911 Proposed Call Fees By Andy Rauwolf August 11, 2013
Regarding the City of Ketchikan seeking to charge Borough residents a fee for 911 emergency calls outside the city limits. It’s time that the public be informed of the history and perspective on this subject. The original agreement between the city and borough was for the borough to pay the city $7,800.00 annually for this service. Later the managers agreed to charge nothing since the city already had the operators in place. In April of this year city manager Carl Amylon took it upon himself to threaten to cut off 911 emergency calls from borough residents unless the city was paid $210,000.00. It needs to be pointed out that this amounted to $566.00 each time the operator picked up the phone. (The total number of 911 calls from North and South Tongass Service Districts were 371 in 2012.) Later Mr. Amylon generously offered to reduce the fee to $170,000, or $458.00 per call. I guess it didn’t matter to Mr. Amylon that just one year earlier, in November of 2012 the Borough granted the city two and a half million dollars to help with the City’s Whitman Lake Hydro Project, and was not obligated in any way to do so. Recently, councilman Coose proposed a charge of $20,000 for the service which was quickly upped to $40,000 by the council, or $108.00/call. Personally, I prefer the original agreement of $7,800.00 or $21.00/call. The city should not expect the borough to agree on their proposal any time soon, given what I consider to be the previously abusive tactics on the part of the city, especially those of city manager Carl Amylon. The borough can, and will go elsewhere for this service at a fair rate. If the City is having a budget shortfall, charging fees amounting to usury to those with emergency needs is not the way to correct it. Sincerely, Andy Rauwolf
Received August 08, 2013 - Published August 11, 2013
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