Fire Emergency Failure Of Valley Fire Maintenance And Operations Levy Will Have Noticeable Impact On Emergency Response

Slower response times, fewer fire stations and massive layoffs could be ahead if Spokane Valley Fire District’s maintenance and operations levy fails again.

Valley Fire officials will ask voters on Tuesday to reconsider the $6.325 million levy request that was rejected six weeks ago.

If passed, the money will be used to maintain the fire district’s present level of service in 1998. The levy money represents 54.8 percent of Valley Fire’s 1998 budget, which is projected to total $11.55 million.

A second failure could spell disaster for the district, Fire Chief Pat Humphries said.

“I would envision we’d have to close some stations,” said Humphries. “There’s no way we could operate the way we are now.”

As many as four of Valley Fire’s seven stations could close, Humphries said. Some of the district’s fire truck could also be sold. And about half of the district’s 126 firefighters would be laid off.

“When it’s 50 percent of your operating budget that means people,” Humphries said.

Fire officials are hopeful that scenario will not play itself out.

Citizens for Fire Protection has been waging a frantic letter-writing and telephone campaign since the September defeat.

Contributions, mostly from Valley firefighters, also have been pouring into the political action committee’s coffers. During a 16-day period last month, the committee raised $3,565 about the same amount it collected during several months leading up to the primary.

“We are getting a lot of grass-roots support,” Humphries said.

Campaign spending patterns since the primary have been similar, too.

More than $2,100 has been spent to buy newspaper advertising and wooden yard signs that have popped up along several Valley arterials during the past several weeks.

That’s $600 more than was spent during the entire primary campaign period, public disclosure records show.

Fire officials also decided to simplify the wording on the November ballot.

The long, complex explanation on the September ballot may have confused voters, fire officials said. Many did not understand the request was a continuation of the current tax and not a request for additional money.

Humphries and others also blamed themselves for taking the lofty voter-approval rates of the past for granted and not better informing voters this year.

However, fire officials had good reason to be complacent. The district’s 1997 levy request of $5.7 million, which garnered 78-percent approval and passed with ease in February, was one of several recent levies that was not challenged.

While the 1998 total increased over those requests, the amount per thousand remained constant. At $1.49, owners of a $100,000 home would pay $149 a year.

But the levy failed in the September primary, marking the first time in two decades a Valley Fire levy did not receive the 60-percent approval rate it needed.

Increased publicity and a better understanding of the levy request make it more likely to pass this time around, fire officials predicted.

“I’m pretty optimistic it will pass,” Humphries said.

“There was a lot of confusion last time.”

Still, fire officials can’t help but look ahead and shudder a little bit.

They wonder how, if the levy fails and drastic cuts become necessary, the district would handle the nearly 7,800 calls for help the district expects to receive in 1998.

Humphries said firefighters and paramedics would continue to respond to calls for help, but most likely will have to come from farther away.

“In other words, instead of getting a paramedic there in the first five minutes it may be 10 or 12 minutes,” said Humphries, who added that the slower response times could potentially endanger lives.

A February special election date does give Valley Fire officials another option if the levy fails again. However, fire officials would run the risk of a small voter turnout not validating the election, Humphries said.

That’s why the big push this time around.

“We’ve got to educate our voters all the time about what we do,” Humphries said.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: 3 photos (1 color)