October 12, 2017 at 11:23 a.m.
Towns get closer to ambulance agreement
St. Germain wants to begin ambulance service by June 1, 2018
Towns get closer to ambulance agreement
In fact, there's now an ambulance to form it around.
Its purpose, according to representatives of the St. Germain Firefighters Association, will be to supplement the Plum Lake Emergency Medical Service.
Background
The town of Plum Lake, according to town chairman Will Maines, has been providing ambulance service to the residents of St. Germain for decades without a formal agreement in place and at little or no cost to the town of St. Germain.
Plum Lake, looking to replace its ambulance based on a 2006 Ford E-350 van chassis, had approached the St. Germain town board about the possibility of funding half of the approximately $200,000 estimated cost to do so.
St. Germain declined and Plum Lake proceeded, taking delivery of its new ambulance, a 2017 MedTech based on a Ford F-450 chassis/cab, in late May.
In the meantime, there had been back and forth over the past few months between the two town boards, including what amounted to an ultimatum from Maines last month the two towns would need a new agreement by Dec. 31 or Plum Lake would no longer
provide ambulance service for St. Germain.
Over the summer, Plum Lake town supervisor Gary Schmidt said at a meeting he'd heard St. Germain was planning to start an ambulance service by Jan. 1, 2018, something St. Germain town chairman Tom Christensen said at the time was not the case.
Where things are
At a special meeting of the St. Germain town board Oct. 4, former fire chief Tim Clark had questions about meetings he'd heard about with the town of Plum Lake regarding a new agreement and said he'd also heard the firefighters association had purchased an ambulance.
"Is it here?" he asked. "Who's it titled to and who's paying insurance and where's it being housed?"
Clark said town supervisor John Vojta, also a member of the fire department, had mentioned at the town board's September meeting paying for emergency medical technician classes.
"And a stipend for them but I can find nowhere, except in one (set of) back minutes of the fire department (meetings), that a stipend would be paid," he said. "I'm just wondering who's paying that and when it was talked about because I don't see any records about it."
Regarding meetings with the Plum Lake Town Board, Christensen said he'd talked to Maines.
"I said to Will, 'I don't think it's that big of a deal,'" he said. "It sounds like we're very close here and he agreed with everything we talked about as far as changes went."
That draft agreement with changes Christensen mentioned was the one sent to Plum Lake's town attorney this week following preliminary approval by the town board at its latest regular meeting Tuesday.
Regarding Clark's questions about the ambulance itself, Christensen said he wasn't a member of the firefighters association, a separate entity from the town.
"I was told they approved the funds to buy that used ambulance," he said. "It's my knowledge there's a group looking at it for the final time today. I have no clue who it'll be titled to ... we have not put it on the town's insurance."
Regarding where the vehicle was housed, Christensen said because he wasn't aware whether or not it was purchased, he didn't know the answer to that.
As for stipends for EMT training, Christensen said that wasn't in the 2017 town budget.
"It'll be talked about for next year's budget," he said. "That'll be brought up during the budget discussion ... the board will have to consider that and determine how we're going to pay for that and then that'll be approved with the tax levy at the November (budget) meeting."
"But the people already promised it ..." Clark said.
"We have a job ahead of us to solve that," Christensen said.
'This is not an issue'
Tim Gebhardt, chief of the St. Germain Fire and Rescue Department, said Wednesday the used ambulance was indeed purchased last week by the firefighters association for $31,000.
He said the vehicle would be used to supplement ambulance service provided by Plum Lake if an agreement between the two towns was formally approved but hinted at other things as well.
"The ambulance was purchased by the firefighters association in the event the town decides to go forward with its own services," Gebhardt said. "There haven't been any final decisions made on it, but there was an opportunity. We grabbed it to support the town if they decided to go in this direction."
At Monday's St. Germain Town Board meeting, Christensen and Vojta were both absent.
Supervisor Ted Ritter, running the meeting in Christensen's place, indicated the town going off on its own with a completely independent ambulance operation would not be happening.
Towards the end of the meeting, he said an agreement, though not formally approved by either town, had been reached but contained some complexities that Ritter said had to be worked out before it could be formally approved.
"I will say I personally am in favor of this agreement, but I am not in favor of some of the content which is in (it)," he said. "If push came to shove, I would vote against it, because of some of the content."
Ritter declined to name the elements he disputed when asked, claiming it was a topic for a meeting of the full board and moved for the topic to be tabled until the next special meeting of the town board.
Supervisors Doug Olson and Jim Swenson concurred and the matter appeared to be concluded until Wally Geist, a member of the firefighters association, spoke up.
He asked if the agreement would be made available to the public.
Ritter said it couldn't be released at this stage as it was still in draft form but Geist persisted, wanting to know more.
In response to his questioning, Ritter attempted to use the document's preparation last week by Steve Garbowicz, St. Germain's attorney, and ongoing negotiations as justification for not releasing it.
Town treasurer Marion Janssen jumped in, clarifying the deal was actually a public record.
"Once it was emailed to me it became a public document," she said.
From there, the board handed out copies to anyone who wanted one.
When asked if the draft would be posted online, Ritter said it would be considered later and expressed his concern about a deal being reached before any repercussions.
"We'll discuss it (posting online) at the next town board meeting," he said. "Clearly there is a time issue here ... both towns need to have their budgets in place before the end of the year. Time is getting crucial. This would have been dealt with tonight, but with only three of us here, we felt this really needed to be dealt with by all five of us and we're tabling it until we can all convene just as soon as possible."
In a phone interview with The Lakeland Times Wednesday, Christensen indicated the town would be unable to start its own services at the start of 2018 if an agreement was not reached due to not having enough trained EMTs.
Though this would leave a gap in service, he appeared unconcerned with the risk.
Christensen then reiterated what he said to Clark at the Oct. 4 special town board meeting.
"This is not an issue," he said. "We will get an agreement."
Brian Jopek may be reached via email at [email protected]. Evan J. Pretzer contributed to this story. He can be reached at [email protected].
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