I'm all for a county-wide district as long as I don't have to pay for it.   OUR money needs to be spent on badly needed MEDICAL services.

Ellen's report and resignation from the Alternative Funding Committee:

2018-1-Alternative-Funding-Committee-Report.pdf

.... In order to proceed with any hope of success, we need a strong group of committed individuals, who among them have communication skills and the ability to research and compile and analyze data. And, we need a cooperative Fire Chief who will support the effort and provide accurate up to date data. The current reporting system used by the LMRFD has not been able to provide reliable ambulance service related data for nearly 2 years. It is impossible to make arguments for our case without accurate up to date data. Until we have these elements in place, we can look forward to repeated attempts to raise our taxes as our declining property values fail to meet the increasing costs of operating the ambulance service. And, until these elements are in place, working together toward a solution, I hereby withdraw my services from further volunteer efforts on behalf of the LMRFD Alternative Funding Committee.

Our chief Anthony DeMaio would have been a great chief in the 20th century.  

Sadly, he can't even prepare an ultra simple spreadsheet describing the about 50 monthly calls.  He doesn't know how to use the "reporting system" that they surely pay a lot of money for.

He lives in Golden Valley and for some yet to be disclosed reason allows his extremely incompetent administrative assistant Karen Jackson to work form home.

Nobody knows what Karen Jackson does.  Most of the real work is outsourced.

Even stranger, the chief wastes the LMRFD funds on paying her husband for the utterly dysfunctional website at LMRFD.org.  Karen and her husband can't even get the minutes properly uploaded.

I can't help but think that the Jacksons got something on the chief. 

The chief hired her and she never did her job.

Sadly, Ellen has done a lot of work based on wild guesses and assumptions due to the chief's and Jackson's incompetence.

NOBODY knows whether the ambulance service is profitable or not.   The accountant Gabe once stated that the ambulance service supports LMRFD, but I did NOT see any type of actual reports, such as a listing of each run, the location, how much was billed and how much was collected.

Rick Sherwood asked about an ambulance billing report during his short stint on the board.  Of course NOTHING was ever submitted.

It truly makes you wonder about the accounting. 

The board members are NOT allowed to review any of the accounting in Quickbooks because they could be changing entries.  Of course that's 200% BS, Quickbooks not only keeps track of all changes, but you can assign "read only" access.  I wouldn't at all be surprised if money was embezzled from LMRFD.

In April 2018 a large check to the insurance company ($17k?) got LOST and NOBODY noticed that the check didn't clear until the insurance company demanded same day payment several months later.

THAT is how LMRFD operates.