Santa Rosa council scuttles emergency services fee

<p>A proposal to ask Santa Rosa home and business owners to pay a fee to insure them against paying hundreds of dollars should they call the Fire Department in a medical emergency died without a vote Tuesday.</p><p>The City Council, which has wrestled with the idea for months in the wake of a budget deficit, decided the fee would come at too high a cost — the public’s trust.</p><p>Councilman John Sawyer said he was “very, very torn” on the proposal but decided against the idea when an older woman walked into his downtown news store and said “I hope you’re not really going to balance your budget on my heart attack.”</p><p>The proposal called for the city to offer home and business owners a choice — pay a fee of $4 a month or pay the $350 the city would charge each time a paramedic-staffed firetruck was dispatched to an emergency medical call at their address.</p><p>The city estimated the plan would raise $1.7 million a year, money that could be used to prevent the daily closure of one of the city’s 10 fire stations. The closure proposal is contained in the 2009-10 city budget set to be adopted later this week.</p><p>Deputy Fire Chief Mark McCormick said city-provided emergency services were at onetime paid almost entirely with property taxes, but those taxes no longer cover the costs. He said the situation has worsened in the face of the national recession and an increasing number of medical calls.</p><p>McCormick said of the 19,000 calls his department handled last year, 12,273 were for medical emergencies that resulted in 10,000 people being transported to the hospital.</p><p>On Tuesday a half-dozen audience members said the fee was a bad idea.</p><p>“We already pay taxes for this service,” said Jack Osborne, who also called the fee “an end-around.”</p><p>Kay Tokerud said the fee could cause some not to call for medical help for fear of facing a $350 bill. “There will be people who won’t call 911 and their health outcome will be worse,” she said.</p><p>Oakmont resident John Taylor said the fee “will fall hardest on senior citizens,” a segment of the population he said overwhelmingly supported Measure O, the 2004 quarter-cent sales tax measure that raises up to $7 million a year, mostly for police and fire services.</p><p>Council members Jane Bender and Ernesto Olivares each voiced reservations about imposing the fee in the face of voter support for Measure O.</p><p>“Putting a fee on basic life support does not sit well with me,” Bender added.</p><p>The proposal, however, did spark some testy debate among the council.</p><p>“I see it as an insurance policy for our residents,” said Councilwoman Marsha Vas Dupre. She and Mayor Susan Gorin were the only council members to support the measure.</p><p>Without mentioning Sawyer, Bender and Olivares by name, Vas Dupre said that council members “are political people” and suggested those who opposed the fee could be seeking advantage when all three are up for re-election in 2012.</p><p>Sawyer, after the proposal died without a vote, angrily said that for Vas Dupre “to suggest the decision was political I find offensive.” Olivares demanded a public apology from Vas Dupre but none was forthcoming.</p><p>Gorin said the proposal could end up on a future agenda depending on how much money the state might take from city tax revenues to balance its own budget.</p><p><i>You can reach Staff Writer Mike McCoy at 521-5276 or mike.mccoy@pressdemocrat.com.</i></p>