Enough already! Fire commissioner Bill Gates seems to think the voters have a perceived lack of understanding regarding the role of fire service (“Prop. 1’s failure means cutbacks for fire service,” Aug. 21). Mr. Gates, what we have here is a failure to communicate. The voters are simply requesting a total revision of outdated policies.

In an age where over 75 percent of 911 calls are medical, the simple costs of sending a ladder truck, a pump truck and an aid unit to respond to a medical call are outrageous. When the number of actual fires have decreased dramatically over the years (a direct result of great education by the fire department), why do we continually increase the size of our fire stations and the numbers of large trucks rather than add medical response units and more EMTs who can respond to these medical calls? And, given that the majority of calls are medical calls, why is your solution to this financial problem cutting back medical aid units?

Let’s instead question why two to four firefighters show up in a ladder truck for building and fire extinguisher inspections rather than a smaller vehicle, why they drive the large trucks to the grocery store for their food supplies, why a medical call requires an inordinate number of large trucks instead of one or two aid units.

Scare tactics are inappropriate and unappreciated. I am an emergency department registered nurse and I am horrified at the number of elderly people who fail to call 911 because they don’t want to create a scene that will worry the neighbors and create chaos in their neighborhoods because of all of the large trucks that show up for a medical call.

Mr. Gates, you need to study the Six Sigma or Lean models of management — even those of us in the medical field have dramatically changed how we practice medicine in response to this economy. Let’s think outside of your traditional fire box. You have an opportunity to set a new model for the fire department. Don’t continue to alienate the community with attacks on our intelligence.

Valerie Olson, Federal Way