Gig Harbor Fire and Medic One is part of what makes our community special. They serve over 45,000 citizens and last year responded to 4,447 Fire an Emergency Medical Service rescue calls. The district protects our citizens, property and natural resources over 55 square miles in the Gig Harbor area with more than 100 miles of shoreline, including Fox and Raft islands. The crews are there for us 24/7 – 365 days a year. Here are our top 10 reasons to support Proposition 1:

Over the last month, some have questioned the value of the Tacoma City Council’s decision to conduct a comprehensive gang assessment. The city had good reason to conduct this study.

When I wrote about Germany’s health care system two weeks ago, a couple of people referred me to T.R. Reid’s book “The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care.” In fact, it was Reid’s chapter on Germany that inspired that column, and I was remiss in not mentioning that.

In my first clinical rotation of medical school, a very sweet older woman came in with a heart attack. I took care of her every day for two weeks. When she died, I found myself at the bedside with her son and daughter, all three of us crying.

News Tribune business columnist Bill Virgin recently wrote about the need for museums to make a profit. A reader perusing his piece would come to the conclusion that museums, if they house interesting and vibrant exhibits, market themselves sufficiently, are arrayed in a critical mass that brings in visitors to stay for an afternoon or a full day, could generate sufficient cash to insure a surplus. Unfortunately, this is untrue.

Children are the seeds of our future, and investing in their potential by giving them a great education is our state’s paramount duty. Yet the best teachers and the highest-quality curriculum will fall short if children show up for class hungry.

It appears that the state House and Senate may have a good solution to the budget gridlock, using a suggestion from the governor. However, given previous proposals from the Senate, we are still concerned that the fight over where discretionary funds are spent will run along the same lines as previous targets.

More than 15,000 people have been anxiously awaiting a decision from the state Legislature that will seriously impact their health and possibly their survival. Suffering from physical and/or mental disabilities and unable to work, these individuals rely on Disability Lifeline for access to critical health care services to manage chronic conditions and maintain stability. But debate on whether or not to save this important program is far from over.

Percentages have made glaring headlines over the past several months, as discrepancies between the 99 percent and 1 percent of our population continue to come to light. To stray from these percentage points to a new discussion, how many people are aware of the significance of one-thirteenth of 1 percent?

As I sort through the extended budget fights in Olympia, I’ve found it useful to keep a compass handy. It helps me stay focused on our true priorities as a state: Does this budget point toward stronger families, a more secure middle class and a better world for our children, or not?

The anger radiating out of Sanford, Fla., is palpable. The killing of Trayvon Martin by neighborhood watch captain George Zimmerman has energized the country unlike any single death in recent memory.

This week, the U.S Supreme Court will hear three days of argument on the constitutionality of the “individual mandate” – the provision in the Affordable Care Act requiring individuals to purchase health insurance or face stiff penalties.

On March 15, the local education community was provided with an important contrarian voice to the “stan dards and test scores” rhetoric of educational reform.

As a provider of long-term care for more than three decades, I’ve seen that care evolve in our state from being provided almost exclusively by nursing homes to being available in a variety of home and commun-ity-based settings.

Teachers have repeatedly come to us in the Legislature with the message that their health insurance is becoming unaffordable. At the same time, they’re being instructed to oppose a common-sense solution by those who profit the most from leaving things just as they have been for a half-century, even if that prices public school employees out of the schoolhouse.