Midway Fire to approach SR School Board to discuss ambulance service
BY PAM BRANNON Gulf Breeze News news@gulfbreezenews.com

Midway Fire District has requested that the Santa Rosa County School Board add Midway's ambulance proposal to its special election ballot this Spring. Fire Chief Stephen Demeter was told the issue would be discussed at the tonight, Jan. 25 school board meeting.

Midway Fire wants to ask Midway voters only whether they would like Midway Fire District to have their own ambulance service, if it did not cost voters any more tax monies. That would be the issue Midway would tack onto the school board's special election ballot asking voters to renew the halfcent sales tax to help fund schools. That election is scheduled for March 27.

"School Superintendent John Rogers said the only concern he might have to placing it on the ballot would be if it caused any conflict with their special election issue of renewing the sales tax for the schools. He didn't want any issue to detract from that, or to make the special election controversial in any way, where some voters might stay home," Chief Demeter said.

School Board member Diane Coleman of Navarre agreed. "Of course, we never know how we are going to vote on any issue coming before the school board until we get to the meeting and hear all the facts. But my first inclination would be that we do not want anything else for the voters to focus on except renewing that sales tax request. That is so important to us -- without that sales tax money we would not have been able to add those classrooms to West Navarre Primary that we just added, so we don't have to use portables. And we would not have been able to do any of the new construction to improve the schools that we have been doing, since that sales tax brings in half of our money to enable us to do those projects," Coleman said.

"I don't have any problem with Midway having their own ambulances. In fact, it would undoubtedly help us all here in the South end. Any additional ambulances in the South end are always going to be a help," Coleman said. "But I just do not know if we want to add anything at all to the ballot to detract in any way from the issue of the sales tax renewal for schools. But maybe we will, once we get to the meeting and see all the facts. It might not be a problem for us at all. We will just have to look at the whole picture and decide this week."