The topic of the Dr. John Warner Hospital's ambulance service was the spotlight of attention for the Clinton City Council meeting Monday evening.

The Dr. John Warner Hospital recently announced it will no longer be providing ambulance services to western DeWitt County after December 31, 2012. Clinton Mayor Carolyn Peters gave a presentation on the various avenues that are possibilities to be pursued. The most appealing of those options would be a "County Non-Home Rule" option, or have the county provide the service via an increased tax levy. All of the options Mayor Peters presented involved an increased tax levy. Mayor Peters says an increase in the county levy would be more than enough with an increase of up to .25%, and even half of that, 12.5%, would work well as well.

[audio:ambulancelevy1.mp3]Mayor Peters On County Levy Increase[/audio]

An ambulance tax levy county wide would not effect the current levy structure already in place. Mayor Peters stresses the biggest increase that could be made to a tax levy is just the .25%. With the county being the one proposing the tax levy, they could then be the one to decide the provider, and bring in multiple providers if they so chose, but Mayor Peters says sometimes, situations with more than one provider can get messy.

[audio:ambulancelevy2.mp3]Mayor Peters On Multiple Providers[/audio]

Mayor Peters feels there are several positive aspects to having the county propose an increase tax levy, and then be the provider of the service. She feels having the cost spread across the county would be the best solution when discussing increasing taxes.

[audio:ambulancelevy3.mp3]Mayor Peters On Positives Of County Providing Service[/audio]

Tune into Regional Radio News over the next week as we outline the other options the Mayor presented, and also how these levies could effect tax payers throughout Clinton.