To the editor:

I have been a firefighter with South Whidbey Fire/EMS for 11 years and, from what I’ve seen, the district has been a good steward of my tax money. I may not agree with every cent of every expenditure, but I firmly believe that they are well reasoned expenses and I support the levy lift.

Yes, medical calls comprise the greatest majority of calls, and yes, the fire/accident/service response costs comprise the greatest majority of the costs. That’s simply the nature of the beast. Training, apparatus, equipment and facilities for the fire side are tremendously expensive, but when you need them, you’d better have them.

And yes, money is spent on recruitment and retention of volunteers. Having a volunteer district instead of paid employees saves the taxpayers well over $1 million a year.

I don’t mind standing in the rain directing traffic around an accident scene. I don’t mind being called out to remove a downed tree during a storm. I don’t mind being woken up in the middle of the night or being paged at other inconvenient times. But if the community doesn’t want to help support me with a few extra dollars a month so services can continue to be provided at current levels, I may start to think, why bother?

Charlie Bieber

Clinton