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Don Gronning
County commission chair addresses Newport City Council
NEWPORT – Pend Oreille County Commissioner John Gentle told the Newport City Council that one of the things missing from the discussion about the county forming a county-wide Emergency Services District was intellectual honesty.
“It seems like the people who are for it are for it and accept everything and the people that are against it are against it and object to everything,” Gentle said. “And the truth is almost always somewhere in the middle.”
Most recently, the county commissioners have been considering forming the district for about two years, since the last private ambulance firm went out of business in 2023. County commissioners have held hearings in north and south county. Bylaws were then drawn up.
In 2016 then county commissioners were also considering forming an EMS district after Newport Ambulance, a private company, went out of business. They also went as far as to have bylaws written, but didn’t vote on forming an EMS district.
In wide ranging remarks, Gentle said he was against forming an EMS district right now. But he went on to say he would vote for a tax for an EMS District if it was on the ballot.
“I do feel like there’s too much work to be done to support it in its current state,” Gentle said of forming an EMS district. But if the district was formed and a tax levy was on the ballot, he would vote for it.
“If it showed up on the ballot, and I’m talking about a taxing district, this is the creation of a junior taxing district, if it showed up on a ballot, I would support it,” he said. He said the three county commissioner districts vary a lot in geographic size.
District 1, the district from which he was elected in the south county, and District 2, the district that includes Newport, are much smaller in size than District 3, in the north county. He said he would vote for a tax levy as a citizen if asked to cover the more remote District 3.
“I would pay taxes to provide them with life-saving ambulance services, that’s a choice that I would make,” he said.
He said if an EMS district were formed by the county commission, it would go to a vote of the people to decide if any tax money should be levied. “There is that check and balance in there,” he said.
Gentle said an EMS district might not be necessary now, but it would be in the future.
“Whether it is necessary now or not, it is going to be,” he said. “I believe it is going to be, at some point, the only way we can sustain ambulance service.”
Newport has formally voted against the county forming an EMS district and the South Pend Oreille Fire and Rescue district opposes formation of a district, Newport City Administrator Abby Gribi pointed out.
“If this were put before you with that knowledge, would you vote to force entities that don’t want to be into a countywide EMS District?” she asked.
Gentle said he would vote no right now. But he could be outvoted 2-1 on a county commission vote. “I’m only one vote,” he said.
Newport Mayor Keith Campbell asked if the reason for forming an EMS district was because Fire District 2 was simply too geographically large.
Gentle said it was more than that. He said the reimbursement for ambulance services was broken.
He also said Fire District 2 insisted on providing Advanced Life Support Services everywhere. Fire District 2 has one of two ALS licenses in the county and the city of Newport is within its licensing area. SPOFR has the other ALS license.
“That would be one of the places they could save dollars,” Gentle said, by using Basic Life Support Ambulances instead of ALS ones. “Which would be an EMT instead of a paramedic.”
Gentle said the private sector couldn’t provide ALS services countywide and went out of business.
So now government is considering providing it countywide.
Campbell said that was where the disagreement with forming a countywide district was centered. He said the council objected to having another layer of government involved.
“SPOFR, I think they’re pretty confident in their model,” Campbell said. “Maybe that can be duplicated and that’s what we look at.”
Gentle said the SPOFR model wouldn’t work elsewhere. He said he would expect SPOFR Fire Chief Shane Stocking to express that to the council in no uncertain terms.
Gentle brought up the draft bylaws.
Councilmember Mark Zorica said the bylaws were too vague.
Gentle said the by bylaws were written as an answer to objections to the formation of the district. Gentle said he would prefer the appointed board write the final bylaws.
Zorica said he didn’t want fire district chiefs or city staff to make up that first board.
Gentle said that since there was a very real chance the EMS district was going to be formed, the city and SPOFR should stay involved and provide input. If the county forms the district, SPOFR, which has the largest tax base by far of any district, would be forced in. Newport would have to pass a resolution to be included. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t be able to receive the services of an EMS district.
Zorica also objected to the unanimous vote of the EMS board needed to run the district.
Gentle said that was written to protect SPOFR and the city so they wouldn’t be outvoted by other districts, that a consensus would have to reached for important decisions.
Forming the EMS district might be a life and death decision, Gentle said.
“If there is a day when we run out of money, who is going to die?” he said. “Will it cost lives before we get this put together?”
Cambell and other city council members said they appreciated Gentle saying that the formation of a district was about forming a tax district. Council members and Gribi said they still think it is a waste of time.
When asked by Zorica if the county commissioners would vote on forming the district this year, Gentle said his best guess was that it would come up for a vote late in the year.
He said there was much to be determined but, in the end, he thought the board would be made up of fire district commissioners.
As to objections that it was a waste of time, Gentle said that it would be very much worth the city’s time to have someone on an EMS board.
One of the audience members asked what happens if the county doesn’t form an EMS district.
“Short answer would be, Fire District 2 runs out of money and there are no ambulance services north of Furport,” he said. Or they go to BLS or LifeFlight only. He said there have been times when the south county didn’t have enough money. “Flip the script, there have been times when SPOFR’s Fire Chief said no, we need more money (or) we’re going out of business. We’re running way in the red and we don’t have ambulance services down here. So that’s the worst case scenario.”
