About 30 residents attended a candidate meet-and-greet at Kamas City Hall Monday night. Seven of the eight candidates for the South Summit fire commission were there to answer questions about their vision for the future of the department.
Nearly all of them thought a tax increase would be inevitable. Candidate Darin Ross, a former Unified Fire Authority paramedic who’s worked with Salt Lake County Emergency Management, expressed the prevailing sentiment.
“Am I in favor of that?” Ross asked. “Not in favor of it or against it. It’s the cost of doing business.”
The cost will likely go up because the fire district is about to be doing more than just firefighting. Summit County is thinking of reworking how its emergency medical services are managed, dividing the responsibility among its three fire departments and funding them with $1 million each.
That means the all-volunteer South Summit Fire Protection District will need to either run its own ambulances, or more likely, contract with another EMS provider until it has the capacity to do so.
The deal isn’t final, but candidate and current fire board commissioner David Ure thinks it's “not if, but when.” He said contracts could be drawn up and signed within the next 60 to 90 days.
“Park City or North Summit will end up taking over our EMS for whatever period the commission, the three commissioners, will put into place,” he said Monday, “6 months, 1 year, 18 months, whatever it might be.”
Currently, Park City coordinates EMS countywide. Candidate and current fire board commissioner Julie Black said that worked for a while.
“We chose Park City; they already had human resources; they were ready to go,” Black said. “They did a great job for 5 years managing the EMS over here. It has gone downhill, and that's why we're in this spot right now.”
Common complaints include longer response times in east Summit County for paramedics, which can do more advanced medical procedures than regular EMTs.
Although none of the candidates so far have come out against South Summit fire taking over EMS responsibilities, no one believes the department has that capacity to provide EMS right now.
Candidate John Moon, who has had a career in fire for over 30 years, says an EMS service, not the existing fire service, would require additional funding.
“We don't have to raise taxes to improve the fire service,” he said. “I think it’s adequate; we do a good job with the volunteers.”
Candidate Scott Nagle, an active South Summit firefighter and former school administrator, said only one in five of South Summit’s calls are actual fires. Four in five are medical, which is why he would focus on hiring an EMS coordinator, not a full-time chief.
The six other candidates said they would hire a full-time chief, whether to handle EMS or the increased calls population growth will bring.
For candidate Thayne Stembridge, who has served on the commission in the past, not only does the department need a good chief, the chief needs a good team.
“Yes, we need a full-time chief, but it's going to take a whole little entourage to try to figure this out,” he said.
Many other candidates echoed Stembridge’s point about balancing which members of the fire district need to be paid, and how much. Historically, South Summit firefighters have been volunteers.
Most of the candidates, like Larry’s Concrete Pumping owner Larry Liefson, favor a hybrid model with some full-timers and some volunteers.
“You've got to have the right chief in there, to keep the morale up with all the volunteers,” Liefson said.
Volunteers can be valuable in large, rural areas. Moon reiterated that volunteers can run the fire service for the foreseeable future, but he said long-term, the department may need to transition to full-time firefighters.
Nagle said he’s seen morale suffer in Wasatch County, which operates a hybrid model.
“I'm seeing what it's doing to another community, and what it did to those firefighters of that community,” he said.
The meet-and-greet lasted about 1.5 hours Monday night. The primary is Sept. 5, and the field of eight will be whittled down to four.
Residents in south Summit County can vote by mail or in person. The last day to register online to vote is Aug. 25, but residents may register at polling locations when they go to vote in person.
