KALISPELL — Kalispell voters will soon be receiving an Emergency Responder Levy ballot in the mail.
The permanent levy is expected to bring in $4.6 million in the first year to help support and grow Kalispell’s police, fire and ambulance services.
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“We're service providers. So one thing that's important to us is we provide the best possible service for our community. And we know that currently with our resources, we are not meeting that. So the beauty of a levy is it gets to go to the voters and voters get to decide what service they want to pay for,” said Kalispell Police Chief Jordan Venezio.
It was discovered through a neutral third-party analysis, that police and fire response time averages are between nine and 10 minutes, which is double the national response time standard. And with continually increasing population and call volumes, without additional resources, the response time will get worse.
“Unfortunately our response times will definitely reach 10 minutes or above and we know in a time of emergency 10 minutes is an eternity,” said Kalispell Fire Chief Dan Pearce.
The Emergency Responder Levy would fund Kalispell Law Enforcement with 11 additional employees, and the Fire/EMS department with a third fire station on the west side of Kalispell and 27 additional employees and equipment to support these operations.
The money would provide one or two additional officers on every shift, an additional fire engine staffed during all hours, and an additional ambulance that would also be staffed during all hours.
“We have a problem and it's not going to go away and we wouldn't be doing our job if we didn't make this problem aware to our community. And we hope at some point they would see the importance of taking care of the police and fire departments but ultimately it's their voice that's going to determine where this goes,” said Pearce.
Police Chief Venezio says that in the last four to five years, violent crime has risen 87%, and these calls require a significant amount of resources to handle. Also, with the increase in call volumes, police officers are losing the opportunity to engage with the community they serve. With additional officers, they would be able to change that.
“I also think we'll be able to engage with our community more, you know, in a level that builds more trust and allows us to be as successful as we can because we know we need the community in partnership to do that. And the busier we are and the more unable we are to be proactive and engage that trust and that relationship starts to slip and we're at a position right now where that doesn't need to happen,” said Chief Venezio.
Emergency Responder Levy ballots were mailed out on February 28 and are due by March 19, 2024. You can visit https://www.kalispell.com/844/Emergency-Responder-Dedicated-Levy to learn more about the levy request.
