Winthrop has joined the Town of Twisp in endorsing a proposal by Aero Methow Rescue Service to put an emergency medical services levy increase request on the November ballot.
At its meeting last week, the council heard from Aero Methow Executive Director Derek Van Marter, who made a similar presentation to the Twisp Town Council earlier. Van Marter said the organization is requesting another 10 cents per $1,000 in assessed property value to help staff a second ambulance 24 hours a day.
Twisp voters renewed their portion of existing Emergency Medical Services levy in February. That levy will collect 50 cents per $1,000 or property value. Winthrop is on a different cycle; town residents approved 10-year renewal of the emergency services levy three years ago.
Aero Methow is asking Twisp, Winthrop and Okanogan County to place the excess levy on the November ballot. Each jurisdiction must pass a ballot resolution by Aug. 4.
Pending an agreement on wording for a ballot resolution, and legal review, the Winthrop council may consider a formal action at its July 15 meeting.
The number of calls to Aero Methow increased from 531 in 2015 to 911 in 2025, Van Marter said, and is expected to exceed 1,000 this year. Emergency Medical Services levy revenues only cover about 60% of operations, he said. Most of the rest comes from fees, grants and donations.
Aero Methow is only reimbursed for calls in which it transports someone to a treatment facility. Reimbursement rates have been lagging behind actual costs, Van Marter said.
About 75% of the calls are medical related, most of the rest are trauma-related (accidents, for the most part).
“We see the demand in the community” Van Marter said. He said Aero Methow staff and board “feel obligated to prepare to respond.”
“We’ve become a de facto urgent care center,” Van Marter said. “We get a lot of calls from people who just want to be checked out.”
Asked whether an urgent care center might be established to meet those needs, Van Marter said the valley doesn’t have enough of a population base to support one.
“We’re empowering people to age in place … and have more people moving to the valley,” Van Marter said. “We need to position ourselves to be here for the community.”
To meet the increasing demand, Aero Methow decided to staff a second ambulance this year for the busy season, from April to October, creating a cost overrun of about $310,000. The excess levy would pay for a second ambulance year-round, Van Marter said.
The levy would raise about $25,000 in Twisp, $20,000 in Winthrop and the rest from the rural portions of the emergency services district. Aero Methow also needs approval from the Okanogan County commissioners to place the levy request on the ballot for residents in those areas.
In other business, during an informal review of the town’s response to the Hamilton Fire, council member Marisa Monteverde asked that town residents be notified not to run their sprinklers during a fire, because water pressure to hydrants can be negatively affected if there is too much drawdown on the town’s water system.
Monteverde also asked town officials to inquire into why some of the aircraft fighting the Hamilton Fire used the town’s wastewater treatment ponds as a water source.
The council also:
• Appointed Sol Gutierrez to a position on the Westernization Design Review Board. She replaces Lance Rider, who recently resigned from the group. Gutierrez’s term runs through 2027.
• Learned from Mayor Robert Grim that letters have been sent to about 15 Riverside Avenue property owners notifying them that repairs are needed for portions of the downtown boardwalk that are in front of their properties. Grim said the notices were accompanied by photographs and a request to correct the problems within 30 days.
• Approved a contract for improvements to the Perry Street wastewater treatment plant lift station. The low bidder at $1,863,181 was Trico Companies of Burlington, slightly lower than the engineer’s estimate of $1,933,253.
• Reviewed a list of staff-recommended capital project priorities. A high priority is construction of a new wastewater treatment plant, estimated to cost about $30 million that will need to be funded through a mix of grants and loans. Funding for design of the new plant is already in place.
Council members asked staff to assign higher priorities to replacing the downtown boardwalk system, and for construction of a sidewalk on Highway 20 east of the Methow River bridge.
