In The Northwest: We depend on government -- while we dump on it

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In The Northwest: We depend on government -- while we dump on it

Wednesday, October 24, 2001

By JOEL CONNELLY
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER COLUMNIST

SULTAN -- The fire station equipment is spotlessly clean and lovingly maintained, but the "first out" fire engine is 13 years old, and its backup dates to the Nixon administration. The first-to-respond aid car is 8 years old, and its backup dates to 1978.

"We have no luxuries to cut," Chief Merlin Halverson explained, opening the door to a bathroom that does not even have a shower or laundry for firefighters who may have to handle hazardous chemicals.

Head-on car crashes on an increasingly crowded U.S. 2 are part of the 1,000 calls fielded each year by the largely volunteer members of Snohomish County Fire District 5 and its part-time chief.

Next month, the fire district could be dealing with a different kind of collision: The rising need for fire and aid services may run into rigid revenue restrictions of Initiative 747.

Fire districts live on property taxes. I-747 would limit property tax increases to 1 percent a year unless voters approve a larger increase. If I-747 passes, Halverson said, "We can go to voters every year and ask for more money, or we can cut service."

Anti-government sentiment has been abroad in the land for the past 20 years. On talk shows and newspaper letters pages, loud voices argue that government is bloated and will find the money to do its job even if forced to live on an allowance.

The U.S. 2 corridor is a good place to explore these verbal bromides in real life.

The area is growing fast. The Cascade foothills country has become a magnet for space-seeking young families and others put off by the high cost of city housing.

Bumper-to-bumper rush hour traffic heads out of Monroe and has reached up the valley to Sultan, where Halverson commutes to his other job at the Lynnwood Fire Department. Assessed property valuation in Sultan grew by $27 million last year, most of it in housing.

Fire District 5 serves a 70-square-mile area, and not just the people who live there. People use the foothills to go fishing and boating and hiking. They get into accidents on the highway and on fast-flowing stretches of the Skykomish River and walls of Mount Index.

As a result, Fire District 5 does a lot of trauma work. It also faces stresses that come with changes in the way Americans live, which have transformed fire service in the past 15 years.

The disabled and very elderly live longer in their own homes.

Fire District 5 gets called when people slip out of wheelchairs. Halverson recently responded to a man whose mechanized bed collapsed.

Family members from out of town, or out of state, dial up 911 and ask firefighters to do a check when an elderly parent or relative, living alone, fails to answer a phone call.

Fires are even getting more complicated. House and forest fires used to be different animals. Nowadays, as people build out in the trees, departments have to fight "interface fires" in which burning forests threaten peoples' homes.

A basic point stands out: We depend on government -- especially for security -- while dumping on it.

Warming to the subject -- the Spartan bathroom does bug him -- Halverson recalled the day an I-747 petition gatherer came by the station.

"I explained to him that 747 would keep us from growing even in the best-case scenario," the chief said.

The reply, typical from Tim Eyman's troops: "You're going to have to put some things off for a while."

If he got into an injury accident out on U.S. 2, on days when Fire District 5 does not have an ILS (intermediate life support) technician at work, Halverson told the man, he would dispute the wisdom of delay.

"Why didn't you tell the people this?" the man asked Halverson. Under law, the chief has been forced to sit quietly and watch the I-747 debate until columnist with notebook drove up to his door.

Fire District 5 has two full-time ILS technicians, allowing for a person on duty 12 hours a day, five days a week. Halverson has hoped to hire a third person next January, upping service to seven days a week.

Under I-747, the district would have to go to voters each fall to keep the third life support job. Halverson finds the prospect to be absurd.

"You can't put in permanent programs on a year-by-year basis, and you can't attract permanent quality employees if you have to tell them each November whether they will have a job in January," he said. "If I want to recruit and keep good people, I must tell be able to tell them that this community will care for them as long as they care for this community."

I-747 would force about 1,700 fire districts, hospital districts and other government entities to go to the voters each year.

The need for a new emergency aid worker -- or the $125,000 to buy a new aid car -- could find itself competing with needs of the hospital to which trauma victims get transported.

Halverson has a not-always-enviable job. Arriving at one collision on U.S. 2, he looked out to see a severed arm and shoulder lying in the turn lane.

As a frequent user of the Stevens Pass highway, I depend on this guy. When voting on I-747, I'll remember the last thing he said:

"People think there is some hidden amount of money somewhere that we will dig up.

"It's absolutely not the case."

P-I columnist Joel Connelly can be reached at 206-448-8160 or joelconnelly@seattlepi.com

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