County Islands Will Lose Rural Metro

To follow up on my post of last week regarding fire service for county islands in Gilbert, today's AZ Republic has a long article on the conclusion:

Rural/Metro Fire Department announced Tuesday that, starting July 1, it will stop providing emergency medical and fire service to unincorporated county land that falls within Gilbert's planning area.

This gives the estimated 9,000 people who live on those county islands in Gilbert eight months to annex into the town and receive emergency services from the Gilbert Fire Department, Town Manager George Pettit said.

Refusal to annex would mean no fire service, creating a scenario that could jeopardize county residents' ability to acquire insurance that mortgage companies may require, Pettit said.

Read the whole thing if you're interested in the topic. This does not affect ambulance service for those county islands, but the fire fighters are often the first to respond to medical emergencies, so that will have some effect on medical services. It's a complex situation; it seems like the most prudent action will be for those islands to be annexed into Gilbert.