Campaign for Ambulance District tax sparks advertising controversy

By Steve Moyer

Nevada Daily Mail

A proposal to change the way the Vernon County Ambulance District is funded stirred unexpected controversy during the forum Citizens for a Fair Ambulance Tax conducted Thursday night in the Nevada community center. The controversy pivoted around an ad placed in the Nevada News placed by Don Adams, which stated it was paid for by "Citizens to Save the Future, Cecil McKenzie, Treasurer."

Cecil McKenzie's of Nevada's daughter, Gail Wysong, says the family is upset because McKenzie is 88 years old and has nothing to do with the group or its finances.

"I talked with my father today," Wysong said. "He said he had nothing to do with it. We're all upset by this."

Adams told the Daily Mail publisher Julie Righter that the person referred to in the ad was a different Cecil McKenzie, but he could not provide a telephone number or what town the other McKenzie lives in.

Adams also raised questions about another group, proponents of the sales tax, Citizens for a Fair Ambulance Tax whose members are Mark Humphrey, Jimmy Greer, Suzan Gaster, Tina Overton, Pat Tilley, Ben Mendenhall and Jim Hibbs. Humphrey said today that those on the committee are proud to have their names affiliated with it.

"I'm happy to let you know who's on our committee," Humphrey said. "We are proud to associate ourselves with this."

The forum was chaired by Humphrey, who is also a member of the Vernon County Ambulance District board of directors. The purpose was to provide information and answer questions the district's patrons might have about the tax issue placed on the ballot.

The proposal calls for a one-half cent sales tax to replace the current property tax.

The district started out with one ambulance in a block building across the street from the Nevada Community Center in the late 1970s and moved to new quarters, housing five ambulances, at the corner of Osage and Walnut approximately nine years ago. Since then, the district has continued to add equipment as funding became available.

What that equipment is and what the need for it is prompted several questions, some also prompted by the ad placed by Adams, which urged the sale of several pieces of equipment as cost-saving measures, such as jet skis, a jeep, other apparatus and property owned by the district. Humphrey pointed out that the district does not own any jet skis. The Bombardier company loaned the district one for a one-year period, but the jet ski was returned after the year and the loan was not renewed.

"We don't own any jet skis," Humphrey said. "The Bombardier company loaned us one; but we found that in most cases you would have to put too much on, and you would need more power than it had."

The jeep the district has was also a point of contention in the ad.

"The jeep is depreciated out," Humphrey said. "We thought about trading it in, but we wouldn't get anything for it, so we decided to keep it. There are times when there are three people at the barn and someone can use it to run errands to the hospital or other places and keep the ambulance in the barn."

As for the land north of the ambulance barn that the district owns, Humphrey said that a third of the area is used as a parking lot.

"About a third of it is a parking lot for people taking classes," Humphrey said. "The long-range goal is to have a facility for training separate from the barn. The way it is now, there isn't room. When you have 20 or 30 people in there, it's too crowded."

Adams also suggested selling the trailer the district uses as a command post and to provide space for giving firefighters a place to recover from their efforts at fires. District director James McKenzie pointed out the benefits of having the trailer and said ambulances aren't suited to that use.

"If you have six or seven firefighters who need rehab, you can't do that in the back of an ambulance," McKenzie said. "We use that trailer a lot. This summer, when all the grass fires were burning, we would take that out and give the firefighters a place to recover. They'd have temperatures of 101 or 102 and they'd need rehydration."

Adams' ad also suggested in the ad that the ambulances only go out on emergency calls. Humphrey pointed out that there are legitimate reasons for the ambulance to be out and about and that sometimes even when the ambulance was driving without the lights and sirens it may be on a medical call.

"These trucks don't drive like a little bitty car," Humphrey said. "You have to have driver training to get the drivers used to how they handle. That's not all, a lot of times when you see an ambulance out driving without lights and sirens it's on an emergency call. It's actually safer to drive without them because people sometimes panic when the sirens go off and do something foolish."

Humphrey also pointed out that despite what Adams claimed in the ad the ambulances do not cost a quarter of a million dollars. The most expensive ambulance the district has cost $165,000 for the ambulance box and the truck it rides on.

"It's actually $100,000 for the box and $65,000 for the truck," Humphrey said. "We went the way we did because after the truck has gone as far as it can we can take the box off and set it on another chassis and get more use out of it."

As for the sheriff's office being responsible for the search and rescue operations as suggested in the ad, Humphrey said the law isn't specific as to which emergency service was to lead the way but that when the district started there was no organized search and rescue service in Vernon County.

"We started the search and rescue because there wasn't any one doing it," Humphrey said. "We work with the fire departments and have the first responder program so we had the framework in place to do it."

Adams' ad also called for an audit of the district's finances. McKenzie said he has no problem with an audit but thought it was a waste of taxpayers money.

"I talked to the auditor and asked for an audit but was told you have to have a petition to do it," McKenzie said. "I asked how much it would cost and they said from $8,000 to $16,000. I just think that's wasteful. Anyone can come to the district and ask to see our books. They are open to the public, and we're happy to let them see what we do with the money."