EMS saga comes to a close, for now

NEWPORT — The Pend Oreille County commissioners have decided not to vote on forming an Emergency Medical Services district, leaving Pend Oreille County one of three counties in the state without an EMS district.

While they’re not going to vote on it this year, the county commissioners left the door open if the fire districts came to them with a plan and need for an EMS district.

County commissioner Robert Rosencrantz, whose mid-county commissioner district 2 includes Newport, said the turning point was when Fire District 2’s Fire Chief, Chris Haynes, told him last Friday the Fire District 2 commissioners no longer supported the county-wide EMS district the way it was proposed. They especially objected to the bylaws that Rosencrantz had written for the district requiring unanimous approval of an EMS board for anything it did.

“They wanted changes and I said that’s not happening, so they decided they would not go forward with an EMS district, county-wide,” Rosencrantz said Tuesday morning, Dec. 16, at the county commissioners meeting. The commissioners had put a vote on the EMS district on the agenda, at Rosencrantz’s request. He accepted the decision not to form a county-wide EMS district. “We didn’t get where I thought we were going to get to, but that’s OK, we’re moving forward.”

Fire District 2 commissioner Chris Curkendall told The Miner Monday night that the unanimous vote was unheard of for government entities.

“The only time a unanimous vote is required is at murder trials,” he said. “There is no history in the United States for a unanimous vote for any government body.”

Curkendall said he wanted the district in order to apply for grant funding, not for taxes.

“We’ve been turned down before (for grants) because we’re not an EMS district,” he said.

At Tuesday’s meeting, county commissioners Brian Smiley said things are better now than when the EMS district proposal was first discussed.

“When we first started this conversation, the landscape was much more fractured, much more divided, more tenuous,” Smiley said. He said because of a lot of work on everyone’s part the EMS landscape between the fire districts was largely aligned into two camps in the county, the north county through Fire District 2 and the south county through South Pend Oreille Fire and Rescue. “I can remember a time that that would have been a great success. We’ve come a long ways.”

Smiley said although the two fire districts had strong opposing opinions about forming an EMS district, he really didn’t know where the people in the county stood on the issue. He’s an advocate for innovation and change.

“If we rest on our laurels, we have one foot in the grave,” Smiley said. “Especially when it comes to EMS, I still believe the situation is very tenuous.”

He said long-term revenue for EMS services is a concern.

“I’m always going to be an advocate for adaption and change and strong leadership,” he said. “At the same time, shotgun weddings don’t work.”

Smiley said he thinks an EMS district will not work if county commissioners kept pushing it. Fire District 2 leaders wanted a functioning EMS district and SPOFR leaders did not want an EMS district at all. He hopes the county can have a more uniform approach to EMS. “I think we should continue to look at that and work at that,” he said.

County commission chair John Gentle said the county’s most successful operations were the result of strong collaboration.

“It kind of comes down to this; I believe we can deliver a better product to the people of the county,” Gentle said.

The county is granted only two Advanced Life Support Ambulance licenses by the state. ALS ambulances have more medical components and go out with a paramedic, something that costs more money than a Basic Life Support ambulance. Fire District 2 has one ALS license and SPOFR applied for and got the other one after the private ambulance service went out of business two years ago.

While the county commissioners could vote to form an EMS district by themselves, Gentle said he would need both ALS license holders to be in step to bring it to a commissioners’ vote.

“There are two ALS licenses and if the owners of those two licenses sent up a collaborative plan for a county-wide EMS district, that to me would be something like the very best product we could deliver to the people,” Gentle said.

After the Tuesday morning county commissioners meeting, Gentle told The Miner that he would support bringing an EMS district to a vote of the county commissioners if Fire District 2 and SPOFR asked for it and would vote for it if they expressed a dire need for an EMS district.

“If we can do this without the creation of a taxing district, that is absolutely my preference,” he said at Tuesday’s meeting. An EMS district would be a junior taxing district.