The Key Peninsula Fire Department is working to improve our emergency response. In November, the community passed a four-year levy to help us in this goal. We will be funding eight firefighters with this money. Four will be new positions, and four will be firefighters who would have been laid off because of budget constraints beyond the fire department’s control.

We have promised the public better response times, and that is what we will deliver. We expect to have all the new firefighters on board by the end of 2014. If response times have not improved by 2015, the board …

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Re: “Peninsula firefighter fired over conference incident” (TNT, 8-14).

I hope the voters of Fire District 16 understand this incident has nothing to do with the vote to reauthorize funding to provide service to the citizens of the Key Peninsula.

If the people of Key Peninsula want any fire department service to their homes they should support and vote yes today. If not they may end up waiting an hour for an ambulance or fire truck to arrive on scene.

I don’t look forward to the possibility of having to drive a family member to the hospital because the ambulance …

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On Aug. 17, Fire District 16 voters are being asked to renew the emergency medical services levy.

We want to encourage support for this levy, which is not a new tax; it is simply a continuation of your current tax, which will maintain current level of emergency services on the Key Peninsula.

Response times are a critical part of cardiac and trauma-related emergencies. In the past decade, the fire service has been increasingly tasked with responding to EMS incidents.

Statistics show that due to their central locations, fire-based paramedic services greatly enhance the survival rate of patients. To maintain this …

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