Yakima voters will have their say on a proposed levy that would raise money for more firefighters and paramedic training.

The City Council voted Tuesday to put the Emergency Medical Services levy up for a vote on Feb. 3. The council's vote was unanimous but some details of the levy have yet to be hammered out.

The proposed levy would add 12 firefighters and a dispatcher at a cost of about $3 or $4 a month for most home-
owners in Yakima, based on a calculation of 25 cents per $1,000 of assessed property value.

The tax would be in addition to a 25-cents-per-thousand levy that is already collected countywide for training and equipment purchases, and in that sense would double the existing EMS levy for city taxpayers.

The levy would collect about $1.3 million and would also allow the fire department to train firefighters as full-fledged paramedics rather than basic EMTs.

Firefighters say they need more personnel to counterattack slowing response times due to a call volume that has grown 62 percent over the past 10 years and to reduce reliance on rural fire departments as backups.

The decision to set a date Tuesday was the opposite of what happened last month after a public hearing on the merits of the proposal.

At the conclusion of last month's hearing, council members squabbled over putting the proposal before voters in the November general election, then couldn't agree on a spring election date.

Tuesday's decision ends that uncertainty for the fire department, but the exact details of the proposal remain somewhat up in the air.

Of particular concern to some council members, notably Rick Ensey, has been criticism that the levy had no sunset clause. In other words, passing it would have made the levy permanent.

There were also concerns that the proposal had not been properly vetted to the community, in particular the business community.

The council agreed to schedule a study session for a later date to work out the issue of duration. Councilman Norm Johnson told Ensey he wasn't the only one worried about a sunset clause.

"I think there are questions to be cleared up for several of us," Johnson said.

* Chris Bristol can be reached at 577-7748 or cbristol@yakimaherald.com.