Locals Only: A (lukewarm) endorsement

And my wife has the nerve to call me “wishy washy” . . .

My ballot came in the mail, last week. It included, under “local measures,” the following: “City of Ocean Shores Levy to Support Emergency Medical Services Proposition No. 1.”
I would like to offer it an endorsement, of 50.1 percent.
That is the slightly-more-than-half of my brain that is saying “Vote Yes, Tom; it’s the only sensible thing to do.” That voice, by the way, sounds eerily like Hal, of “2001.”
The other 49.9 percent is shouting, “Don’t do it, you fool!” (It sounds like the excitable doctor, on the original “Star Trek.”)

Before I go any further, let me offer full disclosure: I am a volunteer at the Ocean Shores Fire Department. As they use a complicated point system to pay volunteers, you could say I’m “on the payroll.” I believe my year-to-date total was approaching $100, last time I checked, and by now I may have cracked the three-figure mark.
Paid volunteer or no, I would not support the “lid lift” for EMS if I didn’t think it was needed.
The two main reasons to vote “Approved”:
1) We’re not getting any younger;
2) The hospital’s not getting any closer.

With any aging population residing 25+ miles from Grays Harbor Community Hospital, it only makes sense that EMS should be this city’s No. 1 priority.
Although this is only a 50.1 percent endorsement, I am also suggesting you don’t just stop by checking the “Approved” box. After that, I recommend you contact, via phone, email or in person, your mayor and city council members, and ask that:
•The two paramedics who were laid off in the last year be reinstated, as soon as possible
•A realistic plan be formulated and implemented to hire more paramedics, in keeping with the Ordinance 808 that Mayor Bunkers has quoted in his EMS “presentations”
•Your water rate be lowered, as soon as possible.

A year ago, the city’s water consultants gave a presentation stating that, even with a new, $6 million MIEX water system, water rates paid by residents could be reduced. And that was assuming the city would be taking out a loan for $6 million, at around 5 percent interest.
Since then, the city landed $3 million as a grant, and $3 million at 1 percent interest, for the new water system.
Why, you may be asking, is it taking so long to reduce the over-priced rates we are paying for undrinkable water? (Technically, it won’t hurt you and you can drink it, but who does?)
I have asked this question several times, and have yet to get a satisfactory answer.
You may notice the city of Ocean Shores runs like an Olympic sprinter when it wants to spend money, but act like it is stuck in quicksand with this reduce-the-rates process.

You may also say, “What are you talking about? Water and EMS are entirely different!” True, but the funding for both is coming out of our wallets. I can see no reason that we shouldn’t pay that $100 or so that this levy would collect of us for EMS, and then get back all of it and then some in lower water rates.

Analytical person that you are, this thought probably popped up: “Well, if this support EMS is such a no-brainer, why are you 49.9 percent against it?”
The “against” side of my brain says:
•City council should have asked for at most 35 cents, not a “throw more money at us and we’ll fix everything” 50 cents;
•Council took the easy way out, going for a “lid lift” rather than following what seems to me is the clear intent of the State law by asking for a “regular” EMS levy;
•It feels ridiculous and insulting for the city to lay off paramedics and other city employees, then ask us to pay more taxes, apparently because their budgets are not working;
•This trend of the city collecting more money every year has got to end!
But that’s only 49.9 percent of me.
To pass, by the way, Proposition 1 requires “only” 50.1 percent.

tscanlon@northcoastnews.com