By Dean Narciso
The Columbus Dispatch
LONDON, Ohio — London city residents on Tuesday rejected a bid to cut their ties to the Madison County Emergency Medical District and create London’s first-ever city-operated EMS service. The issue was rejected by 56 percent of the vote.
Madison County officials have for years sought to balance a quality ambulance and medical service with a cost that would satisfy both rural and urban residents.
But some in the growing urban area felt that the county system was overburdened, expensive and that response times for critical-need victims were being compromised.
With approval, the city would have withdrawn from a longtime, 3-mill levy for countywide EMS services and replaced it with a permanent 2-mill version to fund its own EMS department.
London had said that speed and costs would have improved. And it said that property owners would have saved about $35 per year for each $100,000 of home value. The new tax would have raised about about $386,000 annually, almost $200,000 less than what it paid to the county.
London accounts for about 60 percent of the district’s 3,600 emergency runs each year.
Critics argued that without London, service to the rest of the county might have declined. Similar discussions have taken place in Delaware County, where some want a single, countywide system that would replace several existing township-run EMS services.
London Mayor Patrick Closser said the city also has essentially seceded from the county and its purchasing of needed equipment: “It’s an improved service for less money.”
Currently, the city fire department, with 12 full-time and 28 part-time staff, is funded by a 0.5 percent income tax that would have been supplemented by the proposed levy.
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