At 3:30 p.m. on Friday, a medical call just went out (unconscious woman). Three other Ocean Shores ambulance teams are on calls. A request is in for Hoquiam to respond.

Update: Hoquiam ambulance arrives at Ocean Shores residence at 3:57 p.m.

At tonight’s City Council meeting, Mike Styner, Chief of Public Safety, announced that Ocean Shores has received a SAFER grant, which will pay the salary of a firefighter/paramedic. This would fill one of the laid off positions, and could happen as soon as September.

The Ocean Shores property tax increase looks like it will be approved, by a slim margin.
According to the County’s Web site, 2,010 votes have now been counted, with 1,033 (51.39%) voting to approve the measure, over 977 (48.61%) voting to reject.
The 35 cents per thousand of assessment increase would go into effect in 2011 and 2012.

According to Julie Murphy at the County elections office, a total of 1,999 Ocean Shores ballots have been received, this week. Of these, 1,677 votes were counted on Tuesday, with 860 of them (51.58%) voting to approve the property tax increase for EMS, and the other 817 voting to reject the request.

That leaves 322 ballots to be counted in the next tally, to be released Friday at 5 p.m. So it looks like 1,000 is the magic number for a tentative win, although there will be one more tally before the May 12 “certification.”

For tentative approval, there would have to be 140 more “approve” votes, or 43% of the 322 to be counted.

For tentative rejection, there would have to be 183 more “reject” votes, or 57% of those 322 to be counted.

A total of 3,182 ballots were mailed to Ocean Shores voters; the 1,999 responses thus far are 63% of the total mailed.

With 1,677 votes counted, the property tax increase for EMS was being approved by 51.28% of the voters. According to the County’s election web site, there were 860 votes for “Approved,” over 817  “Rejected” votes.

“It’s awfully close, “ said Mayor Garland French, minutes after the first count. “I think I’m going to have to reserve much comment until Friday,” when the next ballot count is announced.

As of 7 p.m., there were 146 votes collected today at the Convention Center which were not part of this count. The ballots were collected until 8 p.m., then driven to Montesano. The first ballot count was released shortly after 8 p.m.

There were 3,182 ballots mailed to Ocean Shores voters, earlier this month.

Late addition:

“Like Mayor French, we are waiting for Friday’s results,” said Randy Peck, of the groups Lower Ocean Shores Taxes, which opposes the tax increase.