Benton County Officials Promote Ambulance Vote

BENTONVILLE -- Benton County officials are cautiously optimistic as they move forward with the voter education effort on rural ambulance funding plans.

The county's justices of the peace have scheduled a series of town hall meetings on the two plans. The text of the ordinance, sample ballots and other information is available on the county's website.

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Town Hall Meetings

Benton County’s justices of the peace will host a series of meetings to present information about plans to pay for rural ambulance service. The meeting schedule, along with sample ballots, links to other sources of information on the vote and a comments forum can be found at the EMS Vote Information Hub on the county’s website at www.bentoncountyar.….

The first town hall meeting was held Sept. 20 in Centerton. Susan Anglin, justice of the peace for District 9, hosted that meeting and said she was pleased with the event.

"I felt like it went well," Anglin said. "We had a good turnout and we had people asking questions."

The first meeting had a different tone than meetings held in January and February, before voters rejected an earlier ambulance funding plan, Anglin said.

"It was different, people didn't seem as upset," she said. "Maybe it's because we're giving them options."

The county will ask voters on Nov. 4 to consider two plans to pay part of the cost of ambulance service in unincorporated areas. The county will pay about $942,000 this year to the seven cities that provide ambulance service. The cost is expected to increase to about $1.1 million in 2015.

One proposal would levy 0.2 mills to raise an estimated $834,000 annually. The tax would apply to all residents.

The second proposal is an emergency medical services district with a $40 fee and would raise about $528,000 a year. The district would include the unincorporated areas except the area served by the Northeast Benton County Fire Department.

Tom Allen, justice of the peace for District 4, will host the next town hall meeting, set for 6:30 p.m. Thursday at the Cave Springs Community Building. Allen will give a PowerPoint presentation used by Anglin and developed by Joel Jones, justice of the peace for District 7.

"I think Joel did a pretty good job putting that together, so I'll use that," Allen said. "There may be a few things I may want to add."

Allen said he's not gotten any comment from his constituents on the ambulance funding plans. That concerns him.

"I've gotten silence unless I bring it up and then I have to explain it to people," Allen said. "I don't know whether people are disinterested, not engaged or not being reached by the efforts we're putting forth."

Having two proposals for voters to consider should boost interest, Allen said. When Allen hosted a meeting at the same location in advance of the February vote only a dozen or so people attended as county officials outnumbered county residents.

"I would be disappointed if we have only a dozen or two dozen people," he said.

Jones is working to get information out to voters. He will add one more element to his PowerPoint presentation. The county also has gathered a great deal of information on its website, including links to other sources as well.

"The only thing I'm adding is the dollar amount the millage will cost people, the $4 per $100,000 in value," Jones said. "Somebody brought that up at the Centerton meeting, and it was an oversight on my part not to have included it."

Jones was encouraged by the tone of the initial town hall meeting and the nature of the questions that were asked. He also was happy about the questions that weren't asked.

"We didn't have a lot of the questions about 'Why didn't the Quorum court consider this option or that option?' like we did the first time," he said. "I think we were able to show how much the Quorum Court has done on this issue and all of the things we've considered."

Jones has started to respond to questions and comments posted on the county's information hub about the election. He plans to continue doing that, posting on the Facebook page he's created for the Benton County Ambulance Service Ballot Measures and speaking to anyone who is interested in the issue.

"We need to get people talking about it, spreading the word," he said.

Anglin thinks the county is doing everything it can to provide information to the voters in advance of the election.

"I hope people will take advantage of the opportunity to educate themselves," she said. "We do have a great deal of information on the county website, and if they can't get to the meetings they can still get a lot of information there."

NW News on 09/29/2014

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