City Council officially gets out of the ambulance business

Truly unfortunate. Hopefully this doesn't cause any major issues

Someday City Council will need EMS and will get the 12hr special Rural Metro.

As someone who needed our City EMS crew almost 5 years ago to the week to help save my life I have nothing but admiration for the job they do. This is a subject that has no middle ground on how you feel. It's either very personal or just business. I wrestled with this one for a while before I came down on a side. What I came to realize is you can't blame either the City or the EMS workers. This falls squarely on the shoulders of the County. Let's look at the past couple of years. Right before the new City Council took over they pushed through a new water agreement 2 years early that was anything but City friendly. When we asked the County for help with the Ice rink they said it was a City problem. Same with the Muckdogs, yep, a City problem. Now we're talking about a County service that the City has been paying for and to everyones suprise the County still says, not our problem. The City Council did the right thing.

The County has refused to step up and help out. Why should they when we've been taking care of it. Now, because of Councils actions the County can't pass the buck anymore or simply ignore the problem. If the county had its residents best interest at heart they would figure out a way to retain the service we now have. After all, can somone come in and do a better job, doubtful. Lets not be angry with all nine Council members that voted unanimously last night. How about contacting our three County representatives to start with. Where are Hollis Upson, John Hodgins and Ed Dejaniero? Aren't they supposed to represent the people who voted them in? Can any one think of the last time they voted on something for the City and not something that benefitted them? Like I said earlier, I do have a personal attachment to the City EMS. But I feel we need to lay the blame at the right feet. This snowball started because of previous Council mistakes. We can blame them all we want and should, but they can't fix it now. Blame the current Council if you want, they already did the best they could with what past Councils left them, they can't fix it alone. Put the pressure where it now belongs. Again, myself and my family thank the great EMS workers in Batavia.

Tim,
All three of them need to be voted out. They have refused to do anything to help the City. Like you said, they failed us on the ambulance, ice rink, Muckdogs and Youth Football.

To be nice to their friends in other parts of the County, they did push thru a new water deal two years early and it cost us $500,000 in payments we should have recieved for the last two years of the old deal. When your water rates go up this year, that is one of the major reasons why (of course to be fair, they had the help of Councimen Ferrando and Buckley with that).

i cannot believe the council voted unanimously to stop the ambulance service.

is your council going to go out and find jobs for the people that you are putting out of work?

do you honestly believe the city of Batavia as well as Genesee county is going to get the same level of service we are getting now?

do you realize you are now going to put the city residents through a law suite?

do you honestly believe we can save money by giving this service to another ambulance service?

watching the news it didn't even seem like your board even cared what the three individuals had to say

i have been monitoring the batavian the last week and have read some of the post from concerned citizens and i do believe its time your board starts to answer some of the questions everyone has been trying to get answers for

do you have a back up plan?

what happens if all other services decline the offer to service the county or come in with a price substantially higher ?

what happens if the ambulance crews strike?

i think it is a real shame when the people who are supposed to be representing our city and making decisions on our behalf don't even give us answers to the questions we ask or quite frankly don't ask our opinion(or when we do get a chance to voice our opinion you act like you really don't care)

i don't really think you know the magnitude of the decision that you all just made

your board got the city in this mess you should get us out without having to take away a great service to the whole county

and most of all did you think about the families of the twenty something employees you will soon be putting out of a job

THIS IS AMERICA we should be able to speak and be herd

AND OUR OPINIONS SHOULD MATTER

I am all for contacting our legislators. I have done it in the past and had some great support but...

It is hard to go to them with, “you need to help us out here and give us um, um, um, crap, I am not sure what but just give us some money. I am unable to get any figures to help support my request but the city council said you guys are at fault so... You need to pay up now before we lose a great service not only to our city but the county in a whole.”

Not sure how else that phone call would have went, but I am not calling without some supporting facts.

It also appears to me that the other towns and villages in the county did pay what you asked of them. Did they not? Did we ask them for more? Would they have paid more? Maybe, although I do not see how anyone will pay for something that is not asked of them.

Help us help our city with some facts.

I am still a little nervous on what is going to happen here in the city come September 1st if the county has not established an ambulance service. Is it not the responsibility of the council to make sure we have a service to cover our own citizens?

And I have asked this before but did not get a response, so I will try again. With this costing us so much money, will we see a big drop in our taxes now next year? Maybe this will be the way we all find out how much it was actually costing us.

excellent question Chad

lets see if they give us an answer or just a line of crap

i really think the employees who are going to lose there in September really need to stand up to the "so called board" NOW

Council has formally voted to dissolve the city ambulance service. The cities involvement has ended, I’m not going to discuss this issue any more.

This is a county issue and the city is just one of many municipalities looking for the county to provide ambulance service for its residents.

It should be noted that I was only one of three people that spoke on the issue, the othesr being a patient and the local IAFF President. If there was a massive objection to this then where were the droves of people lining up against the move? Why also did the council vote 9-0? Had they been flooded with phone calls and emails surely that would reflect public sentiment enough to change their minds, the fact is that it didn't exist.

The reason is this: It's not fair for the city residents to provide a service county wide while the county wants no part in paying for the service, they want the city to get a raw deal. It is the obligation of the City Council to make sure that doesn't happen.

If the county wants an ambulance service, then the pressure is where it should be, on them. Council did the right thing.

Also, everyone feels bad that the medics are losing their jobs, but we can't sustain the unsustainable on our own.

Mr. Mallow,
I am confused on why you don't want to help out the people you have been elected by.

We are asking what is going to happen to our community come September 1st?

It is budget time. Council just took a service away that we have been paying. You have stated is costing the city a lot of money. So how much will we be saving next year?

I am also done bothering you with this. I will try to find elected officials who will not only hear our questions but try to answer them. Thanks for reading/listening to my frustration.

Mr. D. Jones,
I agree, its not fare for us to pay for the county but what did we ask them to pay? I will help throw the blame all day but at the same time I am not going to do so with out some facts that I keep asking for and cannot be provided.

I am a city resident and I want an ambulance service in the city. The same service that has been provided for almost 25 years by the tax payers of this city! Why are we shutting the doors completely?

Why is council not concerned about what will take place next for us with this issue?

Why are you not concerned what will happen come September 1st if you need to call 911 for an ambulance?

Common sense tells me someone either on the City Council or authorized by them has been formulating plans for an alternative. Monroe Ambulance, Rural Metro, and Twin Cities all come to mind.

The ambulance service should be back at our local hospital. . .

Ambulance service does not belong in politics.
Putting this service onto the county does not correct the real problem. It just moves it to the backs of more taxpayers. It will not solve the real problem of providing a service. Government does not belong in private business.

As for the EMT's that will be out of a job with the City, there will be opportunities of new jobs with private business. You do have a very marketable skill and are very good at what you do.

Hollis Upson, John Hodgins and Ed Dejaniero Lets all remember those names..Reelection is around the corner..Send them packing..

Great, common sense! I knew I was missing something.

You have partially answered one of many questions that I have asked (though Mr. Mallow just said the cities involvement with this issue has ended). Is it true? Maybe, but no one is saying anything about it other than it is now a county issue.

You make mention of mediocre services that will not provide the same services we have seen in the city for the past 20+ years. I am anxious to see what will happen. Hopefully if we sign with one of them they will provide the same services we receive now. But common sense tells me to listen to our neighboring counties, as they have had plenty of experience and they are not receiving the same care.

So what else have I missed with my lack of common sense? Please help! How much are we going to save now that we are getting rid of this big tax burden to our city in taxes next year?

What are we saving by losing this service? What is this unknown value that our citizens are not worth paying for?

Prior to a county-wide ambulance service, individual emergency services (fire departments) ran ambulances. The system should return to that model. Ambulance coordination should be handled by Genesee County Mutual Aid. When a local ambulance is unavailable, then whatever department is on-call fills in.

What usually happens in situations such as this is the EMT's/paramedics working in territory "X" currently are hired by the company that acquires the service. I've seen it first-hand on numerous occasions.

Chad,

You will not see a response from Mr. Mallow since he cannot answer your question. Just like he cannot answer the question on how much money the city is loosing running the ambulance service.

In the last City council meeting I saw Jason report the ambulance was in the black. But yet all you hear is the ambulance is loosing money, so which is correct ?

Well, this is the first time i have written in anywhere about this topic but can't keep quiet. (Please excuse the english if there are any errors I am not an English major. ha! ha!) First of all I am a city of Batvia firefighter and have been for 23 years. Believe me I'm not writing this becuse i am worried about my job. I'm not. I would like to state a couple of things from experience.

Back around 1985-6 or so, we as a fire department battled to get an ambulance becuse we got fed up with sitting around with an accident victim, stroke , or a code waiting for an ambulance watching the victim die. Believe me I'm not exaggerating! We have regressed 20 years. And do you think Oakfield, Elba or other communities with rescue squads are going to jump and come into the city after what the city did to them. I know your going to say well rural metro or yada yada comes in they will be there. Well they will have enough for the transfers from our hospital to rochester and buffalo but believe me two are not going to be enough. We had four with a couple spares for emergencys and we were stretched to the limit. Does anyone know how many transfers there are everyday that use up the ambulances?
And yes the ambulance service makes money!! We had our own accountant do an audit. Liers figure and figures lie as I think the saying goes. I just love how people talk about this as if they really know what is going on. A lot of people have been brainwashed. Do you really think your taxes are going down? On the contrary where do you think they are going to get the money they made on the ambulance? Believe me its substantial. Taxes will rise and they will say its because of some other thing.
I live in the Town of Batavia and yes I think we should pay for the service and we have been from the start. Believe me people are going down a road that there is no going back once you get rid of the ambulances. Coucil people and administrators come and go. Have people forgot about our last administrator and the council people that thought he was the "Next Coming" put the city in a big hole???
Well enugh of that. If anybody wants to talk,(civil not arguing) give me a call my number is in the book. This is probable way to late but i had to say something.
Oh two more things off the subject. The s curve next to Wendys is fine. Just put the speed at say 15 or 20 they go way to fast. Im surprised no one thought of that. And finally who designed the way the benches were put on main street. Wow really good to sit and look at a wall of a building. lol
Oh sorry one last thing-Why does the Town want to merge with the city?? Especially now. What doe the city have to offer now. Just a question!
Have a great day!

If you want information about the budget, it's online.

http://www.batavianewyork.com/

To Mr Tretter..Why would the city if they are making money on the ambulance service get rid of it..I respect your opinion. You sure would know more that most of us city residents..The vote was unanimous..Are all our council members that dumb to get rid of something that makes money..Do you know something that they don't..Why not live in the city instead of the town..Just wondering..I think this is the only way the city could force the county to come up with some other choice in this matter..

Firstly, the City Manager's budget message indicates that while the revenue that is projected may be high roughly 11 percent of ambulance fees will never be collected. Unlike other fee's, ambulance bills cannot by held as a lien on a property tax bill for non-payment. Secondly, the inter=fund loan payments cannot be met with the revenue provided because the ambulance fund expenses was significantly higher than its revenue.

The report also takes into account, which the fire audit did not, the cost of meeting the requirements for retirees over the next 30 years, costs that were certainly going to be pain-staking.

Again, I don't doubt the medics courage or their commitment, but if the county wants the service to be county wide it should be on their dime, no municipality can be expected to act as a charity service.

http://www.batavianewyork.com/documents/CityManagersBudgetMessage2009_0…

Mark,
That's the part that gets me. If we are making money, then why would we end the program? Nobody has answered that question. If it made money, then the money could be used for all sorts of things, so it makes no sense to end it. However, if the City auditor (an indpendent firm) is right and if the Manager is right, then ending it makes sense.

Better yet, tell me why will the Towns and Villages refuse to pay the full cost of giving them this service?
Nobody has given that answer yet.

If it makes money, why does the Genesee County Legislature refuse to take it over? Seems it would be good for them if it is for the City.

To Mark Potwora-- I live in the Town because i love the country--been here 22 years.
To Daniel Jones-- Im sorry, now how do you know as you stated " the fire audit didn't take into account retirees in 30 years"? I'm sorry, didn't see you there? I would have to beg to differ.
To whomever it concerns-- Remember back when, when the city gave up contol of something that it turns out they regret? Thats rite the water. Well, went down that road can't go back. Now when fighting fires we have people calling up wanting to know how much water we used so someone has to pay. Have a great day.

Right on John...If its a money maker then the county should be glad to take it over...

If you take into account all the personnel salaries, benefits, retirement, health care etc. Include all the equipment and constant training involved . . . it is not hard to understand how expensive it is to have an ambulance service. In Mr. Molino's statement on the upcoming budget it is implied that it will decrease the budget projection by over $800,000 in the next budget.

This is the correct time to get out of this service. Of course the county does not want to provide it, but they are at the very least willing to help plan for the future according to Jay Gsell's statement.

This is really not about the personnel providing the service. It is about who should be paying. It should not be on the backs of the taxpayers or their representatives.

It should be a private business that provides the ambulance service and bills the users accordingly.

I keep seeing comments about the county providing $10,000 dollars to Mercy Flight. Does anyone know how much it costs to use Mercy Flight? What happens if the person that needs it can not pay? Who do you think pays for that? Does Mercy Flight just eat the free ride? Do they make a profit?

http://www.mercyflight.org/

Am I the only one who can log on to Google?

Robert-The Daily News itself included the City Manager saying that the final numbers hadn't included the costs of future retiree's health care. That year, despite a $42,970 dollar surplus, the city paid out $45,00 dollars to retirees.
(Daily News Article, 2/17/07)

The ambulance service also contains soft billing, meaning that we can project all of the revenues that are needed, but not all of those bills will paid because we don't attempt to aggressively have them paid. Should we? That's another debate.

At any rate, the ambulance service doesn't make money for the city, it's unreasonable to expect a one-city agency that serves an entire county with soft billing and with only one revenue source to make money, it just can't happen. Which is why it should be a responsibility of the county, after all, if it's going to be a service for the entire county, then the revenue source should be shared.

With all due respect to the City Manager and his staff, a Budget Message that uses made up words like 'depthness' (pg. 10) is hard to swallow even if all the figures are correct. Shakespeare made up his own words too, but he was Shakespeare. Who proofreads these things?....or was that job cut from the budget last year?

"depthness"

A serious question though, if I may. I know this is already a moot point, but when the numbers were crunched and it was decided that there wasn't going to be enough revenue to fund retirement for current employees (as I understand, this was the real sticking point) did the city assume that tax rates and property values were going to be stagnant for the next 20-30 years or did we assume a conservative property value increase? If a property value increase was assumed how was the number reached and how were those projected revenue numbers married to projections for all aspects of the budget? I would also like to see the rate of inflation/ cost of living numbers that were used to project the actual cost of the retirement funds.

I don't disagree that the County should take over EMS services, I'd just like to be assured that the City didn't use convenient accounting to fuel a game of political chicken with County Legislators.

Whoever Chris Charvella is- thank you thank you thank you for finally inserting some voice of reason into this website.

In response to Leonard Clark- Are you proposing that we ask the dying woman whose car just spun out on the thru way if she can pick up the tab for the ride over to the hospital? I sincerely hope not.

Mercy Flight is a not-for profit organization, just like the local hospital.

Daniel-- don't base everything on what has been said. People have their agendas. I can tell you don't know the actual numbers and what really is going on. I'm not going to argue. Its a sad day for Batavia and the county.

In response to Conor Flynn . . . No I am not proposing that. I'm proposing just like the Mercy Flight, not-for profit organization. . . the ambulance service should be at the local hospital, a not-for-profit organization, because the ambulance service is not making a profit for the city or county taxpayers. I am for an ambulance service at the hospital, administered by the hospital. If the hospital needs help to achieve this then the legislators can put some money in their budgets to help the local hospital, which all residents of the city and county can use. The ambulance service is needed at the hospital, much more than housing over the hospital or a park on the corner of Bank St. that use to have a medical building on that site. The money would have went a long way with helping the ambulance service to survive.

FYI Civil servants cant strike - Dan Kemp

FYI City of Batavia ended soft billing - Daniel Jones

FYI Hospital didnt want to keep the ambulance 10 years ago because they didnt get the money after insurance reimbursements - Leonard Clark

FYI County should figure this out and stop blaming the City.

Daniel-- what I'm saying is you are talking about things you don't really know the whole story. The city manager just came out and said the ambulance service made over 400 thousand but the projected future surplus "he says" won't make money because of retirements. That's just me stating the short version without getting to involved and I won't. They can put in numbers anyway they want for future costs like they have, to make it look like a losing deal. I'm not going to argue I said my peace. Have a great day everyone.
Oh sorry one last thing. What they did to Barb Toal is embarrassing and wrong!!!!!

Mr. Jones,
FYI, I hate to see a future politician get their facts wrong so... Double check yourself on the billing because I am almost positive the city has not soft billed in years. Nothing soft about sending bills to collection agencies.

And keep up the good work with saying this is a county issue now. Not sure why our city officials and yourself do not want to worry about what is best for us. Why are we completly closing the doors?

I can care less if the city wants to get out of the county wide ambulance buisiness because they say the county won't help us out. I am past that now but I am not past why we cannot have the service for our residents.

Do not take a service away that we need and want to keep in the city.

Mr. Jones,
FYI, I hate to see a future politician get their facts wrong so... Double check yourself on the billing because I am almost positive the city has not soft billed in years. Nothing soft about sending bills to collection agencies.

And keep up the good work with saying this is a county issue now. Not sure why our city officials and yourself do not want to worry about what is best for us. Why are we completly closing the doors?

I can care less if the city wants to get out of the county wide ambulance buisiness because they say the county won't help us out. I am past that now but I am not past why we cannot have the service for our residents.

Do not take a service away that we need and want to keep in the city.

Every dirty dog get's there day and I think we can all agree its time for a new city council. To Charlie Mallow its time to step down you can't even provide your self with answers. Just look at this blog people what a shame what a joke. It tells it all.

Hey my fearless leaders at the batavian-Time to get the "Ban Hammer" out again
Rock these anonymous posters outta here

If the city cannot make a profit with ambulance service, what makes everyone think the county can? Since when is ambulance a county service? It is a Town, City, or fire district service. Would the city council and the towns like it if the county took away their share of sales tax revenue to fund a county run ambulance? Perhaps the county should raise taxes for the service? I think not to both questions.
The county has not run away from ems, the city abandoned it. The county has an ambulance task force and put together an RFP (request for proposal). This is a bid for ambulance service. Since the RFP did not include city service, outside companies did not respond. They need the city calls to make money. By law, the county is not responsible for ambulance service. It is a Town issue. My guess is that outside companies will now respond if the RFP includes the city of Batavia. It looks like the city ran away from ambulance service and is trying to pass the buck on to the County Legislature. Upson,Dejanero, and Hodgins work hard for the city and it is not their responsibility to bail the city out at the expense of other county taxpayers.
I found all this info by making a few phone calls.

When was this Ambulance Task Force formed, who are the members, and what have they done so far? I only ask because we've been told in posts on this site that the County wouldn't even address this issue at the sub-committee level.

With respect to the County's RFP: Let's all remember that sending an RFP doesn't excuse the County from paying their share of the service they currently receive from the City. I'd equate it to not paying for your groceries at Tops because you're considering shopping at Aldi's.

Mike,
You are right. If you skip all the other stuff and read the auditor reports, end of issue.

Many people in the City have or will soon lose their jobs and/or homes. Yet many of you want them to pay more in taxes to take care of people who do not live in the city and who refuse to pay for their own care.

1) If it made money Council would demand it be kept. How stupid do you have to be not to figure that out.

2) If it made money, the County would demand they run it for the whole County. Again, how stupid are you not to see this.

3) Not one of you answered the question of why the Towns and Villages refused to pay their full cost, not one. (Answer, because it cost to much!)

4) Did you notice that not one Town or Village head has demanded the County take it over? Why, because County taxes will have to go up and they would have to pay them.

Legislators Upson, Hodgins and DeJanero have refused to help the city over and over, and this will be an issue this year at election time. They flat out refused to help save the Muckdogs, Youth Football or the ice rink, all of which "serve" the County. They do a better job helping the Towns and Villages than the City.

Oh, by the way, with their lack of support with the new water contract forced on us by Frank Ferrando, we lost $500,000 in money the County was going to give us under the old contract, forcing us to raise water bills again this year by around 4%(Thanks guys).

John, please help me out on a question that I have asked multiple times but no one will answer. Has the city asked for specific dollar figures from the county and/or towns/villages?

Why are people dumping on the County Legislature? The city just voted on Monday to end the ambulance service. I cannot help but think the criticism is politically motivated. It seems that Mr.Paine and Mr.Roach(who have both lost elections)are trying to blame the county for a failure in the city to better their chances in an upcoming election.
THERE IS NO LAW THAT SAYS AMBULANCE SERVICE IS A COUNTY SERVICE!
I was told by a county official that the County has been working with the Towns on an RFP process for ambulance service with a task force for over a year.
Last I checked, while the city council has been raising taxes and fees, (while assessments keep going up) the county legislature has been lowering them. Why should 44,000 county residents have to bail out 15,000 city residents of their bad deals? ie baseball, youth football, ambulance service. Mr. Roach forgets that the city got a sweetheart deal on the breakdown of sales tax percentage in the water deal. The city gets way more sales tax revenue than the towns and villages. He is mistaken on the maintainence agreement on water.

The only Task Force on record is the Genesse County Emergency Services Task Force which deals specifically with the recruitment and retention of volunteers as outlined in their executive summary.

http://co.genesee.ny.us/dpt/emergencymanagement/taskforce.html

There is no mention in the report of an RFP or of any efforts on the County's part to reconcile their debt to the City for emergency services rendered.

Of course an argument can be made that we (the public) haven't actually seen a detailed report broken down by municipality on what the County's 'fair share' should be. If such a report exists I'd certainly like to see it.

Let me see if I can break this issue down to the key points.

1: The County doesn't actually owe the City any money for EMS services rendered because there is no agreement in place other than Mutual Aid.

2: The City wanted the County to enter into an agreement that would have the County pay for a service that is currently free of charge from a budget standpoint.

3: The County thinks that it would be a mistake to pay for a service they receive free of charge.

4: At no time did the parties attempt to agressively negotiate an equitable agreement.

5: The City entered into an agreement with EMS workers that included a retirement plan.

6: The City beleives it can no longer afford to fund the retirement plan unless the County assists with offsetting the costs.

7: If the City limits Ambulance service they are open to a lawsuit under the Mutual Aid Agreement

Those are the facts as we know them but I think we need a little more information before we place blame.

1: Who was responsible for creating the current EMS contract and budget?

2: When did the City sign the contract with EMS Workers?

3: When the City entered into the contract with EMS workers how did they arrive at the conclusion that they could fund retirement?

4: What, exactly, is different now financially that the City cannot fulfill it's obligation to EMS workers?

5: We have accepted as fact that an average of 11% of ambulance fees go unpaid. When the original budgeting for the Ambulance fund was completed was this information not available? If the information was available then why wasn't an 11% shortfall accounted for?

6: Did the County, at any time, agree to discussions about ambulance services outside of the Mutual Aid agreement?

7: What is the County's responsibility, by law, with regard to providing ambulance services?

8: What is the City's Responsibility, by law, with regard to providing ambulance services?

9: Are the City's responsibilities at odds with the County's and, if so, can they be reconciled?

Once we get satisfatory, factual, opinion-free answers to all of these questions we can return to question number one:

Who was responsible for creating the current EMS contract and budget?

This is the person or group of people who should either be thanked for keeping it all together until now or fired for gross negligence.

Chad,

The Inter-Municipal ambulance agreement was raised to $110,000 for 2009 and is based on call volume from the previous year. Yes there were specific dollar amounts asked for from each community. I'm not sure who paid but I do know the Town of Batavia did after the call volume was adjusted due to several inaccuracies.

To Mike Barney your comment that it a town issue is in part correct. There are no law on the books that state you have to provide EMS service, the only law out there is for a municipality to provide fire protection. If you want your Town, City Village or Fire District to have an ambulance service that municipality will have to contract with a private agency, and guess what this is going to cost you big time. I was told the bottom like is that if a private company comes in and contract with a municipality and they loose money they will back change the municipality to break even

To Chris Charvella the RFP was facilitated on behalf of the Genesee County Association of Municipalities (GAM) to silicate bids and present information to GAM. It was up to each individual Town Village of Fire District to then decide to negotiate with the Bidder (The City) and sign a contract. The "Task force" just gathered and presented the information. And GAM in itself has no legal authority to enter into any contracts that would be up to the municipalities to pass a resolution.

Also it should be noted that the City asked for $100,000 form the Towns Village and Fire District and all but one had paid, at least that was the last I read. I think the City was hoping that they wouldn't pay that way they would be the scapegoat goat as to why the City disbanded the Ambulance Service. Well that back fired but the end result is the same as of Sept 1 no more City Ambulance service

First of all, the term may not be "soft billing", but about 11 percent of the funds on average aren't collected, that isn't an "agenda", that's fact and the record. Secondly, the fee that was offered wasn't exorbitant and could have been paid, unfortunately towns like Pembroke gave a very negative response and so, the service became unsustainable. The county should be taking over the operation and providing it county-wide, I'll ask the question again, why should City taxpayers be fronted with the entire service?

The County Legislature seems to want to play political football with this issue, they really have been passing the buck, if they want a service provided county-wide then it should be paid for by the county, hopefully my legislator (Upson) and the rest will do the right thing.

Furthermore, no one seems to want to talk about the cost of future retirees (as I pointed out previously).

Soft Billing was also used as late as last year, until it was finally scrapped.

I tend to agree that the County should be funding and providing ambulance services, but I think that through the examination of this issue we've uncovered a greater one. We got where we are due to poor planning and worse management from both sides.

The 11% shortfall that we keep talking about should have been projected and adjusted for when the City took over ambulance services but I haven't seen any evidence that anyone even considered it. The budgeting process in the City is in obvious need of repair

The County Legislature is being blatantly obtuse and one wonders if there are two lawmakers in the City or the County who can agree with eachother that the sun rises in the east or that the sky is blue.

Both entites have taken a matter that concerns the public good and turned it into a reason to throw feces at eachother like monkeys in the zoo.

This has been a long and ugly argument with the county towns and villages. Those who don't blame the county elected officials are fooling themselves. They were informed on a number of occasions that the volunteer sector is drying up. It is too hard to be a volunteer with the number of hours required to maintain eligibility to run on a call. A number of these municipalities don't and won't get an ambulance within their department to treat and transport their patient. All municipalities were asked to pay a combined total of an approx. amount of $100,000 plus. Leroy declined and Pembroke declined. Listen to your monitor to realize that both use the service even though they are unwilling to pay. This was a cheap fix to an increasing problem. The county has on a number of occassions said they will not get involved. Yet they do muddle with Mercy Flight. HMMMMMMMMMMMM. Sorry residents for your loss. The county could have helped and they said no. The city has been more than fair. To the county towns and villages, I guess its time you figure out how you will appease all your angry residents who need an ambulance. Sean is correct that the new company will go after the towns/villages. Those bills will be alot higher then the ones they got from the city.

I e-mailed "j sBat" this morning asking him/her to update his profile with her real name. No response so far, but he did post this additional comment, so I've blocked his account until we have his real name.

Chad,
I am not sure what calls or memos, etc have been sent back and forth. Since most of that is contract items, it is done in Executive session.

Chad,
You're right. Back around 1996 our City Council saw $ signs and went for this. They refused to look at what would happen. And for the first few years, it did make some money. But as projected, it started to go into the red and since it was not too bad, they let continue. They didn't want to fix it. There might have been some things that would have saved it, you hear many stories now, but it went too long and now is dead.

Mike, thanks for bringing up the election. I lost a week later by 4 absentee ballots. In my ward I should have lost by over 250 votes. Thanks for reminding me how well I actually did! (very classy of you by the way)

I said we should figure out a way to keep the service we now have, didn't I? I said we can't just lay the blame on the City, didn't I? I said the County needs to step up and help, didn't I? Their recent track record helping the City is pretty poor. It's just another example of two entities having an US vs THEM mentality instead of saying what can we do together that helps the County as a whole. This is something that all municipalities need to work on together instead of against each other. As long as the City was doing the job ther was no incentive to come up with an alternate plan. You want to sit there and blame only the City. I said there is plenty of blame to go around. The past Councils (that made the biggest mistakes) can take all the blame in the world, but they're gone. The pressure needs to be put on those who are here now. That includes the County. Go ahead and say it's all the City's fault, that won't solve a thing. I want to keep what we have in place right now but I also know that can't happen under current conditions. Every community should get together and solve this problem. To just sit there and blame only the City solves absolutely nothing.

Couple of things:
Mr. Roach: I called the County and the City is not being shorted $500,000 from the water agreement. They will be receiving $250,000 in 2009 and another $250,000 in 2010 from the agreement.
Hammering on the County Legislature and the 3 City Legislators is getting old. Last I checked, the County/City dispatch was not budget neutral for the County. IT COSTS THE COUNTY MONEY!!! THE CITY SAVES MONEY!! Thank goodness for Upson, Hodgins, and DeJanero who got his benefit for city taxpayers.
As well, to go along with the County wide water project, the City received $7,000,000 dollars that other municipalities did not get. THAT IS SEVEN MILLION DOLLARS! $2.5 mil for main st water project, $2.5 million for the water treatment plant, and another $2.5 million for a reason I cannot get an answer for. Thank goodness for those three again.
Then there is sales tax, much of which is generated ouside of the city of Batavia. The County gets 50%, the City gets 16%, the other 13 towns divide up 36%. This was set up during the same time as the initial water agreement. Damn good deal for the city. Those three legislators have done pretty well for the city. By the way, the County could keep every dime of the collected sales tax but shares it with all the municipalities.

Whoops! That is 34% for the towns and villages.

Tim: did not mean to offend, sometimes you sound politically motivated. If you look at my recent post you can see the collaborations between County/City. There have been quite a few benefits for the city. There is no law that I can find that says the County must provide ambulance service and they are assisting GAM (and have been for the past year). It looks like when most of the Towns agreed to pay the city, they called their bluff. The city then washed their hands of the ambulance and said "here you go county, its yours, this is a county service because it is needed county wide". How would the city and towns feel if the county said they wanted to take over all their highway departments? Maybe the County Legislators should take over all the fire departments? I can hear the screaming protests from the City and Towns as I type! Why should the County to volunteer to take over the liability of EMS when a private company could do it?

Michael,
The night the new water vote was taken (and we were denied the chance to read the deal/contract) the original 10 year deal was cut to 8, and a new 10 year plan put in place, cutting out 2 years. Were you there also? I didn't know everyone present. Anyway, get a copy of it if can and read it. Council members Mallow, Briggs and Christian asked out 3 legislators to stand up for us and they refused, just like they did with the Muckdogs. They also asked that the vote be delayed until the new Council took over, but that was denied.

You might even ask Bob why we deneid the right to have a public vote on the original water deal. He worked very hard trying to us that right.

Bob Bialkowski and Bill Cox, who had been elected but not in office yet also tried to get them to stand up for us, but couldn't get them to do it.

As for dispatch, you must be dreaming if you think the 3 of them got us anything. They were on the sidelines. It was the County and City Managers who made this happen.

By the way, John Hodgins had nothing to do with the origainl agreement as legislator, he was not in office then (Nice try).

Ed DeJanero was a city councilman then (Again, nice try), who by the way ran for reelection with the promise he would not go with what was a bad deal. He flat out lied to us. If you know him, ask what took place to get him to change his vote. In fact, talk with Councilman Bialkowski. Bob and I don't always agree, in fact almost ever, but there is nobody who tracked what took place better than him.

Check your law book again. There are a number of ways sales tax can be taken care of and you're wrong. Don't feel bad about that, it is complicated and you would have had to attend the water meetings, which it is clear you didn't. It would not have made any difference if you had, you would not have been allowed to speak.

This blog was started for the ambulance service. Maybe we should go to the forum section to debate the merit of the water deal or how good our 3 legislators are?

Michael,
Why do you think they would object to the County taking all this over? With cuts coming in Federal and State aid, they just might accept.

As for your question as to why the County would want to take over the liability of EMS; if many of the people on this site are telling the truth, that it makes money, then sure the County would. But it doesn't make money and the County does not want anything to do with this. We all know that and most of this is just for the fun of the debate.

The County will get a contract thru GAM or some other means and a private company will run it. You seem to already know that. County taxes for us in the City will go up for our share, but that may/may not be off set by lower City taxes with no ambulance service. The County tax for the Towns and Villages will go up with almost no off setting tax cut.

Mike, it's true that arguments sound politically motivated almost all the time. That's because almost every argument dealing with taxes and services has to do with politics. I actually enjoy discussing politics and all aspects related to them. The reason I like it is because if enough people are involved you may get an idea that partisan politics won't come up with. I don't pay that much attention to R's and D's. It's the idea itself that carries weight with me. That's what matters. I have no time for kool-aid drinkers or people who step in line. How often does a political party come up with a great idea? The answer is, they don't. The best solutions come from individuals who speak up but yet, are willing to listen as well. I thank you for your part of the discussion.

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