Bless their hearts, they're trying.
The Benton County Quorum Court continues its efforts to fund rural ambulance service, which is provided by seven municipal ambulance services and one volunteer rural ambulance service. Weeks ago, the 15 justices of the peace on the Quorum Court agreed to place two, count'em, two proposals on the November ballot to create new funding to support those ambulance systems.
What’s The Point?
As Benton County officials launch efforts to inform residents about November’s vote on ambulance service funding, residents must take up the challenge to learn more about the options.
One option on the ballot is to charge every rural household $40 annually. The second option is a countywide -- cities included -- increase in property tax rates. Neither proposal will fully fund the approximately $1 million bill that comes due for 2015 and beyond, but every dollar raised through new fees/taxes will be a dollar the Quorum Court will not have to carve out of the existing county budget.
So those issues are on the ballot. It's now just a matter of waiting to see what the voters have to say about those measures and to what extent county officials can influence, er, we mean educate voters to cast a "for" vote.
County officials are gearing up their education campaigns. They're planning town hall-style meetings that few voters will probably attend, but it's an effort that must be made. And then there's social media.
Joel Jones, justice of the peace for District 7, created a Facebook page as a clearinghouse for the schedule of town hall meetings and other information about the ballot measures. The reaction of other county officials demonstrated the effectiveness of social media may have its limits.
"I'm not a Facebook or Twitter guy," County Judge Bob Clinard said. "But if we can put something on there that says 'Please go to the Benton County website to check out plans for EMS,' we can do that."
"I'm not on Facebook, my wife is," Justice of the Peace Kurt Moore said. "I think word can get around pretty well, especially on Facebook if your friends like it and get their friends to like it. A juicy piece of gossip tends to fly out there. I wouldn't say it's ineffective. I tried it myself for a little while and found it more of an annoyance."
Last weeks' discussion sounded a little like some justices of the peace had just hung up their party lines and discovered fire or electricity, but the social media push counts for something. Some may have wanted to post everything to twocrappyplans.com, but the Facebook approach is a reasonable outreach effort.
Whether on social media or the "real world," it's the Quorum Court's job to deliver information about ambulance funding and the impact to the county budget if no new funds are established. It's the voters' jobs to invest the time and energy to become educated about it. That should include some knowledge of how Benton County ended up with these two proposals, and what factors limited other options that a few residents might have preferred.
Rural and city residents should check out the Facebook page -- https://www.facebook.com/bcemsballot -- for information and get engaged to find out about the repercussions of "for" and "against" votes.
One way or the other, the outcome will have a big impact.
Commentary on 09/22/2014