Among the items on the Edmonds City Council agenda for Tuesday, May 28 is consideration of two resolutions that, if approved, would place Edmonds on a path leading to annexation into the South Snohomish County Fire and Rescue Regional Fire Authority (RFA). (Read more about that issue in our previous story here.)
The council is also scheduled to consider:
– Confirming Neil Weiss as the next Edmonds Municipal Court judge.
– A proposal for issuing $11.7 million in bond debt for water and sewer projects.
The meeting will begin at 7 p.m. in the council chambers, Public Safety Complex, 250 5th Ave. N. in downtown Edmonds. You can also attend virtually via this Zoom link:
https://zoom.us/j/95798484261 or by phone: +1 253 215 8782. The webinar ID is 957 9848 4261.
Regular council meetings beginning at 7 p.m. are also streamed live on the Council Meeting webpage (where you can see the complete agenda), Comcast channel 21, and Ziply channel 39.
Fire and Rescue in Edmonds should be a topic of a town hall meeting so that City taxpayers can have an open discussion of the “money” issue. We all want no disminishment of emergency services, but many citizens, especially seniors, also can’t afford more taxes.
The open question not being addressed is if/how the 12 million+ dollars that has been in past City budgets (funded by taxpayers) will be applied to the RFA if that is the final decision? Citizens (i.e., taxpayers) should not have to pay any MORE than the increased costs that have been identified to maintain existing emergency services.
Thus, the Town Hall meeting could/should also delve into how the City is going to get back to a balanced budget that INCLUDES past fire and rescue costs. What services and excess spending, brought on by the mismanagement of City budget by the prior Mayor and the Directors he hired, are going to be cut? AND, how do we maintain existing emergency services WITHOUT more taxes???
I totally agree with my good friend Joe on this issue but I doubt that there will be any real attempt at looking at the possibilities of taking back our own Fire and Rescue Service being a good thing. Demanding accountability for spending and spending on the right things has not been Edmond’s City Government’s strong suit over time. Dave Teitzel has suggested that we might want to look at a possible independent RFA with Everett and Mukulteo as partners as an option where we could maintain some control over the purse strings. I think that idea has merit and should get an honest look. Not holding my breath, however.
Clint, i feel like we’re yelling into an echo chamber when we call for the current Council to start fixing the mistakes of the prior one (acknowledging it’s largely the same people on both Councils). It doesn’t take a cost accountant to prove that wages and benefits are what the Council needs to reduce first. We need a smaller city staff- period. The tax stream proves it. We were told that police candidates wanted to work for the city of Edmonds, but that the available classroom seats at the police academy were a bottleneck to hiring. Why can’t we expect to hire and retain firefighters and EMS professionals that want to work in Edmonds? The Fitch study emphasized the scenario where a new fire dept would share a city boundary- like Shoreline. No one on Council asked probing questions about that premise during their presentation. Personally, i will assume a contract with Mukilteo is a viable option until I see a detailed study that proves otherwise. I hope the mayor has a Plan B if the expected ballot item to join the RFA fails.