Voters in Santa Clarita, Lancaster and quite a few smaller cities and unincorporated county communities which might be a part of the Consolidated Fireplace Safety District of Los Angeles County will discover Measure E on their Nov. 5 poll to extend property taxes to pay for hearth and emergency medical providers.
The tax doesn’t apply and so received’t seem on ballots in Los Angeles, Lengthy Seaside, Glendale, Pasadena and greater than 20 smaller cities with their very own EMS.
The measure would impose a tax of 6 cents per sq. foot on most properties within the district. The estimated $152 million it might elevate yearly would help the county Fireplace Division, which will get nothing from the county’s basic fund and operates virtually solely on income raised by parcel taxes raised underneath a 1997 measure.
Earlier than that, the fireplace district had the authority to impose a tax by itself, together with will increase to maintain up with rising prices. Nevertheless it misplaced that energy after voters adopted tax-slashing Proposition 218 in 1996. Now it should ask voters.
Nobody enjoys paying extra taxes. However this one pays for important hearth safety to properties within the district. And maybe extra essential, it might enable the county Fireplace Division to save lots of extra lives by responding sooner and with higher paramedic providers to deal with grave accidents sustained (for instance) in automobile collisions or pure disasters akin to earthquakes and wildfires.
The Occasions recommends a sure vote on Measure E.
Voters within the hearth district had a considerably comparable measure earlier than them in 2020. A majority of voters mentioned sure, but it surely wasn’t sufficient. Measure FD wanted a two-thirds vote to move, and it fell brief.
Measure E is completely different as a result of it’s a voter initiative that landed on the poll due to a signature-gathering marketing campaign. It wants solely a easy majority.
Does the county Fireplace Division actually need more cash to do its work?
Sure. The function of fireside departments has modified drastically within the final quarter century, as has the character of disasters and the expertise and coaching accessible to reply.
Southern California has all the time lived with wildfire hazard, however current droughts and better temperatures fueled by local weather change have challenged responders in new methods. An after-action report following the lethal 2018 Woolsey hearth discovered that neighboring companies have been unable to supply their ordinary help as a result of they have been coping with two concurrent wildfires. We will count on extra disasters like that one.
On the similar time, the division has seen a rise in 911 calls of greater than 45% within the many years because the 1997 tax was accredited. Which may be as a result of the inhabitants has grown, and the necessity for emergency providers together with it. It additionally could also be as a result of expertise has improved, main residents to count on higher and extra speedy help — as they need to.
However the division lacks adequate tools and infrastructure to speak immediately with hospital emergency rooms, to find victims with thermal imagery and to extract crash victims from vehicles. It wants extra funding to improve and keep water-dumping plane.
The cash additionally would allow hiring and coaching extra paramedics, to make sure there’s somebody on every responding hearth engine to evaluate wants on the scene and advise dispatchers extra shortly on whether or not they need to ship an extra paramedic unit and an ambulance. That would assist the division to steward its assets extra effectively in the long term, because it involves the help of extra individuals in want.
