dekker's background was uncovered after his former employers were contacted in Lyon County Nevada and Pine Arizona where he had served as fire chief. After Dekker's hiring at Garden Valley Fire Department, he discovered he had a fire captain who was gay working at the department and that this captain had questioned Dekker's extensive criminal and corrupt background. This fire captain also questioned the illegal manner in which Dekker had been hired. Fire chief Dekker then conspired with assistant fire chief Linda Szczepanik and former Fire board chairman Rick Nelson to frame and then terminate this employee by blaming him for pornography that was placed on a work computer by other employees. Dekker and Szczepanik took the fire captains work computer hard drive, after they terminated him, and manipulated it by creating an email account and fabricating sexually explicit emails that he could later blame the fire captain for.

This fire captain had been employed with the department for over 17 years and had an excellent work history with numerous commendations. This fire captain was able to hire a computer forensic expert and prove that this pornography was linked to 2 other fire captains working at the fire department. The computer forensic also proved that the sexually explicit emails were fabricated on a date well after the gay fire captain had been terminated by Dekker. It wasn't until a year after this forensic information was brought forward, that they were forced to terminate fire captain Buchmiller, but yet to this date, they maintain the employment of the other fire captain linked to this pornography.

When the Garden Valley Fire District secretary complained about the discrimination and illegal treatment of this gay fire captain and of her being sexually harassed, she was then terminated by Dekker and the fire board. Dekker then immediately hired Joe Cleaver as the new fire district secretary. Joe Cleaver is the spouse of the current assistant chief named Linda Szczepanik. Dekker then lied and stated that the secretary that was let go was being terminated due to budget constraints, yet that year the fire department hired a new paid firefighter and had over a $300,000 surplus.

These terminations of employees by Dekker and Fire Board members were discriminatory, harassing, retaliatory and bigoted. They also are considered to be hate crimes. Both of these employees took legal action over this illegal behavior by these employees and fire board members costing the fire district over $500,000 of taxpayer money in legal fees and settlement costs.

Read further on this website to see the details of fire chief Bill Dekker's criminal, corrupt, alcoholic, sexual deviant and gay hating background. Also read about the corruption of the fire board and the criminal history of board member Dave Souza.

INDEX

(Click on the gray buttons just above)

Gray Page buttons 1 thru 6 will take you to additional pages of this website which documents this corruption, criminal, bigoted and sexual deviant behavior. After you click on these buttons, give them a few minutes to load. There is a lot of information on these pages.

Gray Link buttons 1 thru 11 will take you to additional online websites which document the corruption and criminal history of Fire Chief Bill Dekker and Garden Valley Fire Board members.

Link 1 button- Arizona Newspaper Website (Payson Roundup) - Has numerous news stories detailing Corruption of Bill Dekker while Fire Chief in Pine Arizona.

Link 2 button- 2009/2010 El Dorado County Grand Jury Report on Garden Valley Fire Department. When this page loads, click on the Garden Valley Fire Protection Link under the heading of cases.

Link 3 button- 2008/2009 El Dorado County Grand Jury Report on Garden Valley Fire Department. When this page loads, click on the Part 1 link- Released January 2009

Link 4 button- 2007/2008 El Dorado County Grand Jury Report on Garden Valley Fire Department. When this page loads, click on the part III link -Released June 2008.

Link 5 button- El Dorado County District Attorney press release on Embezzlement of Garden Valley Fire Department District Funds. This article mentions how prior board members embezzled fire district funds from the fire district. Prior board member Robert Rogers was well aware of Bill Dekkers criminal and DUI history and had a direct roll in the hiring of Bill Dekker. Norma Cleaver is the partner of Assistant Fire Chief Linda Szczepanik. All of these people are tied together in this web of corruption of this fire department.

Link 6 button- Lawsuit by former Garden Valley Fire Department Secretary Maria Capraun against Bill Dekker and the Fire District after she was sexually harassed and then terminated.

Link 7 button- Las Vegas Sun news story that also mentions Fire Chief Bill Dekker DUI Incident while on Duty In Lyon County Nevada.

Link 8 button- Sacramento CBS news story - El Dorado County Auditor Calls Garden Valley Fire Chief’s 10-Year Contract ‘Outrageous’

Link 9 button- Website of the drug and alcohol abuse treatment center located in Sacramento, CA that Bill Dekker has made illegal credit card charges to (embezzlement) on a Garden Valley Fire Department credit card. Read further down to see the details.

Link 10 button- Sacramento CBS news story - On the Money: "Garden Valley Fire Chief Under Investigation". This is a news story documenting fire chief Bill Dekker's embezzlement of fire district money using a fire district credit card.

Link 11 button-Mountain Democrat news story documenting the illegal activity by the Garden Valley Fire Board attempting to cover up the embezzlement of $2000 of fire district funds spent by fire chief Bill Dekker at a drug and alcohol abuse treatment center.

Link 12 button-Online newspaper called "In El Dorado County" documenting the same embezzlement of Fire District funds by fire chief Bill Dekker to pay for his alcohol and drug abuse treatment.

Link 13 button- Placerville Forums website (Dave Souza for Supervisor Topix) This website has comments posted by Garden Valley Fire Board member Dave Souza's male sexual partner relating to the recent sexual assault committed against him by Dave Souza. Click on the button and look for the comments posted by "Hot Topic".

Link 14 button- El Dorado County Sheriff media log website documenting the sexual assault commited by Fire Board member Dave Souza against a male sexual partner. Look for the Sheriff call at the time of 07:00 that occurred in Garden Valley. The times are at the far left column of this media log.

Click on the red PDF file to the right of this text. This file contains copies of Garden Valley Fire Department Credit Card statements recently obtained from the Auditor Controller of El Dorado county. These credit card statements are charges made by Fire Chief Bill Dekker and other employees. These charges are paid by the Fire Department Board of Directors using taxpayer money. If you glance through these files, you will see Bill Dekker and other employees making numerous charges like there's no tomorrow. Numerous charges are made at restaurants, hotels, and supermarkets. If you look at the pages with charges made in July and August 2011, you will see an $1100 and a $900 charge made to a business called "Willingness to Change". This is a Drug and Alcohol treatment center. These are illegal charges being paid by you, the taxpayer, for a drunk Fire Chief. Click on Link button 10 above to see the website of this treatment center. The current Fire Board is attempting to cover up this embezzlement by conspiring together to state that these charges were authorized in a (closed to the public) fire board meeting, yet no record or report existed of this meeting at the time these charges were paid by the County auditor and became public. If you click on Link button 1 and 7, you will see prior alcohol related news stories of Bill Dekker at previous Fire Departments. All of this is confirmation that the Garden Valley Fire Department Board of Directors hired a drunk Fire chief and maintains the employment of this gay hating alcoholic bigot.

In September 2012, the residents of the Garden Valley, Kelsey and Greenwood areas received a tax bill from the State Board of Equalization for the approximate amount of $150.00. This amount varies depending on how many structures are located on your parcel. This is a tax to fund the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CDF) This is a double tax. The residents in the Garden Valley Fire Protection District already pay 2 yearly fees in the amount of $35.00 and $71.12 that are assessed on their El Dorado County Property tax bills. The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection has a fire station located in Garden Valley that staffs 2 fire engines that already respond to these 3 communities and provide the same services of Garden Valley Fire Department. Why do these residents need to pay for the same services twice? This money will only help fund the ongoing corruption by Garden Valley Fire Chief Bill Dekker and the Fire Board. Go to this website to protest this new California Fire Tax- http://firetaxprotest.org or call on the Garden Valley Fire Department to drop their 2 yearly property tax fees.