By Charla Wurm-Adams
cwurm@wbcowqel.com
The Central Joint Ambulance District went ahead and renewed its contract with LifeStar at its meeting Wednesday. But the renewal was only for one year and didn’t come without some disagreement among board members.
The main issue of contention was that the city of Bucyrus only wanted one year for the renewal. Service/Safety Director Jeff Wagner who is the city’s representative on the board indicated the city could not go along with a three-year contract.
Without Bucyrus being part of the district, LifeStar would only have approximately 30 runs per month and could not provide ambulance services without a subsidy for that amount of business. The majority of runs for LifeStar in its contract come within the city of Bucyrus and according to the current agreement the ambulance station must be located within city limits.
Having to provide a subsidy, if Bucyrus were to pull out of the CJAD, would most likely require a tax levy and it would be difficult to organize and mount such a campaign for the November election at this late date.
A motion for a three-year contract died for lack of a second and the one-year option passed with eight votes for, one no vote and four abstentions.
Discussions on the contract renewal began in February. No board members would comment for the record after the meeting.
MedCare Services of Marion from Ohio Health and The Ohio State University MedCenter attended the meeting and offered its assistance to the CJAD.
LifeStar reported it responded to 178 9-1-1 calls in the month of May. There were four fire stand-byes and no medical helicopter flights.