Based in Veneta, Lane Fire Authority has 15 stations from Santa Clara to Waldport. Assistant Fire Chief Rose Douglass said inflation has greatly increased costs over the past couple of years.
“We know that it's people's valuable money that we're using for these services,” Douglass said, “and so we look at every avenue we can and we say, ‘What can we do for cheaper? What can we cut?’”
Recently, she said, the district couldn’t make more cuts without impacting services, and they had to shut down an ambulance and dip into reserve funds.
“We’re now getting to a point where we've exhausted those reserve funds,” Douglass told KLCC, “bringing us to a place where we need to go out for a levy increase in order to be able to continue to operate as we have been.”
The measure asks voters to approve a 20-cent increase to the expiring levy, bringing the total to 55 cents per $1,000 in assessed property value. If it passes, Lane Fire Authority would be able to maintain services, as well as add two firefighters and modular living quarters at the Spencer Creek station.
The same levy proposal failed last fall. Douglass said they’ve emphasized communication this time.
Lane Fire Authority is holding Q&A sessions Thursday, April 30 at 6:30 p.m. and Saturday, May 2 at 10 a.m. at its Veneta headquarters. The meetings will also be live-streamed on Facebook and YouTube. Additional information is on the Lane Fire Authority website.
