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More on potential “EMS Utility”
During discussion of this, brought up by Garland French near the end of yesterday’s budget study session:
There was a clear split amongst the four councilors present. Some felt that an EMS Utility would go against the landslide loss of the EMS levy.
“This is exactly what the voters said they did not want,” said Bob Crumpacker.
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on Thursday, November 5th, 2009 at 8:53 am and is filed under North Coast News.
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if the voters did not understand than he and others did a piss poor job of explaining it. There have been so many numbers thrown around for the past few weeks by so many city official (and alot of others) that you didn’t know who to believe. I voted no and stand by it. I feel bad for the firemen and medics that are caught in the middle. They have a right to be mad but not at the voters. It seems that the ones running this city want to do everything to keep this a “small town” except when it comes to money.
I did not hear Garland French say “people that voted against the EMS levy really didn’t understand the issues” when I was at the budget meeting or the RIG meeting. Where did you hear him say this? Make sure you get your information “first hand” before you get offended.
(From what I understand Garland French said that the people that voted against this EMS levy really didn’t understand the issues)
I for one am offended that a council member could say I voted against the EMS levy because I did not understand the issues!!
I understand the issues all right…especially every time I drive by that firehouse mansion that has been erected to the fire chief’s ego! Oh yeah I understand all right. I understand we need a new fire chief.
If we are currently funding all but 261 thousand of the EMS cost from the GENERAL FUND, then why can we not continue doing so? That is all the money that is going away on Jan 1 2010. The remainder of the budget shortfall is because the city has not acted based upon the fact that taxes are down from all the sources other than property taxes. The canary died last year when we found that the Road LID interest caused us to have a larger LID. The canary died when we got April data showing lower sales and hotel motel taxes. The canary died when we asked businesses how things were going this summer. The signs were there. The city just decided to ignore the facts.
If you did not vote, you voted to go with the majority decision. That decision was a resounding NO. They were telling the city to tighten it’s belt. It was telling the unions that they either give or they will not have membership in Ocean Shores. It is a simple choice for the city and the employees. You either save jobs by reducing hours, pay or some combination of the two. If you do not want to be a union brother or sister in hard times, then you let the lowest on the totem pole go. It is their choice now. We, as citizens voted our guidance to the city and council. Now it is time for them to act. The council can not assume the non-voter wanted something different. That is not their right or duty. They have a duty to take the guidance from the citizens that did vote.
Money is gone after the first of the year. So how do go about having EMS. It takes time to set up a money source. Lot of people dont understand. Layoffs will happen after first of the year.
From what I understand Garland French said that the people that voted against this EMS levy really didn’t understand the issues and that he represents the people that didn’t vote but apparently do understand them. Then he interprets their opinions to be that the city should really have this money now, in the form of a utility tax. I thought that we had council members that were supposed to represent the voting public and not budding commissars.