Need for ambulance, fire services mulled at Grand Coulee council

People on the Grand Coulee City Council think the city may have to find a way to keep services going that some citizens may well take for granted: fire and ambulance.

A discussion last week centered around whether to hold public meetings first, or decide on a possible solution before presenting it to the public at large, even beyond Grand Coulee.

The city’s ambulance service is already serving a larger area. Coulee Dam no longer has a functioning service, and those in Grand Coulee’s regularly cover calls to the other three local cities. Getting “volunteers” to take on the job is getting a lot tougher in recent years.

“We need a consistent flow of dollars into an EMS system for this area,” said Councilmember Tom Poplawski. “I think the public needs to be involved in this discussion at the beginning levels to see what the need is and what the want is, and then we can try to figure out, how can we satisfy them?

Councilmember Gary Carriere thought the council was “getting out ahead of ourselves.” He said he and Poplawski, Fire Chief Ryan Fish and Ambulance chief Rick Paris should get together to figure out what options are possible first.

Mayor Paul Townsend said he’d like to involve more cities “in a perfect world” but noted complications that exist such as multiple counties involved.

Months ago, Fish and others have already broached the idea of a separate taxing district to serve many regional towns, supporting a paid service.

“And you also have to get more cities, — citizens of the cities — behind this,” Townsend noted. “They’re all going to have to vote for a tax district. So if everybody’s not all on board …”

Fish said he’ll be working on putting out a survey to the public.

The council discussed multiple facets to the problem, bringing up many questions, few answers.

No vote was taken, but a consensus seemed to emerge to devise a survey sent out to the “entire community,” meaning all local towns, to start the discussion.

“And then we’ll have a meeting after that,” Carriere said.