You Can't
Voting should be a serious undertaking. One should study the issue as best one can and vote based on knowledge and principle.
The You Can't Wait campaign is, unfortunately, based on what too much of our modern politics is based on: emotion and fear.
The You Can't Wait article in the March 20, 2019 Foresthill Messenger was very good on history, and in calling for keeping an ambulance on the hill. No one can disagree with that. What becomes misleading is that the choice is between voting for Measure B or losing all ambulance service.
A more modest tax, perhaps half the level of Measure B, would fund 1 station and 1 ambulance. That is ostensibly what the YCW campaign is calling for; the article never mentions 2 ambulances, just keeping ambulance service. But the FFPD Board, by design of the tax, makes it a choice between no ambulance, or two ambulances.
In the same issue of the Messenger, the FFPD Report stressed the need for 2 ambulances. After all, two incidents might occur close together and the single ambulance will be in use.
Let's apply logic. A major incident, say a multi-car crash on Mosquito Ridge Road, could easily require both ambulances. Then a second call will still have to wait for a response from Auburn. So, we really need 3 ambulances. But wait, what if that third ambulance, seldom used, gets a flat tire enroute? Well, now we need 4 ambulances. And on and on.
Don't misunderstand me. It is best to have ambulance service on the hill. But it needs to be affordable by the citizens, and with a fleeing middle-class (where most tax money comes from) and ever higher and more taxes from Sacramento, we need to be realistic as to what Foresthill can truly afford to do, both now and in the foreseeable future.
Ideally, we would have 2 ambulances. Heck, ideally, we'd have one 5 minutes from every house/business on the divide. But there are many communities in America that are 20 minutes, or even longer, from medical services of any kind. Having 1 ambulance is not the end of the world for Foresthill, and with a prudent tax increase we can keep 1, despite the FFPD claims to the contrary.
The very name of the You Can't Wait campaign was chosen to evoke fear. Vote for Measure B or you are for risking people's lives. You should feel you're a bad person for being against it. Are you really against ambulance service?
Emotions over reason, fear over principle.
We can have 1 fully funded fire station and 1 fully funded ambulance, do it without having the poorer members of Foresthill unduly subsidize the richer, and hold the FFPD Board accountable for future spending on equipment. They just need to offer a more modest increase, hopefully structured better than Measure B.
Until then, I urge a NO vote.
Voting should be a serious undertaking. One should study the issue as best one can and vote based on knowledge and principle.
The You Can't Wait campaign is, unfortunately, based on what too much of our modern politics is based on: emotion and fear.
The You Can't Wait article in the March 20, 2019 Foresthill Messenger was very good on history, and in calling for keeping an ambulance on the hill. No one can disagree with that. What becomes misleading is that the choice is between voting for Measure B or losing all ambulance service.
A more modest tax, perhaps half the level of Measure B, would fund 1 station and 1 ambulance. That is ostensibly what the YCW campaign is calling for; the article never mentions 2 ambulances, just keeping ambulance service. But the FFPD Board, by design of the tax, makes it a choice between no ambulance, or two ambulances.
In the same issue of the Messenger, the FFPD Report stressed the need for 2 ambulances. After all, two incidents might occur close together and the single ambulance will be in use.
Let's apply logic. A major incident, say a multi-car crash on Mosquito Ridge Road, could easily require both ambulances. Then a second call will still have to wait for a response from Auburn. So, we really need 3 ambulances. But wait, what if that third ambulance, seldom used, gets a flat tire enroute? Well, now we need 4 ambulances. And on and on.
Don't misunderstand me. It is best to have ambulance service on the hill. But it needs to be affordable by the citizens, and with a fleeing middle-class (where most tax money comes from) and ever higher and more taxes from Sacramento, we need to be realistic as to what Foresthill can truly afford to do, both now and in the foreseeable future.
Ideally, we would have 2 ambulances. Heck, ideally, we'd have one 5 minutes from every house/business on the divide. But there are many communities in America that are 20 minutes, or even longer, from medical services of any kind. Having 1 ambulance is not the end of the world for Foresthill, and with a prudent tax increase we can keep 1, despite the FFPD claims to the contrary.
The very name of the You Can't Wait campaign was chosen to evoke fear. Vote for Measure B or you are for risking people's lives. You should feel you're a bad person for being against it. Are you really against ambulance service?
Emotions over reason, fear over principle.
We can have 1 fully funded fire station and 1 fully funded ambulance, do it without having the poorer members of Foresthill unduly subsidize the richer, and hold the FFPD Board accountable for future spending on equipment. They just need to offer a more modest increase, hopefully structured better than Measure B.
Until then, I urge a NO vote.