Give voters clear choices.

Byline: The Register-Guard

The Springfield City Council has no real choice but to ask voters this November to approve a four-year local option levy that would raise $10.3 million in property taxes to pay for increased fire and police services.

In a rapidly growing city that has the same number of police officers it had in 1980 and ranks No. 1 statewide in property crime - and a city with a strategically important fire station that has lacked a fire engine crew for the past five years - a request for new taxes is a no-brainer. The only decision to be made is whether to lump the levies together as one measure or give voters the option of deciding each one separately.

The council should choose the latter option, which seems to be the ballot strategy du jour these days among local governments. Last week, the Lane County Board of Commissioners voted to put five separate bond measures on the fall ballot, including proposals for a new public health building, improvements to county parks, expansion of the intake center at the Lane County Jail, creation of a new countywide emergency communications network and a new entrance to the Lane County Courthouse and Public Services Building.

The commissioners' reasoning in presenting voters with a menu of options was based on the painful experience of presenting voters with complex, big-ticket measures that were uniformly - and resoundingly - rejected by a majority of county voters.

Springfield councilors should keep their own recent unhappy levy history in mind, as well. Two years ago, the council crafted a multifaceted $15 million measure to pay for increased public safety and library services and to stabilize a spectrum of current city services. Voters responded by overwhelmingly rejecting the levy.

City officials have reason for cautious optimism - with "cautious" indeed the operative word. In a recent community survey, tax increases for both police and fire services received substantial public support - 71 percent for fire and 63 percent for police.

Of course, responding to a community survey is quite different from punching (and, yes, removing) a chad that could cost the owner of a $115,000 home a combined total of $110 annually in property taxes. But the survey still gives councilors reason to hope, especially since it was taken before there had been any sustained effort to educate voters about the very real need for increased public safety services in Springfield.

The final details of the Springfield levies - or levy - have yet to be scrutinized, and they must be considered in the context of other money measures that will appear on the fall ballot. But it's hard to debate the need for new staffing that would enable police to add a patrol officer to each shift, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The same is true of the need for funds that would enable the city to add a three-person fire engine crew at the 28th and Centennial fire station, which past budget cuts have reduced to ambulance staffing only.

By putting separate, uncluttered police and fire levies on the ballot, city officials give Springfield voters the chance to make a clear, straightforward choice on each - and enhance the chances of filling some major gaps in public safety services.