LA PINE, OR -- La Pine voters will decide on two measures funding the Rural Fire Protection District, on May 21st.

“I think with this being an essential and emergent service, people understand how critical that is, especially when you're dealing with the very time sensitive functions between getting to a hospital, and then also time sensitive nature of just dealing with fire suppression,” Fire Chief Erick Holsey tells KBND News La Pine’s growing population means more emergency calls, “We have to replace our ambulances at a faster rate than average. Generally, it's about 250,000 miles or seven years of service and we can reach 250,000 miles on our ambulances probably closer to five.”

Holsey says both levies have been continuously renewed going back decades, “I think people understand that, and they understand the value to it. So, I haven't really heard any opposition to that. And, then since we're also not asking for additional funding, we are maintaining our current rate. I believe that our citizens feel that that is important. There's just a lot of things that keep asking them for more money and we're really just asking them to maintain what we're currently doing so we can continually provide the same level of service to them.”

The 10-year capital levy would bring in about $5.6-million over that period.

The five-year operations levy would raise $7.5-million.
 

KBND FILE PHOTO: La Pine Fire & Rescue