April may not seem like an elec­tion month, but in Wash­ing­ton, it’s actu­al­ly one of two times dur­ing the year when local juris­dic­tions may sched­ule spe­cial elec­tions, most often for the pur­pose of send­ing the vot­ers a levy for their consideration.

This year, the nine-mem­ber King Coun­ty Coun­cil has opt­ed to place a propo­si­tion on the April 2015 spe­cial elec­tion bal­lot to address a cru­cial need: the aging of the region’s emer­gency pub­lic safe­ty radio network.

The unfor­tu­nate­ly-num­bered King Coun­ty Propo­si­tion #1 (iden­ti­cal in char­ac­ter to many past propo­si­tions that have appeared on bal­lots in pri­or years) would slight­ly increase prop­er­ty tax­es to allow the coun­ty to replace crit­i­cal com­mu­ni­ca­tions equip­ment used by first respon­ders that is at the end of its use­ful life.

Cour­tesy of the Yes on Propo­si­tion 1 cam­paign, here are some basic facts about the levy that every King Coun­ty vot­er ought to know:

• A YES vote for Propo­si­tion 1, the Emer­gency Pub­lic Safe­ty Radio Net­work Replace­ment Project, will allow King Coun­ty to replace our dan­ger­ous­ly out­dat­ed emer­gency radio net­work sys­tem that police, fire­fight­ers, Medic One and emer­gency first respon­ders all use to answer emer­gency calls.
• The cur­rent emer­gency radio net­work is decades old, has dan­ger­ous gaps in cov­er­age in pop­u­lat­ed areas and was designed to serve a much small­er area. This puts the pub­lic and first respon­ders at risk. It needs to be replaced.
• The cur­rent net­work was designed in 1992 to serve King County’s small­er pop­u­la­tion. Over the years, our pop­u­la­tion has steadi­ly increased and res­i­dents are liv­ing in areas they didn’t before, which cre­ates cov­er­age chal­lenges for the cur­rent network..
• The improved net­work will pro­vide essen­tial equip­ment our first respon­ders need to com­mu­ni­cate dur­ing life-threat­en­ing emer­gen­cies. With­out this net­work, pub­lic safe­ty will be at risk.
• A yes vote would replace radios used by first respon­ders to com­mu­ni­cate dur­ing crises, upgrade equip­ment in King County’s 9–1‑1 call cen­ters, increase reli­a­bil­i­ty, and pro­vide greater cov­er­age for radio communications.
• When callers dial 9–1‑1, oper­a­tors use the radio net­work sys­tem to ensure that local emer­gency respon­ders are sent to the callers’ cor­rect location.
• Our com­mu­ni­ties are safer when our emer­gency per­son­nel have reli­able tools.The emer­gency radio net­work is used dai­ly. It is a crit­i­cal tool that is used by fire, police and EMS to do their jobs on every call, every day.
• The improved net­work will be avail­able to city, dis­trict, and coun­ty first respon­ders – expand­ing cov­er­age across all of King County.
• The levy will only be col­lect­ed long enough to pay for the project – nine years at most. It will cost the aver­age home­own­er just over $2/month to fund this net­work. A nom­i­nal fee for the added safe­ty and secu­ri­ty it will pro­vide to all King Coun­ty residents.

King Coun­ty Propo­si­tion #1 enjoys strong sup­port from may­ors, fire com­mis­sion­ers and law enforce­ment chiefs across King Coun­ty as well as coun­ty elect­ed lead­ers, includ­ing eight of nine coun­cilmem­bers, King Coun­ty Exec­u­tive Dow Con­stan­tine, and King Coun­ty Sher­iff John Urquhart.

There is no active cam­paign oppos­ing Propo­si­tion #1, but rep­re­sen­ta­tives of King Coun­ty Fire Com­mis­sion­ers’ Asso­ci­a­tion have weighed in against the levy due to con­cerns that pas­sage of the levy could neg­a­tive­ly affect rur­al fire dis­tricts’ abil­i­ty to main­tain staffing and ser­vice lev­els in the event of an eco­nom­ic down­turn. The ordi­nance adopt­ed by the coun­ty acknowl­edges as much (PDF):

State­ment of Facts

7. If the fund­ing mea­sure is put on the bal­lot and approved by the vot­ers, fire dis­tricts’ levies may be reduced and ser­vices diminished.
8. The King Coun­ty coun­cil finds that any reduc­tion in fire dis­trict staff or ser­vices result­ing from the PSERN levy would be con­trary to the pub­lic inter­est. This fund­ing pro­pos­al is intend­ed to address con­cerns about pro­ra­tioning of fire dis­trict levies dur­ing the term of the pro­posed levy.

Fire com­mis­sion­ers Mark Thomp­son and James A. Fos­sos are con­cerned that the lan­guage of Sec­tion 5 of the ordi­nance do not go far enough to pro­tect rur­al fire dis­tricts. In their state­ment against Propo­si­tion 1, they write:

If prop­er­ty val­ues drop, fire dis­tricts could pos­si­bly be in a neg­a­tive finan­cial posi­tion and need to lay off fire fight­ers dur­ing the nine year term of the PSERN (radio sys­tem) levy.

Lay­ing off fire­fight­ers is unac­cept­able, espe­cial­ly when a com­pre­hen­sive pro­ra­tioning pro­tec­tion plan could have been imple­ment­ed by the Coun­ty Exec­u­tive to stave off any pos­si­ble staffing reduc­tions by impact­ed fire districts.

While we would like to see the coun­ty do more to pro­tect rur­al fire dis­tricts,  Propo­si­tion #1 deserves our sup­port. Rejec­tion of this levy would pre­vent the coun­ty from get­ting start­ed on replac­ing its share of our region’s crum­bling emer­gency radio net­work. That would be a bad outcome.

Rur­al fire­fight­ers can’t do their jobs very well if they can­not reli­ably com­mu­ni­cate with each oth­er and their chiefs. Rec­og­niz­ing this fact, many fire com­mis­sion­ers have endorsed Propo­si­tion #1 in spite of the con­cerns expressed by Thomp­son and Fos­sos, and we at NPI join them in urg­ing a yes vote.

Bal­lots for the April 28th, 2015 spe­cial elec­tion have been mailed by King Coun­ty Elec­tions. Please vote yes on Propo­si­tion #1 and ensure your bal­lot is post­marked by April 28th or deposit­ed in a drop box by 8 PM that same day.

NPI rec­om­mends a yes vote on King Coun­ty Propo­si­tion #1. Above is a sam­ple bal­lot indi­cat­ing how to vote.

Vot­ers who would like more infor­ma­tion about the project that the levy would fund should call or email David Mendel, Emer­gency Radio Sys­tem Project Direc­tor. He can be reached at 206–263-7942 or david (dot) mendel (at) king­coun­ty (dot) gov.