EMS Millage Fact Sheets

I met with the County Administrator, the County’s Civil Counsel, and the EMS Director to hear their ideas for what to include on the Fact Sheet, what their overall goals were and what parameters I should stick to in working on the project. They shared several documents on the history of the EMS department and the initial millage as well as specific financial information. It was also stressed that the Fact Sheets should only present facts and not try to persuade or promote a vote in either way. Using the information they provided, along with my own research, I met again with them the following week to present my first draft which included five pages looking similar to the final product. Civil Counsel requested some parts be removed that may be construed as political or of a persuasive nature. They were thrilled with the online calculator I had created to go along with our online efforts to inform the public about the proposal. After our second meeting, I discarded the sections Civil Counsel requested, resized photos and other parts of the remaining sections to reduce the final product to three pages. Friends of the EMS department, who were not constrained by the same rules, used these Fact Sheets, along with the annual report I had completed for EMS earlier in the year, to campaign for passage of the ballot proposal.