Council & MV EMS Propose Creating New Ambulance Districts
On Monday, May 12th, the Adams County Commissioners held their first public meeting of the month. All commissioners were present. Meredith Fisher, with Planning and Zoning, gave an update on the application status of projects at Brundage. She also said that the recent change made on building permits requiring them to be signed off by Planning and Zoning has proved very helpful in making the process cleaner and clearing up potential complications up front.
Commissioner Daren Ward told Steve Shelton, with Solid Waste, and the other commissioners, that he spoke with a leasing company called Bancorp last week, They thought they could get the county better lease rates then through CAT or John Deere. However, they already had the lease finalized for the new compactor so the commissioners approved that.
Adam Balderson, with Road and Bridge, talked with the commissioners about crack sealing and cleaning cattails out of ditches. He said he looked at the culverts for the cemetery and it was probably going to cost around $1,000 just for the culverts. The commissioners said they didn’t have a problem helping out with the work but thought the cemetery needed to figure out where to buy the culverts. Balderson also mentioned the bridge that they sold hasn’t been picked up again. The commissioners told him to send the buyer a certified letter.
The company that did dust abatement has been bought out by another company. They will still do the work they had scheduled for the county but don’t want to do all the private jobs anymore. Also it will be more than last year. The commissioners all talked about equipment that is still needed and what there was budget for. Balderson said he met with a couple people to look at the culvert on Fruitvale Glendale Road and is waiting to hear back from them. Commissioner Joe Iveson told Balderson about a county road that someone had put up a Private Road sign on and asked him to investigate. After this, they talked about insurance, possibly increases in county insurance, and alternative options.
Sheriff Ryan Zollman said there are 23 state inmates ad 5 county. He spent last week at the Sheriff Association Conference and said there were some good trainings. He said they are creating a portal for tow companies that will be beneficial for getting rid of abandoned vehicles. Then, he talked about the push to remove the requirements for front license plates and said that passed for vehicles that don’t come with a front bracket for a license plate. He was not happy about this and said it is going to create a lot more work for his deputies. Zollman had also been talking recently to Bancorp about leasing vehicles and had a quote for five fully equipped vehicles for $50,000 a year. They discussed some of the details and the pros and cons of leasing and ended up deciding to move with leasing.
Next Doug Buys from Meadow Valley EMS and Dan Huter and Rianne Horsch from Council Valley Ambulance arrived to discuss creating new ambulance districts. Nampa attorney Bill Gigray, who was representing both EMS services, gave an overview via Zoom of what they were looking to do and how it would work. He said he has helped do this three times so far, In Valley County, Boise County, and Owyhee County. To create new ambulance districts they need to have the approval of the county commissioners and then a petition for each district signed by at least 50 constituents. This must also be accompanied by a resolution from the City stating that they would both participate in the new ambulance district and consent to dissolving the old one. Then it would go to the county clerk and in the end it would be voted on by the people. Each district would elect three new commissioners to represent the new ambulance district.
The commissioners seemed a little taken aback by the proposal. Commissioner Joe Iveson asked the question that seemed to be at the top of everyone’s mind, which was why? Why did they want to create a new district? Were there problems with how it was operating now? He mentioned that New Meadows was contracted out so they already didn’t have the oversight. Dan Huter said they have no issues in Council, they just thought they could help lessen the burden on the commissioners by creating their own. Doug Buys said that they are facing big changes in his district. They plan to be a fully manned station in 3-5 years because of the increase in call volume.
Iveson also wanted to know if the new district commissioner would be paid. Gigray said they could be but so far no one has asked for payment. Clerk Sherry Ward asked if they would be changing the district boundaries. Buys said they had to but Gigray clarified that they don’t have to, but this would be an opportunity to clean up and rectify any issues, and if they don’t change the boundaries they can’t change the levy. When asked what boundary they wanted to change they said the one in-between the districts on Highway 95, to make sure that the closer district would be responding to closer locations. Commissioner Iveson wanted to know if this went through, and if they wanted to annex or de-annex something in the future would it go through the new commissioners? They said yes. Iveson said he had a problem with that, and he didn’t want them to take it the wrong way, but currently there are three commissioners who have no skin in the game, and are just there to serve the community. But he thought in small communities like these, when they created a new commission, especially an unpaid one, the sort of people who were going to be on it were going to be looking out only for the new ambulance districts, not for the community as a whole, and there was a big danger of getting stuck with a “Good ol’ Boy” system. “The most important person is the ones we serve, not you guys, not your employees” said Iveson, “They’re important, but you got to balance that.”
Horsch thought the current commissioners would have a hand in appointing the first of the new commissioners. Commissioner Ward said on the other side, these would be three people from the district that were elected to serve the district as well, he said he could see pros and cons. Commissioner Viki Purdy said she had the same concerns as Iveson. “All I want to do is serve the people,” she said, “I’m not serving the fire district, I’m not servicing the ambulance district, I want to make sure the people are protected.” She also clarified they would need to hold elections for six more officials. They determined the EMS commissioners could potentially be the fire commissioners as well. Purdy also brought up some of the issues they have been having with Meadow Valley EMS and how they would like to sit down and try to resolve things. Buys said he was in favor of that as well. “We’ve got no problem, we’ve got nothing to hide,” he said.
Commissioner Ward said he was supportive of putting it to the people to decide so if they need commissioner support to get it to that point he would give that support. Commissioner Purdy wanted to talk about it some more. She said she would prefer to have a public hearing first to see what people were thinking before going through the cost and trouble of putting everything together. They decided to start moving forward with putting together a petition so they could hold public hearings in each district to decide whether the commissioners should support it or not. They want to start moving soon or they will have to wait another fiscal year.
