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For the North Naples fire district to start its own ambulance service, Collier County commissioners would have to go along with the idea.

We may just have our first big campaign issue of 2006.

Impending elections for County Commission have been exceptionally quiet so far. The biggest flap has been over who sent out a mailer critical of sitting Commissioner Frank Halas.

But the declaration of North Naples Fire Chief Mike Brown that the department is ready to move into the emergency medical transport business has all the makings of an election-season controversy.

Brown’s announcement comes just as the county government is trying to get all the independent fire districts to take a hard look at unification, with the county’s EMS service becoming part of a countywide fire district.

The idea of a separate ambulance service in North Naples runs counter to that goal and not surprisingly, commissioners’ first reaction to the news from the North was not positive.

“I don’t see the need. We need to provide those kind of services uniformly,” Commissioner Tom Henning said Friday.

Commissioner Fred Coyle, who re-introduced the concept of fire district consolidation at a budget hearing last month, and Commissioner Frank Halas, who represents North Naples, also expressed initial skepticism.

But Coyle and Halas are up for re-election in November. Halas has challengers in attorney Joe Foster, whom he will face in the September Republican primary, and independent candidate Michael Lissack. Coyle is as yet unopposed, but the deadline to enter the race is still two weeks away.

The incumbents’ support of consolidation and opposition to a North Naples EMS could earn them the enmity of the union that represents North Naples firefighters. Lt. Jamie Cunningham, president of the North Naples firefighters local chapter said the union has not adopted a formal position on the idea of a separate EMS for the district. But the union has been active in past political campaigns and firefighters have a clear stake in the outcome of the consolidation debate.

North Naples firefighters are the best paid among the independent districts.

Although it’s far too early to say what consolidation would entail as far as pay and benefits, it’s hard to imagine how North Naples firefighters would end up winners.

One scenario would level salaries across the board in a consolidated fire department. Another has salaries of existing staff staying the same, with new employees paid at a uniform rate. Eventually attrition would lead to a consistent pay scale. And the third would have everyone elevated to the highest pay.

North Naples firefighters benefit under none of those propositions and their future raises would depend on revenue countywide, rather than that generated in their fast-growing and affluent district.

Conversely, a North Naples fire department with its own EMS allows employees to maintain their premier status in the county hierarchy.

Foster was in depositions Friday and unavailable to comment. Lissack, a long-shot candidate at best, has advocated breaking Collier County into two, with the western half forming a new county so that residents in areas like North Naples don’t have to subsidize growth to the east.

An interested observer of the North Naples EMS plan is Dr. Robert Tober, medical director of the county’s EMS service.

He is trying to stay neutral in the politically charged discussion of fire consolidation and EMS fragmentation. He says his main goal is to see uniform, high-quality emergency medical care available throughout the county.

“Anything that fights for that, I support. Anything that fights against that, I don’t support,” Tober said.

But one can’t help but detect a tone of dissatisfaction in Tober’s voice as he describes the defection of dozens of EMS employees who’ve left for the better pay of the North Naples fire district.

Optimistically, Tober views North Naples’ hiring of former EMS training director Jorge Aguilera as a way to bring the fire department and county EMS closer.

But realistically, he knows that a separate EMS in North Naples can be a stumbling block to uniform service. “The question for commissioners is, ‘How does this lead to the ultimate goal of everyone coming together?’ I’m not saying it can’t happen. I don’t know,” Tober said.

That will indeed be a question for county commissioners. But who will be the commissioners answering it? And how will they get there?

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E-mail Brent Batten at bebatten@naplesnews.com.