MOORPARK : 2nd Official Opposes Ambulance Tax

A Moorpark City Council member has taken sides with another councilman to oppose a tax that would establish an ambulance station within the city limits.

Councilman Scott Montgomery voted with Councilman Paul W. Lawrason Jr. at the losing end of a 3-2 decision Wednesday to place the proposed tax on the November ballot.

Until then, Lawrason had been the lone opponent of the proposal. The city will hold another hearing in August soliciting public comment on it.

The tax, if approved by two-thirds of the voters in November, would permit the city to charge homeowners an estimated $80 a year to pay for the ambulance station in downtown Moorpark.

Moorpark officials who support the tax hope to use it as a way to speed up responses by private ambulance crews to residents in the city of about 27,000.

Residents have for months complained that ambulance crews dispatched from a station outside the city on Olsen Road are too slow in responding to sick and injured patients on the other side of town.

One of the three council members who is backing the measure said the sharp division in the five-member council may work to weaken voter support for the ambulance station.

“It may hurt it,” Councilman Clint Harper said. “I’ve got to think that the voters are going to think of this logically and decide for themselves.”

The two dissenting council members say they support the service, but contend that there are less expensive ways to finance a new station. They say the city ought to be working with the ambulance contractor to provide the service.

Montgomery said he had reservations, even before a cost estimate to establish the station leaped from about $500,000 to $870,000. He said Thursday that he believes the proposed assessment is ill-advised.

Both Lawrason and Montgomery said they intend to write arguments opposing the proposed tax that will appear on the ballot measure, in opposition to supporting arguments bearing the names of Harper, Councilwoman Eloise A. Brown and Mayor Bernardo Perez.