In reference to the “Fire district seeks less this time” article in Saturday’s paper, I feel I must respond.

I am an insurance agent with over 28 years experience in the field; my husband is a career firefighter.

We are very fortunate to have the services of North Whidbey Fire District, which are comprised mainly of loyal volunteers. However, I must take issue with the comments of Chief Marv Koorn.

Marv Koorn states in the article, “What we need to focus on is the equipment we need.” Also, “It is important that the district be able to replace equipment to maintain the level of present service so the insurance rating remains the same — right now we are at a six rating. … If we should slip to say an eight rating, where we were at one time, insurance bills for property owners would go up.”

Then to paraphrase, he asked his insurance carrier “what would happen” if the rating went from six to eight. Supposedly, “the owner of a $300,000 house would see his yearly insurance bill increased by $146 … but the levy lift would cost the owner of a $300,00 home only $98.40 per year.”

There are many factors involved in determining the rate a homeowner pays for home insurance. The year built, type of construction, insurance financial score, prior claims, location and prior insurance are only a few. Implying if you don’t approve this levy lift your home insurance rate will likely increase is a scare tactic! It’s as if Marv Koorn is telling the public “either you approve the levy lift OR pay more insurance.”

This is not necessarily true!

I direct your attention to the Washington Surveying and Rating Bureau web site (www.wsrb.com). Go to departments then public protection and read the “press info.” This is the entity that determines the Fire Protection Class for a specific area, which again is based on 20 plus different pieces of information, such as current boundaries, water systems, consumption, hydrants and flow tests, to name a few. In addition the press release paragraph three states:

“It is sometimes thought that a Class 4 community has a “better” fire department than a Class 8 community, but that is not what the classifications mean. In fact, the fire department itself makes up only about 40 percent of WSRB’s evaluation. Another 40 percent of the evaluation focuses on the public or private water supplies available to fight fires with. Other factors include the capabilities of the 911 communications/dispatch center, as well as the climate and geologic features of the community. More than half of a community’s classification is based on capabilities that are not under the direct control of the fire department.”

North Whidbey Fire and Rescue needs to simply present the facts and their reasoning behind the increase in this levy, without the scare tactics used in this article.

Homeowners research the facts and decide­ — based on the facts alone.

Kristy Miller

Oak Harbor

Scare tactics won’t see levy