(PHOTO AND STORY: KHQ.COM)
If you've gotten a ballot in the mail over the last week, take a second to look at it. There's a proposition on it that aims to help police and firefighters keep their communication and dispatch operations in check. If it fails, there could be some major consequences.
One of those crucial services is Crime Check. Should Proposition 1 fail, it would mean that service would be severely reduced.
But that's not all. Connections, reliability and coverage between law, fire, and EMS crews will be diminished.
The county is asking for the approval of a small portion of local sales tax to go toward funding these communications. How small are we talking? In all, it's one tenth of one percent. So for every $10, the county receives a penny.
Crime Check takes over 240,000 calls each year including property crime, medical needs and even emergency calls.
Spokane Assistant Police Chief Justin Lundgren says it's a resource that has become crucial to the Spokane area.
"It's really critical for us to get a full picture of the activity of what's going on when people call and report crime. It gives us the ability to know what neighborhoods to deploy our resources, what areas are having what type of issues and when people don't call, we don't know what we don't know," said Lundgren.
You should have received a ballot in the mail to vote on Proposition 1. You have to mail in the ballot by April 25.
This proposition doesn't only affect the city of Spokane. If it passes, all the cities inside Spokane County would get to keep the programs like Crime Check that we benefit from now.