 Good evening everyone and welcome to tonight's special Common Council meeting. There's a lot of public here welcome Public from out of town. I believe with their Representatives from over 20 fire departments throughout the state here today. This is a very controversial very emotional issue I asked that everyone and please remain quiet while council is in session and We will conduct our meeting in a manner that will be orderly And respectful and courteous to the people who will make a presentation and conduct the people's business Call a special meeting of the Common Council order first item on the agenda is a pledge of allegiance All of them in Gisha, would you please lead us? States of America and to the republic for which it stands one nation under God Indivisible with liberty and justice for all Thank you all to my Gisha Madam city clerk, please call the roll Born bauk Serta Gisha Hannah Heidemann Kittlesen Clayunas Manny Meyer Montemay or Rinflaish Ryan Vander wheel for hassled and wangeman 16 present quorum is present a tournament clean mayor's appointments Honorable members of the Common Council I hereby submit the following appointment for your consideration David Lutsky to be appointed a city assessor commencing June 25 2007 and expiring June 24 2012 signed by Mayor Juan Perez And I will ask for suspension Emotion to suspend Is there no objection to that if not I'd ask for motion to confirm Motion to second to confirm any discussion under discussion, I would just like the council to know that Mr. Lutsky has agreed to accept the job that Mariella's used to just to hold He is a very qualified Individual high-spirited articulate all those ingredients that you want in the department head He is also an added plus to his application is the fact that he used to live in Sheboygan And I wanted to come back to Sheboygan many of his family members are here the family is just Crazy about coming back and and being able to provide service to our citizens in this matter, so I thank you very much We'll take the vote all in favor say aye Any opposed motion carries confirmation is approved Hereby submit the following appointment for your consideration Ronald Wren Fleisch to be considered an appointment to the Civil Service Commission to fill the unexpired term of Lee Montemire Whose term expires 430 2010 signed by the mayor I asked for a motion to suspend Motion seconds to spend is there any objection There being on I'd ask for a motion to confirm the appointment Motion the second to confirm the appointment there is a little bio in the back of your handout About mr. Wren Fleisch a very qualified individual Alderman Wren Fleisch I believe you want to speak because he happens to be your dad. Yes, I will be abstaining from the vote Thank you be abstaining from the motion. Thank you very much. Oh, I'm in Wren Fleisch president Hannah Thank you, mayor. I had the privilege of serving on the school board with mr. Wren Fleisch for six years And truly you couldn't get a better candidate to serve the citizens Thank You president Hannah and mr. Wren Fleisch was screened by the Seller and Greenhouses Committee Proper channels, but believe the last time we weren't able to follow that that's an error in our part This time it was followed and the Seller and Greenhouse committee recommended two individuals and I selected mr. Wren Fleisch Any discussion on that there be a non all-in-favorite say aye any opposed motion carries Appointments confirm. Thank you very much I'm sorry, please record the abstention. Thank you The next item on the agenda is notice of intent to resend the vote to deny a class B intoxicating liquor license for applicant number 2458 Alderman Montemayor Thank You your honor. I'd like to make a motion to rescind the vote to deny The class B intoxicating liquor license for applicant 2458 Motion in second under discussion Thank You your honor that is um Florenta Perez with her mr. Soul restaurant And I do believe the intention of the council was to say yes to the liquor license So we need this rescinding To go on to the next motion to grant the license And under that discussion the intention of the council was an a tie vote and I broke the tie and I Cast the wrong vote. So I therefore respectfully request that you reconsider this under rescission and vote We've discussed her issue before we don't need to hash it in front of all the public anymore At least I don't think so this has been discussed in law and licensing committee and it's been discussed in a common counsel to We will take discussion Vice president borne Thank You your honor I I just want to reiterate what we discussed last week that in the committee. This was not even a close call. This was a 50 vote I think there are some issues that if I could open up the floor to assistant attorney adams city attorney adams and Lieutenant david chef hauser who's our advisor from the police department I think they have some important input. So I would like to move to open up the floor to those two individuals There's a motion in a second under discussion again, this issue has been hashed out by the committee already Is there another discussion? All in one drink life. Thank you your honor under discussion. I I question having certain counsel for two years and never seen this before What the the city statutes say in terms of this process Is it a is it a new resolution that needs to roll over or or do you ask for suspension or what i'm i'm drugging this towards City attorney Attorney McLean Thank you your honor This motion is to rescind the prior vote to deny the license As you recall from the last meeting it was eight to eight. The mayor broke the tie As comments prior to the vote indicated it was leaning towards approval of the license, but The vote was in the negative it was to deny the license and Thinking it was voting in favor of granting the license voted. Yes, that's my assumption This is according to roberts rules of order appropriate to make a motion to rescind. You can't reconsider Only You can make a motion to reconsider only at the the meeting that you take the action on but it is appropriate under roberts rules to Act on rescission the only caveat to that is that you can't rescind something that's Undoable if you will if you enter into a contract with someone they start performing And you can't then go back and say well, I changed my mind. I'm not going to contract with you That you're you're bound to honor here The denial of the license wouldn't be something that would be binding That would impact the future so you could rescind this action if you so chose Thank you turn McLean We all remember my order to comment. Yes. Thank you your honor. I wanted to um Remind the council that this is just a motion. Excuse me. This is just a motion to open up the floor We don't oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Is there just a motion open up floor to expand the discussion? Otherwise, we will call the vote on it Under discussion to open up the floor element Ryan Thank you, mr. Mayor. I don't see any merit in opening up the floor to again Basically grill this individual in public I believe that what happened is there was a time vote on the council floor and mr. Mayor you basically Tossed the wrong vote. You thought you were voting. Yes, and you voted no or vice versa And therefore I don't see any merit to again grilling miz Perez I believe that if it is the mayor's wish to Just retake the vote. I think that's the way it should be done Thank you, Owen Ryan, and I would agree with you this issue has been discussed. She has been subjected to Some very unpleasant occurrences in her life in her business We all make mistakes We'll call the roll if no one asks any discussion on just the question of whether to open up the floor Please call the roll Boak No Serta No Gisha No Hannah No Heidemann No Kittleson No Cleunas No Manny No Meyer No Montemayor No Rindfleisch Aye Ryan No Vanderwheel No Verhaselt Aye Wongaman Aye Ann Boran Aye Four ayes, 12 noes Motion fails on the motion to rescind Please call the roll Under discussion Alderman Cleunas Thank you Will we please restate the resolution? So we have I mean the Restate the vote so that we know what we're voting for And the aye vote will be to rescind Yes To re-vote it And an aye vote, no vote will be not to rescind It'll stay as it was before Okay Thank you Everybody got that? Alderman Refresh I think I just missed that I'm sorry To clarify Right now we're voting simply to rescind and re-vote No Yes One thing at a time though Let's All you're doing right now is voting to rescind The previous council action after this Should it be a favorable passage And a motion can come in from the floor To grant us possibly two votes Yes For voting to rescind And then if that passes we're voting to Which way we're going to vote Truly Okay Thank you very much You're welcome Alderman Vangaman Thank you Mr. Mayor I think this is highly unusual I've never seen this happen before in my experience I hope we're not setting a precedent here I do believe Madam City Clerk explained the vote before we took it And if people misvoted I really don't see that this should be done again I mean do we just keep voting until we get an answer that we like No Quite frankly we don't I actually in favor rescind it because as I just explained and I will explain again I voted the wrong way Quite frankly what occurred that night was rattled me a little bit I sort of got distracted a little bit Your prerogative Alderman Vangaman is to vote against it There being no further action no questions please call the roll Serta No Gisha Do you need to reiterate what we're voting on? We are voting yes would be to rescind the vote A no vote would be not to rescind the vote Hannah Yes Heidemann No Kittleson Yes Clayunas No Nanny Aye Meyer Aye Montemayor Aye Rinfleisch No Excuse me No Ryan Aye Vanderweel Aye Verhaselt No Vangaman No Boren No Bauch Aye 997 Nos Motion carries Alderman Montemayor Thank you Your Honor I make the motion to grant the license to this to applicant 2458 Second Motion in second under discussion There being none please call the roll Gisha Aye Hannah Aye Heidemann Aye Kittleson No Clayunas No Manny Aye Meyer Aye Montemayor Aye Rinfleisch No Ryan Aye Vanderweal Aye Verhaselt No Vangaman No Boren No Bauch Aye Serda No 997 Nos Motion carries Matters laid over for 103 RC number 350708 by the committee of the whole to whom was referred resolution number 130708 by all the person Rinfleisch authorizing the city of Sheboygan fire department to provide ambulance service to its citizens beginning January 1st 2008 President Hannah Thank you Mr. Mayor I would make a motion to accept and adopt RC number 350708 And put the resolution And put the resolution upon his passage There's a motion in second Under discussion we will have a presentation by Orange Cross representative And then followed by a presentation by the Sheboygan fire department After that we will ask the Alderman to engage in debate During these presentations I will leave it up to the presenter If they want to be interrupted But if they want to be asked questions while they present Or would they have you rather wait It will be their discretion not mine But as I said again to rephrase I mean to say it again Presentation by our cross Presentation by the fire department And then discussion Okay, everybody okay Orange Cross Mr. Representative And uh I've got you on Yes hit it on Test it Testing one two You got it Good Okay turn it off again please Okay now turn it on Okay you should be on Testing Mayor counsel thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight I'm going to give a brief power point presentation Followed by Gene Hansen Our training officer And then Dr. Suzanne Martin is going to follow up So if we could start with the power point Could we uh have the lights please Jay As a state this speaks for itself We've been in business since 1979 And I think it speaks for itself It's your constituents that has kept us in business And we really appreciate that History some of this may be redundant for you However I'll go over it for some of the new people in the audience We've been in business since 79 We're co-owned by St. Nicholas Hospital and Memorial Hospital The city of Sheboygan elected to get out of the ambulance business in 1989 Because of the tremendous amount of training and cost Required to upgrade from the basic ENT level To the paramedic level As a result Orange Cross began paramedic level care to the city Shared services the relationship between Orange Cross and the city and County of Sheboygan Is an excellent model we believe Of how government and private enterprise should be run Orange Cross is fiscally responsible And owns all of its equipment There are no subsidies paid to Orange Cross By the city, county, or its owners Dubication of services The limited area and population we currently serve Is too small to support another provider Unless revenues increase dramatically Either through increased volume or excessive rate structure Neither one of these prospects is beneficial to the community Police, fire, and EMS Obviously Orange Cross represents EMS The medical service provided by Orange Cross enables police and fire departments The ability to concentrate on protecting the community from fires And public protection Without jeopardizing one or the other You've heard this cliche many a time If it's not broke, don't fix it, however I believe it fits here Your intentions of getting into the ambulance business Will fragment an effective and efficient EMS system That is currently in place Cost associated with EMS So next two power points I'll briefly go over We do believe some of these costs have been put in a proposal by the city However, not all the costs have been accounted for Medical direction is one that we feel that Or we haven't seen at this point from the city And that we believe should be addressed Dr. Martins, you have anything to add to that as far as cost? Okay, that's all right I'll continue on and she can address that Later The healthcare facilities interface That's where again being colonized by two hospitals We're part of the healthcare system We believe is an excellent model for the city of Sheboygan and surrounding communities QA, Gene will address that Documentation of recovery Obviously billing collection is a huge portion of this Personnel municipalities pay higher wages to personnel that are in a dual role function Therefore taxpayers are required to compensate for these higher wages Orange Cross operates on the fee for service bases and is completely self-funded Again, neither our owners, city or county taxpayers financially subsidize our service Liability risk management City employees suffering work comp injuries In the Sheboygan press June 16th of 2005 The city of Sheboygan is faced with numerous on-the-job injuries Causing the city hundreds of thousands of dollars as reported by Ed Suric City Human Resources Director Getting into the ambulance will certainly compound this We did hear at a presentation that liability will not increase It will increase twofold or a hundredfold I should say What the skills are being performed as first responders is different than the paramedic level Also as far as lifting patients you'll be lifting every patient Not just assisting with patients you'll be lifting every patient Wisconsin EMS statistics This is out of the website of Wisconsin EMS While it is a common belief that the local fire department also provides ambulance services In Wisconsin 40 percent of 911 responding ambulance services come from the fire department While 60 percent are separate and apart from the fire department Fire department ambulance vehicles transport approximately 45 percent of patients each year While 55 percent are transported by non-fire-based ambulance providers When taken into account all ambulance services including inter-facility Hospital to hospital Special event and intercept services 68 percent of the patients are non-fire-based and 32 percent are provided by the fire department We hear control the ambulance service You have control of the ambulance service There is a written contract with the city and county with a coalition ambulance quality assurance committee Four representatives of the city and two from the county They meet on a quarterly basis to oversee Orange Cross response times and quality of care Consider taking the rush out of a potentially lethal decision To have an independent consultant or a group of non-bias representatives to review the ambulance issue at a subcommittee level This was also brought up last friday at a city county shared services committee in which they voted favorably for this I would highly recommend we do this consider How will you fill the void of 42? Emergency medical service personnel that Orange Cross has that provide pre-hospital health care in the city Remember september 11 2001 I43 accident The board and chemical incident the landmark fire Consider dedicated ambulances we hear Orange Cross response times speak for themselves Orange Cross utilizes peak time staffing to handle multiple ambulance requests The priority of the response is not dictated by geographical boundaries Consider the efficiencies of an existing city county system that utilizes highly trained paramedics Including training that exceeds the standards set forth by the state of wisconsin This will be eliminated if you decide to take over the ambulance service in the city of Sheboygan Thank you My name is jean hanson. I'm the qa training officer for orange cross ambulance In an effort to speak to the quality of care that orange cross provides our patients We've prepared the documents we have before you the the orange paper documents The first page lists many of the additional skills Pull the whole thing pull the whole thing up. There you go The first page lists many of the the additional skills and equipment that orange cross has chosen to provide Those skills and equipment go beyond what a minimally trained paramedic service does provide So it's an extra above and beyond that we've offered the citizens of Sheboygan and Sheboygan county Brief overview of some of the things you're seeing in front of you The first site on the continuous positive airway pressure device is offered to Our patients who have significant respiratory distress It's a device that we can put on them monitor them And provide a little extra care on the way to the hospital as well The critical care transports that we offer as well from the hospital to outlying hospitals For specialized services that they may not be able to get in Sheboygan county We do have several critical care paramedics who've got above and beyond a normal paramedic level And have attained an 80 hour class to provide that service as well So with that then the following two things the maintenance of the The specific medicated IV fluids and the thrombolitic therapy monitoring goes along with that as well So we'll take those from the hospital to the outlying areas for specialty Care that we're not able to offer in Sheboygan county We have purchased also a ventilator portable ventilator Instead of manually bagging the patient As was done in the past for a minimally trained paramedic to do We've gone above and beyond with that training as well and purchased a A $4,000 ventilator that we're able to provide again to the outlying Facilities from hospital to hospital if the patient were in need were in need of that as well We are involved in a in a STEMI project and st elevation mi Significant heart attack positive signs of that. We recognize the need to get there quicker To get to the hospital quicker and to get to outlying hospitals quicker as well. So we have Spent considerable time effort and money training our paramedics to a higher level than a minimally trained paramedic would be as well In those capabilities Page two then Speaks to the quality of care that we believe is so important as well If you look at page two, you can appreciate the additional specialty training that we do provide above and beyond page one This is all specialty care things that you'll see that we offer our paramedics and It is in addition to a minimally trained paramedic We believe that by allowing a minimally trained paramedic service to step into the contractor effectively telling the citizens of shabuigan Their quality of care is not as important as it should be Are there any questions about the document we've given you any questions alderman Vice president borne. Uh, thank you your honor. You mentioned these additional trainings that's offered. Are these Offered are they are they required? They're not required, but the majority of orange cross personnel does take advantage of it. Okay. Thank you Any other questions? Let me find you your alma mater. Thank you very much The cost of your medical director. What does that total? Where is that included in your in your statistics? Before us The old document from a week or two ago. I'll let her speak for herself. Thank you I will ask the alderman to follow the protocol of regular council meetings rise when you speak and address Thank you Would you please tell us your name too, please? Suzanne martins Thank you for allowing me the time to speak with you again As most of you know, I am the medical director for orange cross ambulance I'm also the medical director for about 90 of the ems agencies in the county And I'd like to go back again and tell you how I got to this position because my training is indeed unique Um, I am a residency trained board certified emergency physician. I trained at freighter hospital. That's a level one facility level one trauma facility I also extended my baseline emergency medicine training to a fellowship level in ems and that's relatively unique Throughout the nation which meant I spent another year of graduate school Being paid resident wages Pursuing specialty care in emergency medical services Above and beyond that. I've also recently just completed my masters in public health administration Some fellowships do incorporate that in mine did not so therefore I thought that I needed to pursue extra education On top of my training as a physician I also happened to be a state certified EMT and I have been so at for the past 20 years Based on my combination of education and field experience Arguably, I'm one of the most if not the most Qualified medical directors in the state The other person who is similarly qualified was my mentor in milwaukee. That's dr. Perlow And I believe the question was my compensation All right, that's correct My compensation is from different places as part of my Appointment to the staff at st. Nicholas hospital. I am considered the ems liaison So therefore some of my salary is stipended Separate from that. I have a contract with orange cross independently to dedicate hourly Soul hours to Their concerns and that is compensated at a rate of a thousand dollars a month Any other questions? Thank you, honor I guess either dr. Martin or or jerry if you could just expand on your training expenses in general across the orange cross system What they are annually, okay? We do have some unique training opportunities jerry may need to bring up the numbers because I don't have all of them um, our critical care training is uh uniquely tailored to this area What we do is work with the hospitals to define the critical care skills medications and equipment that are necessary And I know over the past five years. We've enacted What? 10 new medications that are used solely for critical care the cardiac monitoring the capnography monitoring the Ventilator are just examples of that jerry. Do you have any numbers on our training our education? I don't have specific numbers that the amount we spend for training education However, the total salary of gene is included in on that Along with all the numbers that you see on that orange sheet So I don't have a specific number that we're spending on training education. I can certainly get that number for you Thank you. We have we do provide um ongoing critical care training, which I do at our bimonthly meetings All women bulk Thank you, your honor Dr. Mr. Isbell used the word lethal in his show to talk about how grave the decision we were making tonight would be In your professional opinion Do you have any reason to doubt the quality of care that schwoig and fire department would be providing? Is there any reason why the city should be scared about a lethal decision being made tonight? I'm also the medical oversight for the training programs at lakeshore technical college So I do train paramedics and I do initial training ongoing training critical care training And then we do supplemental training such as the ones listed there the difference between being trained which my own Um primary instructor at LTC will acknowledge that once you come out of paramedic school You are considered minimally competent After that you need to advance your skills hone your skills and learn more So when you come out it's expected that you can perform paramedic level skills You are not expected to perform them at optimal Levels, and you still have lots and lots of education to do In emergency medicine in general The learning curve is considered to be somewhere between five and ten years of experience before you're considered exceptionally competent Based on the turnover that I understand orange cross has do many of your paramedics have that five to ten years Of experience what percent would you say has? let's see Who's got more than five years two thirds take the There's probably at least two thirds. I have experience at least five years However, the turnover rate does include people that come to our organization with experience In fact, we had one we hired two weeks ago It's 20 years experience. So although new to the area they come with experience Yes, sir. Thank you. Thank you. Any other questions Hallerman Kittleson. Yes. Thank you, mr. Mayor I guess my question is then you do all of your training at ltc Most of your training there No, no orange cross does their training in house. They do their training in house But there is training at ltc training at ltc is ongoing It's uh, I mean we have general ems classes going at all times as well as supplemental classes So we do first responder basic Itech and we've done an intermediate class paramedic class and then we do all the refreshers So fire department personnel are able to go to ltc and get their training Correct. Typically the fire department does do its own in-house training also. Okay, so they do their saves on costs Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Any other questions? Hallerman many thank you your honor What amount of worker injury? What's the track record at orange cross in workers comp, etc Jerry Again, I can get you the specific numbers off the OSHA 300 log that we keep track of Last year we had six injuries Two back injuries and the other ones. I'm not sure off the top of my head again I can provide you with them specific numbers over the past three years if you'd like Thank you Hallerman clay units Thank you Dr. Martin You said that when a paramedic is trained leaves ltc program or they're minimally trained or minimally qualified I should say minimally competent is our is our key catch word minimum minimally competent How do they become competent is a lot of on-the-job experience? Practice in other words the more calls they go on the more competent they become Yes, it's a combination of ongoing continuing education training Which is classroom and now we're moving more to like web-based training But you have to have hands-on experience to be able to apply Because everyone knows that doing cpr on a mannequin is much different than doing cpr on your neighbor President hannah. Oh, thank you. Thank you, mayor Just a question according to the journal of mr Private not-for-profit ambulance services have one of the highest turnover rates in the nation At 18 percent Fire department ambulance services have one of the lowest turnover. Can you comment as to why? Sure, that's a trend nationwide because the fire department has a much better In grain system of providing career and pension What we do in private ems is many people are Working their way through the business. There is a higher rate of turnover. We do have to dedicate more time On orientation and training, but I would also Give one caveat when I graduated from my mph degree two weeks ago One of my classmates our graduation mates, whatever you'd like to call him was graduating from medical school Who happened to be one of our paramedics? That's someplace that um our turnover goes to Any other questions president hannah follow-up. Thank you. It's a follow-up. Thank you very much It's my understanding from orange cross Over the last eight to ten years 27 of your paramedics have left to go to fire departments. Is that true? I don't have the exact statistics But if those were the numbers that you were given then that's probably correct And I've been thanked actually by many fire chiefs and training officers for the quality of paramedics. We provide to them Thank you All about And this question may be for mr. Isbell Um It has to do with based on the reaction I get from many constituents The belief in the city is that the orange cross was sort of blindsided by this proposal through four weeks ago And it's my impression that orange cross had been working in concert with The shaboygan fire department on a proposal where orange cross would be dissolved And this responsibility would transfer to the fire department that that was an ongoing discussion And then about a month ago that discussion stopped and what i'm asking is to understand if that's true Why did that discussion stop about a month ago? Excuse me That was not part of them discussion the board of directors of orange cross was consists of three administrators from each hospital Were part of that discussion They were investigating The whole possibility of the ambulance service In fact, they visited mantalk fire department to look into other ambulance service and see if they have The good model in this area However, there was a letter january of 06 that was sent to the city and county for an extension So this has been a long going process But as last Excuse me two or three or four weeks. It's come to surface quite rapidly So no one can speak as to what was going on in the board's mind and why that that opportunity was looked at is Is not something they wanted to pursue Uh, they wanted to investigate it with an open eye They wanted to make sure that what we have in this area is a good model for ems And they found that out Okay Thank you your honor I think this question probably is for mr. Isbell If the city decides to go ahead with providing ambulance service to the city of shabuigan What are the plans for orange cross for the Areas outside of shabuigan If the city decides to get into the ambulance business The board will have to reconvene take approximately 30 days to look into it and get back to you At this point, we're not sure so the board is Directed me to tell you 30 days at least to look into the issue Any other questions Oldman serda. Thank you your honor Given your slide presentation. There was a mention of 42 personnel that wouldn't be able to service the city of shabuigan Could you tell us how many people are designated right now covering specifically the city of shabuigan in terms of stash ratio right now? We have no geographical limits So we have 42 employees and that's what I was referring to orange cross has 42 employees So if the city got into the ambulance business, there's a potential that them 42 would be out of ems And that's where the void would be created Thank you. Alderman meyer Thank you your honor Um, you have 42 employees and how often do you have to use callant staff? I've heard over time brought up and how often do you have to utilize over time? Numerous times in fact, we use peak time staffing during the weekdays Well, we may have six ambulances staffed besides that everybody's issued a pager We have what we call a four a code four or five and if we need additional staffing For instance the i43 fog incident We call in the entire staff For that So we have everybody that's not only working but off-duty personnel with pagers available Thank you. Alderman. Gisha Thank you, mr. Mayor. I don't want to blindside you. I I don't know if you have a copy I don't want to be unfair with this of an email sent by dan bonk from aurora Are you able to comment on that if I were to ask a question? I don't want to Ask you something you were on a prepared to answer. I have no idea What what email you're referring to regarding mr. Dan bonk? Okay Dan bonk and and I won't press you on it. Just maybe ask for your impression Dan bonk is the executive vice president for the central region of aurora health care and has been so for the last three and a half years He details meetings going back with chief xire many years ago and then Chief listusky currently and I know this is a little unfair and I apologize in advance, but he writes And he is of course 50 percent owner of your company His company is 50 percent owner of you guys and I only ask this Because it's a little there's a couple of disturbing points Internally in this and he writes Um, I met with chief xire several years ago. I have also met with Chief listusky at this meeting and in subsequent meetings with chief listusky I emphasize that operating an ambulance service is not in my opinion a core service of a hospital or health system He goes on to write To this and I have no reason to believe that the shabuigan fire department cannot provide a quality paramedic an ambulance service to the residents of shabuigan and this is your 50 percent owner and People can misinterpret things and interpret things in different ways and I think that's fair but And if you can help me here, I get a little concerned when a 50 percent owner of a company writes that kind of stuff and Giving you the benefit of the doubt that this was interpreted poorly on my part or in his writing Can you speak to the long-term viability or interest of the partners of orange cross? I certainly can't speak on the mr. Bonk's email. I'd have to defer that to him I will comment though. My last dealing with mr. Bonk was the dissolution of valley view hospital In clement here. He was the administrator in charge of that decision All women for hassle Thank you your honor We have two two things that i'm concerned about in our proposal that I just want to be very comfortable with before we vote tonight is on the The rate increases that we have figured in our proposal. We figure about a 9.2 rate increase each year And then the other thing is the call volume projections, which we have a 3 increase Built in every year Both of those add to a very good bottom line and I just want to be comfortable that those numbers are solid Could you speak to your experience in history? First of all the the call volume Orange cross does budget for a three percent increase in call volume. However, we're not guaranteed that Two years ago. We went down six percent So that is not a constant increase in volume. You can't count for that every year a three percent volume Okay, that's just a projection on as far as budgeting goes I believe the other point was nine point two percent rate increase. Um I don't know how they come up with that projection. However, what we typically do is go by the medical cpi And we like to hold it to that That's why the last three or four years you're looking at anywhere from five percent to I believe three and a half Does that answer that? Yes, it does. Thank you Thank you other questions Allerman serda Thank you, your honor in all fairness to lb asking this question to the fire department Given all of the bullets that you've highlighted on this form Is there anything in terms of your specialty your education that you feel that the shaboygan fire department would not be able to duplicate? Absolutely our critical care and our qa project because we dedicate hours and hours of that Just a follow-up could you elaborate a little bit and further just so they would know What that actually means critical care is the Skills training medication that we provide above the paramedic level that like I said We have developed in conjunction with our facilities and the needs of our citizens over the past five years Our proposals have been immediately Approved by the state because I work with people in the state Office on a regular basis and they're very aware of the quality of training that we provide here We get immediate feedback from both the emergency department and icu staff and that has been our Driving force for enhancing our education years ago when critical care patients were transferred Their nurse went with them because of the nursing staffing shortage that no longer happens So essentially when someone needs to go to a different facility They can come out of an icu get put in the back of an ambulance for an hour and a half with no previous contact by that ambulance crew and We are tasked with maintaining the level of icu care during that inner facility transfer So we have taken over essentially the job of an icu nurse As for our qa project We have very active qa I myself personally a screen about one third of our calls All of our chest pains pediatrics traumas respiratory distress codes Refusals inner facility cares and any other weird calls that show up get pushed across my desk Doctor I have a question for you the dr. Coolis has indicated that he would be willing unable to serve as As a medical director, uh, is there any question in your mind that he is not capable of doing that? Not so much as capability. Um, his time commitment My recent experience with an upgrading the Plymouth system from an i-tech Organization to the paramedic level I went back and checked my non clinical hours and I spent 20 to 30 hours per month for over a year solely dedicated to their upgrades and enhancements training ops plans and interactions with the state my um, I particularly work at a reduced clinical rate In the emergency department because I put in up to 100 hours a month as an ems medical director So you feel he's capable but not made but may not be able to handle the time commitment That's for him to decide though. That's correct and also mean he's uh, he is instrumental in our cardiac programs He would have to become familiar with all the other specialty care that we provide including pediatrics geriatrics trauma and Other inner facility transfers. Thank you any other questions? Any other questions? Okay, thank you very much wait. We have one more Thank you your honor. Yes, please hold on. Dr. Martin's one more question. Yes In the quality of care there are a lot of technical expertise categories here and we certainly appreciate that um My question relates to in 9-11 response if Shabuigan fire department had 9-11 response How many of these would they need to be able to provide for that immediate care? That doesn't include the critical transports et cetera et cetera et cetera That would probably be an ongoing orange cross Responsibility Which subsection are you looking at looking at all the categories? What what? What does the shabuigan fire department have to be able to do? Oh, what would they require to to provide? 9-11 emergency care the Continuous positive airway pressure device is now accepted as standard airway management down to the basic level Interosseous which is a needle placed in the bone for critical care patients is now recommended by the american heart association as the second line If you're unable to establish an IV The rest is in a facility the stemmy project, which is the acute in my project The ability to obtain interpret and transmit 12 led kgs immediately As well as possibly having to transport the patient out of the county immediately Is part of that project the 12 lead capabilities are underneath that Entitled capnography, which is exhaled co2. It's considered One of now becoming a standard of care for intubated patients selective spinal immobilization also is Required down it can be performed down to the first responder level now it is required down to the basic level Automated blood pressure device that goes along with the current monitors that we use I believe that's it. Do you want to go any second page? Thank you over in geisha Thank you your honor. I was hoping that that would be the last one, but it sparked a question Regarding What you want, I mean, I know you're not board members so I I'm trying not to put you in board member hats but The question has been okay. We have a fire department proposal And we have an orange cross proposal and My understanding is the only orange cross proposal we have is what we've got And your your programs and care for 10 more years Is am I accurate with that? That was our initial request attend your extension so we can do some long-term planning Mr. Isabel a lot of the questions that you uh That have been asked are some of the questions that have been asked by all of them and you've responded by The board would have to make that decision If the board is a deciding body may I ask why they're not here? any of them Based on the short term notice there. They had prior commitments They were able to attend the last couple of weeks as many as they could However, tonight did not work out for them. Did any of them attend the city county share service committee meeting on friday? I don't believe so. Thank you Alderman wrench lace Thank you, mr. Merr. Mr. Isabel again As part employee or half time employee, I guess of aurora facilities As we know there's a little rather large and Entity in the state of wisconsin Are you aware of other areas where they operate with? City run fire department ambulance services that they are interested in proposing A private entity or a non-probability to take over that instead or are they in general comfortable working with city fire departments? My understanding lacrosse is going through the same situation that we are here where the Private is trying to be taken over by the local fire department Well, hello, but you're not aware of necessarily that orange that aurora itself and other is the operate of any difficulty Or any problems or any issues working with a city run? No, no thank you Okay, thank you very much Ladies and gentlemen I'd ask fire chief Commander herman commander butler Come up. Thank you. Mr. Mayor Members of the council citizens of sheboygan. I also would like to thank All the members of the fire service that are attending tonight Their representation here is to show the Level of commitment to the state of wisconsin Many of the communities if you look at the patches of the individuals on their shirts and and uniforms here You see that they're representing communities like ours throughout the state and these are firefighter paramedics that that are here tonight And much of what they've heard in the orange cross presentation Is the same level of service that's being provided all over the state and I'm certain those individuals will be willing to to testify to that effect I'd like to thank The mayor and members of the council for their diligence in working through this very difficult process While the process might Seems short to many people here. It's involved many many years of research planning and and information Including presentations to and discussions with the private ambulance provider We gave a full presentation three. I believe it was three hours at the committee of the whole We have given individual presentations to all the persons So we have the ability to discuss in detail the information. It's a very difficult topic it's very difficult to To do in a a full Meeting setting. I think we accomplished that at the committee of the whole Last week. I think One of the all the persons hit on it that we were Engaged in discussions with the orange cross board of directors for a number of months With the attempt to consolidate the service Into the sheboygan fire department in the city of sheboygan Very much like what had occurred in manatee walk in 2003 And we gave many reasons why we believe fire-based dms is a positive thing for the community and the area Including incorporating all the rescue services upgrading of our first responder capabilities and the long-term commitment to Supporting a paramedic service that includes maintenance of personnel over a long period of time and retention of personnel Having gone through this process in 2002 And having discussed what many of the previous chiefs the processes that have been going on since 1988 um, I recognized that uh, There needed to be a long-term commitment to this and while this I said earlier this process seems short I can attest to from what the other chiefs told me and what I went through in 2002 That the time and effort expended by the mayor and all the members of this council regardless of whatever Side of the issue you may be on has far exceeded any commitment and interest and involvement in the previous processes So for the public, uh, I just want to assure them That we feel that many many many questions had many hours of discussions And I know the council people have followed up to a great degree with a number of different individuals Both from orange cross from the fire department and others outside of those agencies To ensure that they're well informed for the decision that they're Going to make and have approached it in a very serious and thoughtful manner And with the citizens and the taxpayers of sheboygan in mind. So I think they should be commended for that Right up front. I would also like to commend My two commanders sitting here commander herman and commander butler As well as other members of my staff who have worked countless hours on this very diligently Long days off days Whatever to try to answer all the questions that came forward from From the council people from the public and we have not turned away a phone call Conversation with anybody That has asked for one. So I would like to thank them very much for that that commitment As you all know and found out and some of you all the persons up front when I told you that this would be a controversial issue question, you know, why it's like that and it just evokes so much emotion and As we predicted that would happen And the one concern I have is what alderman geisha brought up that This dialogue with orange cross board of directors has been ongoing for quite a period of time And as we've heard concerns from some council persons some county people and some citizens I've not yet heard and we've heard some of the answers tonight But I've not heard any kind of commitment or question answering regarding orange crosses viability In serving the county and inter-facility transports and we have Always been open to looking at at the entire process of consolidation into the fire department here But I believe the first step needs to be a commitment by this council to move forward for the city 911 service That opens doors of opportunity For us to work with the county and the hospitals and the and the current ems providers in the area to work cooperatively Until we have that commitment. We don't really have anything to offer them As I stated several weeks ago as a department head and particularly in these very difficult times I believe it's our responsibility to bring forth ideas and concepts That assist our city administration and council to better serve the city and help me to meet the need for the community Quality of service at affordable taxpayer costs. We've all talked about and we've heard taxpayers say they're taxed enough But they still want the same level of service People have always been very impressed by the level of service that the city has provided in a number of different areas Not only the fire service and we want to continue that commitment We believe The provision of transport services allows us to continue To provide that excellent service that we've done in the past and actually bring it to a new level If this resolution is passed tonight Our department looks forward to working cooperatively with the mayor The common council sheboygan county and ems community to ensure that ambulance transport needs of all sheboygan area residents Are met with quality and efficiency And then a coordinated transition process is put in place to meet the needs of all involved There's a couple comments. I would just like to make And then i'm going to open the floor to commander herman to Clarify a few issues that came up at the committee of the whole meeting and then commander but Commander butta will comment as necessary as well Just on a couple issues that came up During discussions from the orange cross personnel here and I guess To to understand Our perspective is I don't see any reason to believe That the quality of paramedic service to our community will suffer in any way with the fire department providing that service And that's for a number of reasons one is and commander herman can touch on this We do have a number of paramedics within our current organization with many many many years of experience Both inside our fire department organization and in in other Ems organizations throughout the area which includes people who are currently Working in ambulance services. We also have a number of former orange cross employees who are familiar With the way the system works in the city of sheboygan and Have worked in the system and are eager and excited to continue to do that Our hiring standards are probably more stringent than the private ambulance providers And I would not expect that to change cross train firefighter paramedics are the norm as you see In the in the audience here tonight throughout the state of wisconsin and quite frankly If we don't move in that direction to bring those people into our community They're going to go elsewhere and we're going to be the losers To that end The long-term retention of paramedics Does more to grow the system and provide that long-term Excellent paramedic care then a constant turnover of of new people. That's not to fault the new people coming in It's not to say that they're not going to be good paramedics But when you look at a system that can bring people in and retain them for a period of time They work on the ambulance for a period of time and then they move into other advancement opportunities within the fire department or Go to engines or or or other vehicles and and other responsibilities within the department You do not lose that level of experience In the community it just moves on to a different position You get your new people in and that that system continues to grow and I believe With that model in place the hospitals will grow very comfortable with working with our people With providing any kind of expanded level of care because they're going to see those same people over and over and know that it's a long-term commitment and Those people will be there for for a time to come and that trust will grow the commitment from aurora hospital To to work cooperatively with the fire department is a very important aspect of this Anybody who believes that we're going to implement a paramedic service on january 1st of 2008 And just throw people on that ambulance It has not watched the way our department and other fire departments have operated within the state of wisconsin and the united states We look to work cooperatively between now and then with with the hospitals to get our people in To have a comfort ability level with with the people at both hospitals and look forward to expanding that relationship We also look to get our people working in other communities prior to the implementation of the service To gain experience and look at the best practices of all the other communities that are out there already doing this so just as a A word of notice that we would look forward to working with all those people and having our people as prepared as possible By january 1st of this next year At this time i like to turn it over to commander herman to do some clarifications and provide some additional information Thank you chief Mr. Mayor and members of the council As chief listoski did state Should we take over the ambulance service in january? It's not our intent to hire paramedics strictly out of school We would be hiring experience paramedics And to give you an example of the 11 paramedics that we have on staff In addition to the one registered nurse who would qualify as a paramedic Our paramedics have 17 years of experience 17 11 6 5 5 5 7 5 2 and 2 years of experience they've come from orange cross ambulance bell ambulance deculb county ems Lagrange county hospital and ems random lake plimoth fondillac fire paratek Ashland fire sturdivant medics And the list goes on and on so we do have qualified experienced paramedics on staff Couple of things that i'd like to address From the committee of the whole meeting a couple weeks ago that need clarification Mr. Isabel did bring up that our Medicare medicaid mileage reimbursement figures were incorrect And that is right. We we did figure in the rural rate Which is 938 and we should have had the urban rate in which is 625 as he did point out and that would Come up with about a 10 000 dollar less revenue across our proposal Uh was brought up by miss selman that Between the hours of 4 a.m. And 8 30 a.m. Am of the landmark fire that there were eight Calls for an ambulance in researching the city 911 calls. There were actually two during that time period One at 20 201 eerie avenue, which the pd did first respond to And one at 24 beachwood that our engine six did respond to And I know that has been a subject that's come up as to how are we going to respond To med calls and fire calls at the same time A number of years ago the north shore fire department did go through the same process and they went through a process of Figuring out what the risk of the two calls happening at the same time were They came up with a three tenths of one percent chance of that happening And one of the reasons is the majority of medical calls Happened during the daylight hours majority of time consuming fire calls Happen at night when they go undetected And and they happen to be longer calls for us After looking at this information, I did go back to the year 2006 And researched all our calls. There actually was only one instance Where a medical call came in during the time that we were at a fire call And that call came in 18 minutes after the time that we arrived And our first unit actually cleared that fire scene at 30 minutes So we would have had somebody else available in that instance also A question came up Two weeks ago about dispatch about emergency medical dispatch And I think that issue was confused a little bit Our dispatch center is top notch. Our dispatchers are highly qualified highly trained They do Practice emergency medical dispatch. They're good at it. I think where the confusion came was We don't have the ability because they are dispatching for a separate service orange cross Of not sending a first responder unit for the calls that don't need the first responder Because of the liability we have to send a first responder fire truck in the current system to every single call If we were to provide the ambulance service The dispatchers would be able to Choose which calls or our paramedics would choose which calls that we don't need to send that fire truck to Which saves efficiency and tax hours for the city responding to the The comments about the 9.2 Rate increase Those numbers were taken from the past six years of experience from orange cross which raised their BLS rates 105 percent in the last six years and their ALS rates 64 percent And now they've said that they've readjusted the way they Build some of their medical supplies and that may be so But also in the proposal that we gave you where we did show the 9.2 Projected increase. We also did show you a three and a five percent projected rate increase which we felt was A more fair increase those also did show A reasonable profit And and with this proposal going forth for the fire department The rate increase is up to you people in the council. You set the rates. It's not the fire department You have control over that if you decide To charge non-residents more than a residents you have the ability to do that Approximately 7.8 of the calls that we respond to are non-residents city of manitouac Does believe I believe separate their calls and charge a hundred dollars more for non-resident With that I would open the floor to any questions for the three of us Alderman any questions? I think it's going up like a Christmas tree here All the lights Alderman Meyer you hit it first Thank you, your honor. Um, I just wanted to ask a question. Um during the orange cross presentation It was suggested that lifting the patients Was going to be a problem for the for the fire department um Do you not have like weight requirements of how much you have to lift and Are you going to be injured lifting patients? When you respond to calls Thank you for the question up I think part of this goes back to that memo in 2005 and um, there's there's a background to that at that time the shiboy in fire department was Was responding to private party assistance calls from orange cross ambulance Um, non-emergency calls i'm talking about whereas somebody privately calls orange cross and says I need to be transported from point A to point B And orange cross responded their non-emergency to transport that person at that time when there were heavy people or difficult lifting circumstances orange cross Would contact the fire department for lifting assistance And there was a concern from the then risk management department of the city that and our department as well that we were putting our people at risk to Subsidize a private ambulance service doing private business And there was one incident of of a ems Call that resulted in a a Significant workman's comp claim dating back to 2002 since 2002 there have been four Ems related workman's comp injuries That have been reported on our OSHA logs. That's four since 2002 And none of them have been significant injuries It should also be noted that our people are Now responding to all the 911 calls in the city And we are lifting and assisting lifting at Any of those calls that is necessary and obviously the ones that we are doing the lifting on are the ones that Are most needed at that time There's an added value of our people working together with each other because there's a comfortability factor and teamwork factor that can be trained and Worked through within our department and within our our own personnel. So, you know That's really the background of how that workman's comp issue came about Oldman bulk chief Everybody thinks I think everybody thinks I'm the numbers guy and all I've been doing is crunching numbers. It's not about numbers for me It's about quality of care first without quality of care. We have no reason to even be talking about this Are you guys going to do this stuff? Is there any reason to doubt that the things that orange cross mentions that there will be any Change in the quality of care for the citizens of shaboy Um, I'm not a big numbers guy. I uh, I kind of forget things actually But I can speak to the quality issues The scope of practice for a paramedic is pretty standard in the state of wisconsin There are Within that scope of care There are certain skills some of which are listed on this sheet here that do require special training and special approval by a medical director I have absolutely no reason to believe that within our own system and given the quality of our paramedics That a cooperative effort with the hospitals and the medical direction in this community Where those skills would be necessary that we wouldn't be able to perform them Equally as well and come up to speed very rapidly on those on those skills And I and I I commend dr. Martin. She I there's no doubt. Dr. Martins is a highly qualified medical director I I can't I can't argue that And certainly her input would be sought as a large contributor in the county to medical care And we would like that across the board cooperation for the entire county So we hopefully would be the other 10 that could work cooperatively with her as well Um, but absolutely there is no reason to believe that our paramedics couldn't be Um Trying to do any of those things as well some of which already are Please And there I've been getting questions from constituents about is it going to be two ambulances or three ambulances And I just want to ask uh, will you abide by the resolution which calls for three ambulances 24 7 starting january 1st Is that what's contained in your business proposal? That is contained in our proposal that ultimately is up to you. There's an expense for the way that we will man those Ambulances we can do that. It is contained in there and then it has to do with some of the overtime that's in there Right because because the first year if we are only running the city 9 1 1 calls And we only have 18 or 19 paramedics on staff Our overtime will need to be increased to call back during those vacation times to call a paramedic back To staff that third ambulance So the numbers we've looked at are for three ambulances 24 7 1st of january the To do to staff the three the overtime would have to be increased approximately 30 000 dollars But again, that's a whole numbers of calls And we'd need to go over that but that's totally up to the to the council people But yes, we can do that and there was a provision for I think 50 000 dollars in overtime in there So you've actually over budgeted for the overtime needs. Correct. Thank you Alderman van der Veel Thank you, honor out of all the questions Excuse me out of all the questions that I received I'm going to ask this question and I talked to commander butler and this one's for you Because this one can serve me most uh It's been assumed that manduac was giving skills to boost uh To boost their profits As such as IVs to every patient that that they pick up and I would ask If anybody here knows anything about that and if uh If we plan on giving IVs to every patient I believe I actually understand the question The I was at that meeting at manduac and there was a representative from tri-state ambulance who was involved in the process currently in in the city of lacrosse and It was construed somehow from the comments of the then medical director at manduac and and indeed the current medical director at manduac There was a statement made by that medical director that said And this is paraphrased to some degree that if you're sick enough to be in an ambulance, you're sick enough to get an IV There is nothing in there. Basically what he was looking for If I understand his words correctly was That they want to make sure that when a person needs an IV They're getting one. It does not say you have to start an IV on every patient that's in the ambulance What he's saying is if there's a patient that does not need an IV I need to see written documentation and justification for why that is not done The suggestion by anybody that a service, especially a fire department would be Starting IV simply to boost to an al s um billing rate is absurd And unethical and probably illegal at some point Um That's not the case. That was not the intent of what he was saying It should never be construed that way and it was not the way I took it as well Thank you Alderman ring flesh Thank you, your honor um, you've mentioned efficiency currently that the fire department is responding to a hundred percent of the um 911 calls right now Can you give me an estimation of the costs to the city? That that entails Basically the question is Under the current plan orange cross responding You know if it ain't broke don't fix it um To some degree there's still a cost Right now under the current system of the fire department responding to a hundred percent of the calls for a responder Can you give me an idea how much that is how much the taxpayers are paying strictly At this point in time under the current system I don't think I can give you an exact amount a lot of it is rolled up into our fire department operations We do have some training costs that Our total training budget right now is roughly $10,000 that includes fire ems training And part of that is to maintain licensure of our people at their current level of Of abilities There's obviously fuel and and some equipment costs That are associated with it, but I can't give you an exact number in looking at those efficiencies one of the things that we look at is um We will still maintain a first response capability both for fire and ems and all of our fire districts And then there will be ambulances strategically placed in in um in some of the stations To handle the the transport portion of it and what we'll be able to do is In those instances where there's a first response And ambulance In the same station if the call comes in and it's a person who slides in the second basin and hurts his ankle The communication will be there to be able to say you know the ambulance could say, you know, you stay In station here. This is an ambulance response and that will will will Incorporate some savings into the first response portion of it and that's where some of the efficiencies are built in But I can't give you the exact number on what our first responder costs are at this time So to follow But in general, uh, you would agree though the statement that Out of the current system, there is no cost. The taxpayer is really kind of false. There is a cost right now As is that's accurate. Thank you. Thank you Alderman president hannah Thank you, mr. Mayor appreciate that uh commander herman commander butler chief lososki Before I ask my question. I do want to tell you that I really appreciate the fact that You guys were up front with me from day one when these discussions started You've given me access All hours of the day to ask your questions and I really appreciate you guys going above and beyond You said this was going to be a contentious and challenging and you didn't underestimate that you were you were honest with that also um question the last friday at the um shared services meeting One of the county board members Implied that Orange cross has physical locations In sheboygan county outside of the city. Can you tell me where those physical locations are? Um currently orange cross responds to their service area Which is somewhat of an arc around sheboygan from all their stations within the city of sheboygan I believe memorial st. Nick And there's a south side station and and sometimes A service on new jersey avenue if The council if the county move forward with a process to have The fire department serve areas outside Or equivalent to what orange cross is doing our station locations are set up just as well Or maybe even better in some instances to respond out of our north 15th And north avenue station the far south side station at 18th and marvory and our 25th street station near coal and memorial drive. So I think there's an equivalency there if not A benefit to those outlying areas if we responded from From our current stations, but there's no no stations currently outside Of the city sheboygan. Thank you Okay, vice president borne Thank you, your honor. I've got a a quite a couple of questions Having to do with the overtime Let's say hypothetically Right now on the shift that you have going right now and you had the ambulance service and you had Three ambulances that were called out and that would mean six staff would be dedicated to the ambulance Which means or what would that mean that technically you're not fully staffed for fire at that point Would you have to call in six individuals? To bring yourself up to full staffing until those Paramedics got back To the station and then just in follow-up to that So I understand your overtime policy Is overtime from the time that the person leaves their home And so they get to the station or does the overtime start when they get to the station? I guess answer the first portion of your question First thing we would do would call in two more paramedics to staff our fourth backup ambulance To answer the other question We still would have adequate fire protection And I believe the third question was when does our overtime start? I would start from the time the person gets the call and gets his belongings together and gets to the fire station If I could follow up, please do Thank you again, your honor Do you feel it's a hindrance in providing First of all fire service And also then ambulance service the fact that half of your personnel don't even live in the city of shabuagan Is that going to be a hindrance for for either service as going going forward? I understand that you have some people in the department that live a great distance from shabuagan if you'd address that for me There would typically be two sets of call-in lists and we would utilize the people that are closest to the city For our initial call-in Which we currently do now when we need people as as quick as possible And I think you're probably leading into residency here and I've always been a proponent of that It was this council that decided to eliminate that back when former alderman johnson was sitting in your seats back in the 80s That definitely would help us If I could follow Thank you, your honor With all due respect, uh chief listus guy have to ask this question Why do you think that your proposal? Amongst the taxpayers of shabuagan has gotten an overwhelmingly negative response My calls when I separate and not that they're not important calls that I've gotten from people that are affiliated with the fire department Affiliated with orange cross when I take those out of the mix 90 percent of the taxpayers Both from the fourth district and calls that i'm getting from outside the fourth district are negative negative negative to your proposal Can you can you give me an idea? Why do you think that is? I can't answer specifically for the people calling But I think as all the persons you've recognized the complexity of this entire issue all the different Um Angles that need to be looked at between response costs Service to outside the the community and from what I've found and what I've heard from other alder persons is that The majority of the people that have called don't have an understanding of what was proposed The majority did not see The committee of the whole I've had a number feel it a number of calls personally with people that had Some of the same concerns and questions that you bring forward alderman born And I tried to provide as much information to them as possible After those discussions i'm not going to say they were Four against that but they had a much better understanding of of what it was we were proposing I mean there's there's a very concerted effort To to bring people forward to contact all the persons from One of the hospital networks that involve letter writing campaigns ads in the paper With very little information attached to that or inaccurate information attached to that and we committed up front that we weren't going to Play the game in the media We wanted to provide as much information as we could to you people who are making the decision On this process With the hopes that you'd be able to provide that information to the constituents as well as the way we did it at the committee of the whole And we've adhered to that through this process. We've had contacts from the media We've had contacts from other other organizations that have tried to play this in a different manner And really our responsibility was to provide you with the information to make this this decision This is not a sheboygan fire department decision It's not the sheboygan fire department ambulance service Even though we're the ones that will be charged with with providing that service But this is a city of sheboygan decision and a city of sheboygan service that we will be providing and I believe that we've accurately portrayed and provided as much information as we could to who was ever asked over this period of time Thank you A a lot of alderman still are asking to be recognized just be patient bear with me alderman cleveness Thank you your honor chief Would you be willing to having? Independent study of the whole situation for the whole city and county involved. Would you be willing to go undergo that? I feel as if this is very political And it would be good to have people expert with expertise in ems to take a look at our city situation And our surrounding area situation because it will be affected Would you be willing to uh undergo that and go through a study with some qualified consultants? There's been a number of people who have looked at proposals throughout the year years and There's no way that we can implement a service with any time frame other than what we have in in Place now The contract ends january 1st of this next year. There's a lot of work to be done between now and then Our staff and and department has expended a tremendous amount of time and energy on this and for this process to drag out over a long period of time As it already has as it has in years past. I don't think is effective. I think there's enough information out there enough models to look at enough different cities and And uh county systems that the information is there Thank you hold them in for hassles Thank you, honor I've got a number of questions here so if you could bear with me, I would appreciate it But before I ask any questions, I just wanted to comment And state my intentions, you know be behind the actions that I've taken today on this issue And I want to point out that I have nothing about the utmost level of respect for you chief listoski and your man I I know a number of them actually chuck butler here is my next door neighbor And I know he's been a key factor in getting this report developed That being said A couple of questions that I have is number one is on the medical director that was brought up a time or two tonight What is their expense or will we have an expense for medical director as If we take over the ambulance issue Currently, we do not have an agreement with our medical director requiring remuneration Certainly, that'd be something that would be Should that person decide to look at that we would look at it Um by the sound of the the fees Um that dr. Martins receives it would be a Certainly a minimal addition to our proposal And uh, it would be pretty much dependent on what the medical director was requesting Um, certainly that'd be something we could look at There is nothing in place at this time and it is pro bono for us Just so I understand the framework though, we'll need one We'll need a medical director. That's a requirement. Is that absolutely? We'd be required to have a medical director one thing I would like to add also is that per mr. Bonk's Letter to the council and per verbal discussions with him. He has committed Aurora's resources to assist us with trans transition and working into a new system I would expect that there's opportunities we've in the past as a first responder group have had mental medical direction from both hospitals And I would expect that um, there's opportunities both at aurora and potentially hopefully At st. Nicholas hospital to involve those people in the process, whether it's as co-medical directors or Whether somebody else steps up and assist dr. Coolis or or takes responsibility for that long term Certainly, we're open to that and aurora seems willing to to work with us Good Next question I have is on training expenses. We currently have about $2,000 a year in our budget or at least our proposal here Is that correct? That's how I understand it $2,000 per year Is that training just cover the four additional or does it cover the training for the 18 19? Personnel that are needed to run the ambulance service Currently we provide for the ems training for those people involved We do much of our training in-house With our own instructors or with instructors from LTC We have a cooperative agreement with lakeshore technical college on that provision that that additional monies in there Were for refresher costs for those four and some additional costs for Other classes that we may have for the others but Refresher costs recertification costs for those other people within our currently within our department are included in our Current training budget and that 2000 was additional And that's one of the I guess points of contention I have it's a small one because I realize it wouldn't impact the bottom line here that significantly But I would like to see all the training expenses that are related to the ambulance service Be allocated to this cost center not simply for the four new people I mean that's something that we can work out later on I guess as we organize the books if we go ahead here Another question I have is on rate increases I asked orange cross and I fully intended to ask you as well The last three years this year they have a zero percent increase and not figuring that in they've had a four percent average increase Was it oh 30405 I think is what it was 040506 is what it was a four 4.1 increase We have 9.2 and it sounds I guess if I put that in real dollars, that's about 66 000 annually roughly speaking That if we raise it 9.2 versus 3.4 the difference is a little over 60 000 dollars Could you speak to that a little bit as well? When I took their numbers for the 9.2 increase I went back six years to what their BLS rates were on their BLS rates were and then I went up ahead six years or to what their current rates are now That's where I came up with the 9.2 percent and again as mr. Isabel Explained they did change the way some of their billing was performed. I think they rolled in some of their supplies So that may not be a completely accurate amount Which the 34.2 percent But if you look at the packet we gave you that figured in only a three percent increase The system is still very profitable for us to take over the system Okay, thanks The other main factor that I see is call volume projections That's been somewhat erratic from what I can see looking at the orange cross numbers 04 was 1732 calls 05 1848 06 1757 again up and then right back down again Again that difference from 05 06 equates to about 65 000 dollars in lost revenue from the year prior Using an average call ratio. I think of 50 50s, which we're using I guess we went back longer term than just one year because anytime you just go a short term You're going to get spikes either way and we did talk to other departments and manateaux Fond du Lacs Oshkosh and did get a pretty average three percent increase From the various sources. That's good That's good Another question and then I pointed out some of the deficits here I'll give you credit as far as the al s bls ratio appears to be inaccurate, but it's Actually to your favor. I mean it'd be it's 40 000 to your detriment So that actually brings back some of the other negatives. I guess that were put out there So I just want to point that out as well Probably the biggest concern I have though of all the questions I'm asking here is on personnel cost and cost allocation We currently in our projections. We have about the equivalent of four people projected Their cost against the revenues that we're projecting And it's my opinion from my experience is that Anyone involved in the operation needed to make it run should be then allocated their cost should be allocated up against those revenues And I know we have if you do the math to cover 24 7365 we need 18 or 19 people we talked about this on friday with with the city county shared services committee We talked about specifically afterwards as well And I realized that not all 18 The equivalent of 18 people are going to be out on ambulance call All day every day. So a portion of that needs to go back to the fire department Could you share what that of those 14 additional people? What percent of their time? You would estimate will be allocated towards the ambulance issue I guess first I'd like to address one of the other projections in our financial Portion we projected a 48 collection rate Orange cross actually has told us and their financial figures do show it that they're at about a 58 percent collection rate So that's quite a a buffer in there also where we Under projected to answer your other question about costing out a proposal There's a many numbers of ways of doing it And I did speak with you on friday If we cost out all 18 of the paramedics To the ambulance service It comes out to about 1 million 80 thousand dollars Then you need to take that portion out of our fire department budget So the end net result is still the same income figure that you have It's just where you move those figures around I also did cost it out on an hourly basis of The time that our paramedics would be spending on med calls on putting their ambulances back in service on Cleaning them up on getting their medical supplies And as I told you that number came out even better because If we took just an hour per call per paramedic I came up with about 9 000 hours for the 2200 calls If you compare that to The wage and benefit number that we gave you it comes out to only about a 65 000 dollar cost compared to the 221 000 dollar cost we gave you for the complete four paramedics I just follow up on that I guess in my mind we have that the the four people the four new people are at cost no matter what we can't go below that number because We won't be doing this unless we hire those four new people So I mean that's a that's a net minimum cost. So from my standpoint, okay, we've got the expense of those four new people Then it's an addition. What is the percentage of those 14 15 remaining people? What is their cost that goes on top of those four people? Again when I figured out the per hour percentage I used all 18 of them. So I guess It would be 14 18s of the 65 000 dollars And again, anyway, you want to put the numbers the net result is always the same It's just whether you're applying it to the fire department budget Or to the ems budget the net number is the same Thank thank you And I guess the reason I'm asking that is I would like to know if this if this service could stand on its own If we just decided to split the departments or walk away from fire service And obviously we never would do that, but could this ambulance service stand on its own two legs with the 18 personnel behind it That's with the revenue that it's bringing in correct I guess the numbers do not show that it could do that But then your fire department budget is offset by that million dollars. So the net amount is the same again Thank you next we have Alderman Rindflash Thank you your honor A lot of the questions I've dealt with you certainly we've talked about the numbers now We've covered a lot of that as well And I was going to ask some of those the next one I guess comes to care going back to that question again Scenarios both for the immediate city of Sheba Wigan As we get close to january 1st if we do go this way And and provide the ambulance service to the fire department At this point in time we'll be up and running what happens within the city The last week of december christmas time if orange crosses Going out of business and and that's what has made what the their board decides has to happen Do we have enough coverage at that point in time? Conversely then my grandmother lives in the town of Sheba Wigan You know we're talking about care here Anything are we doing here putting them at risk outside the city boundaries as well From early on we've actually considered The transition as one of the most delicate parts of this whole process Whether we were looking at city only or whether we were actually looking at an entire system consolidation Transition was always utmost of concern because there could be a potential of elapsin service The current service provider does have a contract through the end of this year If there is a default on that contract there are assets that get moved as well We do have paramedics on staff currently we would make whatever adjustments we have to do if that's the case We would like to get this service up and running as soon as possible ready to drive out that door on january 1st But actually be in place much earlier We'll do everything we can to do that as far as the viability of the current provider and what their intentions are for the county Surrounding communities and for the city in the meantime That's a question better answered by orange cross Thank you Next we have olemangisha. Thank you for being patient It's interesting you mentioned your grandmother living in the town of wilson. I quoted earlier from dan bonk's email And no need to repeat those quotes oddly enough dan bonk the executive vice president for aurora Lives in the town of wilson. He would be one that would be Removing or being part of this service theoretically and you heard his statements earlier We've talked for weeks with with all of you. I have I know other alderman haven't I And I appreciated your candor because we've had some pretty difficult discussions I was in a room with the four of you early on and and uh They were pretty brutal, which is okay Because that's how you come to good decisions and I think the public needs to know that that Alderman in this room I think i'm speaking for every one of them didn't just take your piece of paper proposal And run down the street with it in the air and say we've got this great proposal from the fire department. Let's go for it I think for most everybody in this room. That was the beginning of this process in meeting with you Not the end of the process and it's important for people to understand the The hours and hours and hours spent in researching this and in a lot of cases Uh being very direct to the three of you In asking some very difficult questions and I've appreciated those answers Kind of a quick hit here of your reaction to To citizen input, which is very important um Your staff doesn't want anything to do with this They don't have any interest in a paramedic ambulance service in this city in the least and you're forcing them to get involved with this No, that's not accurate and I guess I'd like to first touch base with um Your commentary on The mona effort put into this up front If you think i'm sweating now and our staff is when alderman geisha Had us in the room and and looked at our initial numbers We were really sweating and not because we didn't feel it was the right thing but because There was a business perspective That was applied to this process that we weren't quite familiar with and it really tested us and pressured us And uh and and put us in a in a perspective where we needed to make some changes and look at this thing much more appropriately as far as Our people have always been committed to this process for many many years We believe outside of the numbers that's the right thing to do for the community. We've always believed that um We recognize the sensitivity to to numbers now and that has been probably more of a focus than we would have liked it to be but uh We're committed to this our firefighters are committed to this and um, and I know that we can do a good job for the community Thank you and follow up The general sense and you addressed it in your earlier arguments that this is happening too quickly I think you I don't think there's need to go over that point you've you've stated that Although I do find it interesting that only in shabuigan can something that's been worked on for almost 20 years be seen as too quickly Only in shabuigan, but that's all right That's okay Manitowoc loses money Your example has always been manitowoc as a nearby model with some uh some parallels to shabuigan You say they make money others say they lose it. What's the answer? Well, I had hoped that then we had prepared to have manitowoc here last week Monday the finance director for man or assistant finance director for Manitowoc was here Um, the deputy chief um from their department that's in charge of EMS was here to provide that information to you Um, I've had a number of contacts with The mayor of manitowoc the finance people up in manitowoc And what they did up front was similar to what the council would like to do here I'm assuming if this is passed in that um in their consolidation efforts up there They had their original fire department budget and then they cost it out I believe in some sort of enterprise fund the additional costs of the consolidation Equipment personnel and and otherwise Since 2003 The council required that up there the finance people have done that up there And on average on that consolidated Program that they're doing up there. They've shown and I have the exact numbers here, but you know one year's Um, uh, generated a positive revenue of 180,000. There's another year 247 This last year 249 the average has been Approximately $200,000 since 2003 that that separate consolidated fund has just has generated They've talked already at the manitowoc level of just consolidating That budget into the fire department budget because they've now have a track record of Four years roughly where they've been able to track that and take a look at it So those were numbers from the manitowoc finance people those weren't from the fire department I didn't make those up We asked point blank the finance director and assistant finance director and several meetings that we had with them and as Recently as a couple weeks ago Would you would you do this again all, you know operations and and service aside? Financially, would you do this again? If you were afforded the opportunity and he said in a second it's generating revenue for the city And that and I wish they were here to be able to To provide that information to you. Thank you. I understand they were here last week. That's prepared to do that um and manitowoc also has supplied Financial statements if asked. I know I received them big long pieces of paper 18 or 19 paramedic Firefighters is that the end number will always be only 18 or 19 paramedic numbers? Are we just looking at january 1 with those numbers that would be january 1 2008 Maybe you could speak to the future because I think that kind of doves tails into a question of you can't do it With only those amount of paramedics We would anticipate an additional three paramedics each year. That's been our normal retirement rate for the last 30 years or so So we would anticipate that number grows by at least three every year So theoretically, thank you theoretically uh Over time you could have an entire Fire department all paramedic trained theoretically 30 years down the road every person that goes out that door Would go out of paramedic. Thanks. Uh final question um Have you received chief calls from any other municipalities who would be affected if the Council decided to do this and Of course, that would only be under the assumption that orange cross was not going to continue that service um the best of my knowledge i've not been contacted by any of the um Governing individuals from any of the municipalities around the city of shuboy again Have you been i'm sorry. Have you been contacted by any county board members? Um, we had a contact with um Mr. Gearing in december and a meeting with him Most recently a few weeks ago. I had one other contact from a county board individual Supervisor burr. Thank you Okay Next we have almond bulk Thank you your honor. I have uh one point of clarification and then some more uh thoughts First of all, I want to make sure that the city understands this manning plan that I believe we've all seen but based on calls from my constituents I don't think they understand Please make sure keep me honest here These seven these 18 or 19 paramedically qualified firemen Would never on any given shift be serving as both a fireman and a paramedic, right? They would be serving in one of those two roles on any given shift. Is that correct? That is correct. However, the flexibility is allowed to utilize those people for efficiency purposes for For different functions, and I'll give you an example Um, if there is it happens to be fire in one segment of of the city A med unit that's assigned to that area may respond to that fire and assist With some of the exterior functions Of that fire operation. However, they would be available for medic response In in that given area, but there'll be individuals assigned at at minimum the two ambulances per day Specific assignment and then the other third one would be cross staffed At times throughout the year at sometimes it would be staffed Fully And it's that third ambulance that would be cross staffed and that's what allows you the flexibility To maintain this sort of rubik's cube of fire service and medical service with these 18 or 19 dual qualified people, right? That is correct. Okay. Thank you I've been receiving calls like alderman born and alderman verhaselt people having all sorts of thoughts on this issue and Actually once I get to talk to them and explain some things to them the comments I get back aren't aren't a universal no no no heck no It's wow. I guess I really didn't understand that and maybe you guys have really been studying this more than more than the rumors Are saying and I'm actually able to convert many people to thinking that maybe we have done our homework and I just want to put that out there because there the There's clear rumor and misinformation being spread about what's contained in this proposal and I want to take a stab at Answering alderman boran's question about why is the city so against this and I would posit to this group The reason the city is against it is because they don't have faith in this body It's not our friends at the fire department. They don't have faith in it's this body This body has years and years and years of reputation of not asking strong financial questions And this predates many of the people on this body So it's not an indictment of any of them But the reason people are against this proposal is because they don't have faith in two things They don't have faith in this body to do the financial analysis necessary to decide whether it's right or not And two they don't have the faith in this body to hold those people accountable For the results that they say they're going to deliver on So that's my stab at answering alderman boran's question about why the city is against it And it's my prediction that two or four or six years from now The city of sheboygan the citizens of sheboygan are going to look back on the decision we make tonight and say That was the beginning of a change in the way in the sophistication of this common counsel's ability to do financial analysis of proposals they're going to say That was when we began to have faith in the common counsel to make smart financial decisions for the people of this city again That's my prediction and it's going to take us a while to get there But this is a different council. This is a council with great skill In doing financial analysis and that doesn't mean we don't need to hear from outside experts But I can't reiterate often enough how many hours tens and tens and tens of hours of the people in this room How much time they put into doing this financial analysis things that we are Qualified to do and then in closing I want to take a stab at answering my distinguished colleague from the third district's Comment, I think he was asking a rhetorical question about should we take 18 people should we burden this budget with 18 people's worth of Labor and and that clearly because he knows the answer to that question because of his time in business as a new products manager and as a business man He understands the concept of contribution margin And marginal costs and I want to take a minute your honor about three or four minutes here to talk about what that means Contribution margin is the dollars you can take in a new product a new project would contribute to the bottom line if you were to invest in it Let's just say theoretically. I have a sausage factory Because I do have a sausage factory And let's say I have buildings and I have trucks and I have And I have grinders and I have stuffers and I have buildings and I have infrastructure And that's my sausage business and I run that business very well, and I run it every day And let's say I want to get in the pineapple sausage business. Whether that's a good idea or not Let's say I want to get in the pineapple sausage business I've already got that building and those people and that stuffers and grinders All I need to get in the pineapple sausage business Is a pineapple squisher we'll call it and I need four people Let's say I need three operators and a maintenance person for that pineapple squisher So if I'm going to evaluate whether or not to get in the pineapple sausage business I need to take the the extra costs I have the cost of the pineapple squisher and the four people I have to hire I have to take that and evaluate it against the revenues that will come in for my pineapple sausage And the important point to realize here is if The mayor wants to get into the pineapple sausage business It's much more difficult for him because he's got to first build a building And he's got to hire 80 people and he's got to buy trucks and he's got to buy finance people and marketers and all that And then he's still got to buy the pineapple squisher and the four people to run it That's the idea of contribution margin And and orange cross is burdened with one million dollars in fixed assets that the only reason they need it Is to be in the pineapple sausage business is to to have ambulance service Uh the shabuigan fire department. They've got the buildings. They've got 14 18th of the people already And so their incremental costs their marginal costs for getting into this project are four parametrically qualified firemen and uh the lease on three ambulances That's all it takes to get in and I want to give you one more illustration If the pineapple sausage thing isn't working because I've been accused of voodoo economics with my pineapple sausage Illustration so I'm going to take another stab. I I've got uh al redneck Here's an example. Let's say al redneck of redneck jewelers if he wants to get into the business of selling watches It's a lot cheaper for him to get into the business of selling watches Than it is me because if I want to get in that business I have to buy a building and I have to hire people And have to buy inventory so again his marginal expenses for getting in that the way he would evaluate the success of a watch program Much different than if I were to get into that and then finally for my uh my distinguished, uh member of Constituent from district two Dennis radkey that owns urbane if Dennis wanted to get into the business of selling Selling guineas beer It would be much cheaper for him because he's got a bar. He's got staff He's got bills already paid. He's got distribution set up All he has to do is buy a guineas tap and train his people to put the little shamrock on the phone when he's done If I wanted to get into the guineas beer business, I'd have to buy a building I have to buy all those other things Plus the things he would have to buy so I can't iterate enough the very common financial practice of contribution margin And marginal costs and the only thing the only reason I would even talk to chief listusky about this three or four weeks ago Was because of the realization that orange cross has a million dollars in overhead burden that he doesn't have So I thank you your honor for your indulgence But I think that lesson is important to teach the people of shabuigan about the financial principles that make this make sense Thank you, sir. Thank you. Alderman balk. We have three more alderman alderman mani wish to speak Thank you your honor and alderman balk. I am dreaming of pineapple sausage right now I've had no dinner so sounds good to me This is nice and simple, but it's very practical With 2,200 911 calls per year that comes out to about on the average six per day Give us the worst case scenario if you know it from the recent history from two or three years What's the greatest greatest number of calls in a 24 hour period? That we may have to respond to as a fire department if we are providing that service I don't have the number to give you the greatest amount of calls that we've seen in a 24 hour period I actually broke it down into smaller numbers than that For the last 12 months up to Roughly the middle of may There were 237 times when two ambulances went out within the same hour time period And the reason I picked an hour time period was we felt that that was the Turn around time for that ambulance going to the call getting to the hospital getting themselves back in service and available for another call In that same 12 month time period We identified that there were 32 times when there were three called out at one time When we dropped that down to a 45 minute time period There were only 20 times when three ambulances were called out within that same hour time period There were only three times within an hour and a half when there were four ambulances requested in that same 12 month period Again, that was only three times were four ambulances Within an hour and a half. So we feel that one of those would have been back in service again But we would have been initiate initiating a call back to get our fourth ambulance in service for those times Thank you Alderman Brassel Thank you your honor By the way, I don't like pineapple sausage. Don't go there um Quick question I had it came up at the city county shared services committee meeting last week is the whole concept and the county kind of Animated this is that what happens if this cellular 9-1-1 thing is not worked out It's obviously a growing in a large portion of our our call volume they had and for everybody here they had animated that The county would have the authority to dispatch two orange cross and lieu of shabuagan fire department having an ambulance service which would Largely undermine, you know the bottom line Yeah, we did hear that at at the shared services committee meeting Right now cellular 9-1-1 calls all of them are for the city shabuagan area transferred to city police department dispatch that includes police fire ems or a combination of those things and The proposition that that system would be circumvented I believe Flies in the face of cooperative effort May or not may or may not be something they actually can or would be willing to do I would believe the county would be assuming some risk and responsibility in assuming That type of posture One thing is are they going to pick and are they going to send 9-1-1 calls through for the police department? Are they going to send 9-1-1 through calls through for the fire department? Are they going to Dispatch the first responders to Fragment that system flies in the face of what has been done as a long-term practice And I would suggest that If they would try to employ that i'm not saying that that they will It would fly in the face of safety for the community Thank you. Thank you. We have one more olemund clades. Thank you, ronner Isn't it true that the manatee walk fire department? Took over the unified ems service in manatee walk So when you say that they're successful, it's because they have everything that they're a unified ambulance service had Right now the proposal is just to take over the 9-1-1 service in the city and You know you're basing your numbers on a small part of that market. Whereas manatee walk had The unified ems handed over to the fire department. They worked it out and the whole thing went over to the fire department I just don't know if we're comparing apples to apples here If we're doing part of a service and an orange cross could have the other part and we're saying that's profitable When manatee walk says they're profitable because they have everything That's a good question. Um when manatee walk did take that over they did take a larger Service over at that time, but they also added 10.5 employees at that time. So, you know that reflected in You know their expense lines and We've costed out this as presented to you based on The number of calls that we'll be responding to based on our costs of equipment and personnel So if the system would be larger, there'd be more costs and expense associated with that And that's what occurred in manatee walk, but they still were able to even with those added costs and additional personnel They were able to make it work up there And one more vice president barn Thank you your honor Another question another question that i've been receiving from constituents is that If in the event that orange cross would go out of business and you would have to take over the service for the entire county Uh, how many additional paramedics would you have to cover or would you have to hire? Uh, would there be any bricks and mortars involved than having to place ambulance more strategically? Have you run any numbers on that yet? I believe the question of buildings has already been covered that I think that we're Positioned adequately if not better than orange cross presently is We have run the numbers on the entire system The additional paramedics would be 12 additional to the four that are in this proposal And the numbers are proportionate all through that that proposal Thank you your honor, uh, so what you're saying then If you had to take over the entire county, you'd probably be up to about eight ambulances. Is that right? Seven or eight seven or eight and then with your with your existing Fire stations you would uh, I know what you were you were saying with the original three and then one backup That would be able to be housed in the fire departments that you have right now So you would be able to take on another three ambulances if you had to in your existing fire stations without having to build further Yes, we would if we would look at taking over that entire system It would more than likely be four first out ambulances And we do have room for that and we do have room for the three backup in the existing stations without modification And if I could uh address another concern I think alderman bulk brought this up with our coverage and our callback for paramedics, especially in the first year when we only have 18 or 19 Uh, one of the documents that was presented to you by mr. Isabel Listed our starting paramedics as getting 14 days of vacation Our starting paramedics don't get any vacation their first year This is my 27th year of service to the fire department. I got my 14th day of vacation this year So there isn't that amount of vacation coverage in those first years that is being reported Okay Oh, mr. Hasselt Thank you, your honor Could you share what that net revenue figure would be for the county run service? I mean right now? We're averaging or we're looking at a hundred and ninety five thousand end of next year At a five-year projection close to a half a million. How do those numbers specifically look at the county level? beginning in 08 the net revenue is 40,778 dollars going up to 425,868 in 2012 Thank you, and what was it a student growth? Rate on that one. Uh, was that nine two or was that? No, that's at what we did was do a um a blended rate of Blending the rate increase along with the projected call increase volume and just did a straight five percent across the board Of those two blended rates Excuse me if I just might add to that also When we looked at these county wide or system wide numbers, we utilized orange crosses financial data Eliminating some of the contractual things that they do that we may not Do and just use their gross revenue net revenue and then overlaid our expense costs against that And we believe that's accurate because they're doing that system now So those revenues um with the exception of those few that we we did not include in that Should be similar in mere what they're doing okay Like to thank the chief and two commanders. Thank orange cross for their participation in this debate We've had it for about almost two hours been a very uh Very good debate in addition to as alamond bow said tens and tens of hours that have been discussed The same issue has been discussed and um, I want to thank all the alamond for it Please call the roll almond rain place. I'm sorry um Point of clarification on the order of the the assistant mayor Uh, the presentations were the questions posed Simply to the director over those the discussion and only the discussion so far Um allowed in terms of the three times that allowed to speak Was that outside the scope of our internal debate or was that part of it? If you want to go if you want to keep going at it? Well, I'm done asking questions. I had like to begin perhaps our debate here now Okay, I'll allow that would you like to go to speak actually that thank you Shocker eric would like to speak um I guess we before we really start here We've heard a lot of terms thrown around that I find almost fallacious the fallacy first of all of Of when people talk about how can the city do it more efficiently than private industry? And I think the private thing we need to clarify Warnscross is not an entity that pays taxes It is really a nonprofit type of industry So a nonprofit degree Was mentioned that there was a master of public administration is a lot different of a degree than a master of business administration How you deal with the very entities is a lot different So I think that those are in charge of the fire department right now Have that skills within the public industry Which is what a nonprofit really requires as well So again We talk about privates private insurance is not run by the city, but it's not really a private enterprise that Sausage factory has to pay taxes on on on on what they have that's not happening right now in Warnscross Two why change something that costs us nothing And I think that's another fallacy because there is a cost involved to us right now Having the first responder unit responding to a hundred percent of the phone calls While we don't necessarily have accurate numbers. We're still grabbing that big red truck We're tearing down to the baseball diamond. We're a little team. He's still in the second base and sprained That truck needs to be fully staffed in case there is a fire call somewhere else So there's a cost involved. There's a fuel cost. There is a transit cost There's there's a cost of not having a person ready for a fire And what should happen to someone's life if that happens while that red truck is out of the garage So Right now It's foul to say it doesn't cost anything it does and it's costing the taxpayers 100 of those costs right now without the ability to recoup those costs at all Which having the the annual service within the fire department would allow us to do And then my favorite one Is is the shared services why change something when it's a perfect example of shared services? Shared services in my mind is really something where the two tax two taxing entities city counting or something really Work together with and and unify some kind of service that both are currently providing And we've talked about perhaps call centers for the police department as an example of shared services Something that we're both paying into let me get something out of once again We're not paying anything into orange cross necessarily unless you get delivered by it So we're not really disbanding any shared service. It doesn't exist right now In fact, you know, I've asked for several Numbers here and they get the various different things the city of shabuagan is just under half the population of the county of shabuagan If you look at real estate values and taxable values, there's a much lower number that way But I came across basically an average of 40 percent of 40 percent of the county's dollars spent is is Approximately Coming out of the city of shabuagan taxpayers keep that in mind. You pay 100 percent of your services as well Uh, maybe a overly simplistic example is when The snowplow goes by your house here in the city You're paying 100 of that In addition that same snowstorm when the snowplow goes down the county road and plows it out You're paying 40 of that that homeowner that lives on that county road is only paying 60 percent So the city taxpayers paying a hundred and forty percent of snow plowing services only getting 100 of it So I urge especially those are discussing shared services to please keep in mind The city taxpayer has already been taxed enough And I would be more than interested to sit and discuss shared services When it doesn't cost the shabuagan taxpayer something that the county taxpayer gets a benefit of I will be having to talk about when the county taxpayers assist the city shabuagan in lowering Their tax rates, uh, and and this quite frankly really has nothing to do with with that at all Yeah, in fact If the county gets into it it reduces our amount of revenue So once again, we're socketed the taxpayer again if we allow the shared services to continue Discussing that um with us and we have an opportunity here Now let me talk about this opportunity um The question obviously is why are we jumping into this? Why are we doing this when this opportunity presents itself? We've heard a lot of percentage numbers of people calling us that are opposed to This service and I think first and foremost it comes from our Lack of perhaps educating the public into the fact that these numbers are real We're not making them up. We're not being optimistic about them going. Gee. I hope this works I believe these numbers are accurate and I think it's something that we really do need to pursue Um, but I would say just that same number percentage of people have called me said don't do this In fact, some of the same names have come across We're also the ones that elected me into office just a few months ago and saying you must hold the line on taxes We are taxed out We cannot afford any more taxes. Well, there's only two things we can do when we look at our city budget We can cut services, which unfortunately we're looking at the police department right now In community policing and street crimes unit or we can increase revenue. Well, obviously increase revenue Raising taxes is not something that our constituents are going for So we have another opportunity here of bringing revenue in and Is to those people that I listened to When they asked the questions and I put the question back saying well, what else should we cut? You're asking me to save street crimes units and I got a vast amount of numbers calling that How can I do that if I don't have revenue coming into the city without taxing you more? So I have heard those people calling me regarding the orange cross services saying please don't do this. I'm against that To them I respond to say I don't think we have a choice to the matter We to keep the budget where we are to keep the tax burden low to provide the same level of quality Healthcare service in terms of transportation that we can within the city I think we really have to go in the direction of the fire department all all the answers all the information I have gotten from all different sides point in that direction Um, so again, it's my broad vision. Yes, we have dug Drove deep into the information that we've had in front of us. We've examined these numbers We've asked very hard questions here tonight for two hours And and and the details I think sometimes we get confused and lost it I want to back that up to the broad stroke. I think to hold a line of taxes to provide the best level of service It's something that we really need to pursue and do it and get it ready now. So come the end of the year We we have a proper Ambulance service in place for for all the city city of shabuagan residents. Thank you Thank you all one room flesh next we have all of them set up Thank you your honor First I want to apologize to the citizens and to the people in the gallery and all of you Some of the statements that I make I might be reiterating But for the sake of the citizens in my district, I need to give an explanation as to where I stand on this issue I have four points that I want to address But before I do so, I just felt led to say this tonight It has been stated that the direction of this council one of the perspective why there's been a resistance is possibly that There hasn't been enough in terms of number guys on the council and although I respect that and it has been a tremendous asset I've always pride in myself in Adding a common sense approach and part of that has been and I'm giving a word of encouragement that although I don't have a bachelor's in accounting My experience has really helped me in giving a perspective for this job And one of the experiences and wealth of knowledge that I gained from is last year In summer I worked four jobs just to support myself and you'll be happy to know alderman bulk that one of those jobs was at your sausage factory so Having said that Two points that I wanted to share is my personal and my professional experience That relates to this topic and that is when I would I had my own self-employment tax preparation business And one of the things that we did and myself included is on a profit loss statement that we had to do For tax purposes And some of the numbers that we have come across with orange cross has been well How is it beneficial to them to stay in business? The example was given 71 thousand dollars was a profit margin that they had Gained for I believe 2006 Well on a profit loss if you have your business and you come out at zero That is still good That means that you're paying your salary you're paying your bills and all of your expenses And sometimes it's even beneficial that you come in as a loss So keep that in perspective and we're talking about a non-profit agency Which they're not in business to make money, but they still came out with 71 thousand dollars in um revenue So that's a good thing. Um, secondly, I had shared this analogy with elder person elder person Gisha and he'd given me a sample of approval being a numbers guy. So I think I'll I'll share it And that is I use the analogy I I was thinking about this because I've heard the term user fee And I thought what analogy could I use and I'm thinking about my own And that is when I used to rent in duplex homes and I had the lower unit At a time in my life. I had purchased a home a duplex now renting is a user fee But then I invested in that home. I was still getting the same level of service, but it turned into an investment Um, it provided equity I still got the same level of service and I think that is pertinent to the subject that we're talking about here tonight It's just my perspective Two other points that relate to the input that I've received from citizens And that is we need more time on this issue and it has been brought up here tonight Um, some people have said to me and this tells me too. What type of information they've been given They've said we just need six more months Give it one more year It has been reiterated and to put this argument to rest This just didn't come up three weeks ago. It has been stated over and over again that our fire department has been working with the board of directors um We have we've had long and lengthy discussions We've provided ample opportunity for orange cross to give us their numbers To come here tonight to explain their stance So I wanted to alleviate that argument and secondly Orange cross they too did not provide us the courtesy to say Okay, we'll just do one more year. They are asking in their proposal 10 So I want people to keep that in mind And lastly is my perspective to maybe just shed some light on what elder person born and bulk had said tonight Concerning why the negative response? And this is what my perspective brings I have talked to people and they have said Whether or not it's going to work with the sheboygan fire department doesn't matter They can talk until they're blue in the face Even if it works It's wrong Because of the philosophy Government shouldn't be in business for business They shouldn't be providing that service And as an older person just in my third year. I mean you guys know this Shared revenue is on a decline We've heard from our constituent base no more taxes. Don't raise taxes. We are literally backed in the corner What are we to do? Here is an opportunity to change But I also know another philosophy That was ideal and I understand it has its place But I question now is it feasible and that is it was unheard of for a woman To work outside the home Because ideally that's where her place was with her children and I understand that and I respect that But I question now too Where are our times? Where is it taking us? So that is my perspective on the negative response is the philosophy But given our times we might have to get a little bit creative and meet somewhere in the middle. Thank you Thank you old rancetta. Next we have alamangisha Thank you your honor if it's appropriate at this time I stand to offer an amendment to the resolution Oh Yes, you may do that Pardon me I would like to offer the following amendment to the the current resolution Be it further resolved at beginning january 1 2008 and ending december 31 2012 That a freeze at this proposed level Oh, pardon me. I would like to restate that if you don't mind it. I want to make sure it's not ambiguous at all Be it further resolved at beginning january 1 2008 and ending december 31 2012 that a hiring freeze is to be in effect for the city of shabuigan fire department at this proposed level This freeze can only be altered when and if the geographic service area of the fire department is expanded And then must be approved with a two-thirds affirmative vote by the common council I've submitted a copy of this resolution this amendment to city clerk richards. It was discussed With the chief at the open of the committee the whole meeting and without objection as well I feel it's further protection for the taxpayer and keeps the The eye on the prize For the fire department when it comes to staffing levels and overtime Is your second to that motion second to the amendment under discussion just the amendment Hold on. I have alman ryan. Did you want to address the amendment? Before the amendment, okay, I'm going to turn everybody's lights off Let's talk about the amendment if you want to talk about the main motion We need to hit them again. Okay. Otherwise, there's a mixture here I'm shutting everybody down on the amendment discussion alman ryan flesh Thank you. You're a mr. Mayor I would like for those that are watching currently tonight at home I guess to hear from the chief that it is that the proposed amendment is not a difficulty or problem For those that were not able to watch the committee the whole So it's not they know that it's something that is something you're willing to work with Thank you. I I think I'm in agreement that this is is appropriate measure. I guess I just would take issue with the wording of a hiring freeze That we identify that the staffing level would be held at at the proposed number effective january first As we're identifying here and that would not limit hiring to fill positions that are vacated through retirement and otherwise In that time frame Chief listoski, maybe I probably should have given it to you ahead of time. I I think this answer is that where it says Hiring freeze perhaps maybe it should be hiring hiring freeze When and if the geographic pardon me to be in effect for the city of shaboy in fire department at this proposed level that was added To specifically base say that the proposal we have in front of us with your current FTEs plus these four is the intent of the So you and I are in agreement and I Anybody has a different opinion on the wording, but I think it covers it Thank you Thank you. I want to get you all on news slice Thank you. Your honor. Um, I understand the intent covers it But our property of wrong hiring freeze is even if someone leaves or they retire You're not hiring anybody additionally and if we're going to add this to the document I would like to make sure that we clarify that in the legal language Okay All among Montemayor did you want attorney McLean attorney McLean? Thank you. Your honor I agree that hiring freeze could be construed to mean that if there's somebody retires You could not Refill that position to get to the same level you were at and I don't believe that that's the intent Right I think You'd want to say maintain Not exceed the staffing levels proposed in the In the fire department's proposal or something to that effect So that they would be able Under that amendment to Hire people where there are vacancies just so they don't exceed the The levels that are established We got Is that a follow-up? All right, thank you. I think all the intent is I just asked the Author of the amendment and whoever seconded to agree to that change Only you chef Thank you. Your honor. Yes, I do agree to the change and we're all in the same Plane here on trying to make it proper if uh, if the wording, uh, let me start from the beginning be it further resolve that the The beginning January 1 2008 ending December 31 2012 that the shabuigan fire department Staffing levels be limited to Current levels Of this proposal something something to that effect that that would get the word freeze out of it Right and just and base it on the proposal which it does tie into I was afraid you were going to say that Be limited to current The current proposed level Not to exceed not to exceed the current proposed level and that would incorporate then the four plus the current Friendly amendment to the amendment and second accepted. Thank you Under discussion on the amendment only we had all of them. I know I was simply going to to talk a little bit about what Alderman rindflash said and and now Thank you. We have next alderman ryan Your honor. I'm fine with it. Thank you Alderman mani on the amendment. Uh, thank you, honor I have some lack of clarity about it. It seems to imply if I listened. Well, maybe I didn't That if orange cross discontinued service that we could not hire additional paramedics to fill that void No, it's in there. Thank you. Alderman mani Excellent question. The wording in here is It states very clearly that this can only be this Can only be altered when and if the geographic service area of the fire department is expanded And then must be approved by a two-thirds majority of the council in other words It the effect is taking a financial proposal for expanded service area and with a two-thirds majority making homework be paramount Uh in such a proposal Um as well as allowing for us to expand at any time We could theoretically the chief could theoretically if this passes get calls from three or four municipalities to provide service We could be in here next month because they've already pre-prepared. It sounds like many of these figures Uh and with a two-thirds majority because the numbers look good. We do it So the it does allow for this expansion Like right after a turkey dinner on Thanksgiving Fire service correct Okay on the amendment On that sentence then we need to change the word freeze to perhaps, um This uh this limit that'd be fine. Thank you. Would that be all right? Let's read the motion and it'll be a vote on the amendment only okay them correct me if i'm wrong The motion reads be it for the resolve that beginning january 1 2008 and ending december 31st 2012 That the shabuagan fire department staffing levels be limited not to exceed the current proposed level This limit can only be altered when and if the geographic service area of the fire department has expanded And then must be approved with a two-thirds affirmative vote of the common council So an aye vote would be to approve that amendment Peace call roll your honor if I'll turn them clean if I could suggest another clarification about the geographic boundaries of the fire department, I think the language is something to that if uh Perhaps if that could be expanded to for ambulance service So you're not talking about providing fire service I'll make sure you're in agreement with that I'm in agreement if we add the Thank you your honor if we add the uh the words ambulance service after fire department in the last sentence I think that covers Friendly amendment Okay, very good. Please call roll Hannah Heidemann kittleson Clowness I'm sorry I didn't know my mic on Hannah Heidemann kittleson Clowness Manny Meyer Montemay or Rindflash Ryan Vanderwheel Rehassled Wonganon Bourne Bulk Serta and Gisha 16 ayes Motion carries Now I need a motion to put the resolution upon his passage as amended The resolution upon his passage Is there a second? Second Second now we have a discussion and that brings you back to the original motion, but it has been amended So you can discuss it there Alderman Ryan you go first, sir Thank you your honor Um, first of all, I'd like to address pineapple sausage I believe that your numbers are probably good on the pineapple sausage But you may want to do a marketing study and get yourself a focus group to see if it tastes any good um Myself, uh This has been one of the most probably difficult and thankless Decisions made by this council since I've been on it. It's been very contentious Uh, it's been a lot of misinformation out there It's it's not been a lot of fun. I don't think for anybody on this council, but uh you know, my myself when I Decide how to vote on any on any given decision I've never read a political how-to book because I figured it'll probably corrupt me In cloud my thinking process So I basically use uh Three factors in making decisions. First of all that the the number one Hurdle that that any question has to has to get across this is doesn't make sense And this does make sense it makes sense Financially fiscally it makes sense logistically it makes sense Um, I mean the fire department has brought forth their numbers We've had our numbers crunchers our numbers geeks have put them to the test and they've passed uh I mean it's it's it's utilizing an asset that the city already has to a greater potential And uh, that is that is a good thing. Um The second hurdle the second factor that uh enters into my decision Making is is it the right thing to do? Do the benefits outweigh the consequences of making this decision? And in this in this case The benefits for the taxpayers of sheboygan Do outweigh the consequences? We have to remember that We cannot we cannot forget That there will be some employee losses at orange cross and those are people those are taxpayers Uh, those are people trying to raise families. So we cannot forget about that On the other hand Is this going to benefit the taxpayers of sheboygan the people that we represent? In the answer is I believe yes it is So that You know, I believe that that is the greater benefit and and so that That passes that test The the third factor that I always bring into my decision making process and the final factor Is does the public support it? And that's where the problem lies on this one because We all know on this the general public I believe that there's a lot of misinformation out there I believe that a lot of them or it's an anti-counsel Anti-counsel reaction an anti-government reaction To say don't do it. It's a bad thing to do But regardless if you take out the people that are influenced by orange cross or st. Nicholas or memorial If you take them out of the mix you take out your normal rabble rousers that are going to give you a comment On every subject that comes up and we you know, there's plenty of them out there It's still Opposed by the general public and vehemently opposed By a good portion of them even though they may not have the proper information So making a decision is is very difficult On this on this matter For me it passes two out of the three hurdles it doesn't pass three But regardless it's a tough decision to make and no matter what decision we make Uh, we're going to be apologizing to the fire department or to our constituents or To our fellow council members. However, it works. It's a very difficult decision But I believe this council has done the work It has done the homework to make this this uh this decision tonight. Thank you Thank you old man ryan old man bulk Thank you your honor And I'll be really quick because I left a teaching moment undone I want to talk about The propriety of including some of those burdens it's it's not never okay to include some of those burdens in there And now I've just used so many negatives. I've confused everyone as we consider whether or not to get into this proposal It is inappropriate to consider the other 14 Fire fire department salaries and things of that nature. We only use the incremental costs And that's the pineapple squisher and the four people that we'd have to hire Whether we decide to get in and whether we evaluate how successful it was That's all we need to consider now the time when you consider all those other burdens is when you want to compare it So if I wanted to compare the profitability of pineapple sausage to the profitability of brats in italian Then it would be appropriate to burden pineapple sausage with all of those costs And I just wanted to be clear that uh because i'm going to hear from my constituents tonight Am I saying that it's never appropriate to include those financial burdens? I'm not saying that at all I'm saying for the decision of whether we or not we should get involved And how we evaluate whether it was successful or not a couple of years from now that would only involve The costs of the ambulance leases and those four additional hires Based on the practice of contribution margin Thank you old man boat Next we have old man longerman Thank you, your honor 44 years ago. I joined the police department in the city and I've had a unique opportunity to work with many of the Firefighters shoulder to shoulder I've gotten to know them I was in the police ambulance myself that are on many occasions where I worked with the fire department on extracting people from Damage vehicles rescues offer rooftops and you name all the things they did and my admiration for them is second to none If chief platusky were to ask me right now how I would vote on this and how I feel about it. I would say I'm going to vote for the fire department But I don't have that luxury Everybody in this council chamber is indebted to one thing and that is to represent any your constituents I can take everything and reduce this complex problem I had all these papers at home and but the pile on my desk kept getting higher and higher and higher And I got more confused and more confused and as I've said before I may not be the brightest candle on the cake up here but I had trouble analyzing all this then the phone started to ring and for whatever reason as alderman Born has said They were 90 percent against I have only one obligation as an alderman And my obligation is to represent my constituents not my feelings Not the figures that are presented to me Not the proposals that are being made. I would be listed all down for the most common denominator And that's the representation of my constituents. My constituents tell me no I had people flag me down on the street. I had people call me. These weren't people from orange cross They weren't people from the hospitals. There were people I knew friends of mine I'm thoroughly convinced as alderman ryan said the bulk of the people in this community don't want this We've been accused of not listening Not listening to the people We have to listen to them because if we don't They will be heard if they're not going to be heard tonight in this chamber They'll be heard in the voting poll And we might just be making a great big mistake there if we rule that out Thank you Thank you alderman wangeman. We have next alderman van der wil Thank you, honor. I'll make this short uh Toleman ryan, this is a thankless and difficult job. It doesn't get any better And and alderman sir and alderman bulk. I absolutely 100 agree with with each of them And I just want to say when it comes down to it It comes down to about one common sense question And that is can the fire department provide the same level of service as the orange cross and make a profit at it And after three weeks of looking at the numbers after almost three hours of debate The answer is yes. Thank you. Thank you. Alderman van der wil. Next we have alderman Thank you, your honor. Um, I've been kind of on the fringe of this for a long time Well respect to you. I regret being compared my care being compared to pineapple sausage I feel as if health care is very important And for us to compare it to widgets and production Is not where we're at And I'm glad tonight that we did talk about patient care More than we had before it's been a lot of numbers up to this point patient care has come up tonight Is a significant way But I still feel as if Patient care is the most important thing And I feel as if we're going to Split this emergency services and some of it will be 911 Some of it will be going back and forth through nursing homes or to hospitals and out of the area We will have two crews Not getting the experience that they need to do a good job They will both be on the job half the time getting half the experience getting half the expertise And I'm sorry, but I believe this is a patient care issue The city is going into health care in a serious way And I'm not sure we're ready for that and I I speak that from my heart And I believe this before I got one call at my house I believe this before I got one call or one email and I've not changed my mind. Thank you Thank you. I'm going to play this Next we have Alderman rehearsal Thank you, your honor Again, this is a very tough decision for me as well. I have a slab I asked to put the three man hold on this a week or so ago because I wanted more information I wanted more discussion much like we had tonight and I think it's been great so far We've been here coming up on three hours, but I think it's been a great balanced discussion In the last 14 days, I've received between 110 and 120 phone calls Slash email slash knocks on my door and I've never received knocks on my door since I've been an alderman And again, there's some of that you can say the immediate response I hear from some people as well They're orange cross Aurora St. Nick's personnel. That's who's Calling me, but I can tell you having been fresh off the campaign trail For three and a half months. I know a lot of these people who are calling me These are people who may or may not have used the ambulance service, but they're they're your everyday person So I do put some merit in in those percentages and those numbers of contacts that I've received Now I do also see the merits of better utilizing our fire department personnel But again, I also see the potential liability that could arise years down the road Or there'd be two three five years down the road if this thing does not go as we projected well And I I'm having trouble putting that potential liability on our taxpayers who are already known to be some of the highest tax in the state of Wisconsin Again on the I can't believe I'm saying the word pineapple squish or publicly without the presence of my three and one year old in the room But I'll say it I think there's some flaws in the financial analysis As we look at the fire department personnel here because it assumes That those personnel costs are fixed and that we can do nothing about them If we assume that those personnel costs are fixed That's an absolutely true statement But if we feel like number of my constituents have called have started to question If we can give up the equivalent of 14 personnel towards the ambulance service Should we be talking about staffing levels? And I'm not proposing that because I'm not prepared nor am I educated on the department staffing levels As it compares to public safety and everything at this point in time But I'm relaying what some of my constituents have shared with me So I think there's some flaws in how we're analyzing this I think we need to put some portion of those 14 15 people towards the cost of running this ambulance service Because they cannot and will not run without the help Whether it's 20 percent 30 percent 50 percent of those 14 people's time This ambulance service cannot run so I think To be true to ourselves if we want to know if we're truly seeing a profit for the manpower we're putting behind it I think we have to look at some portion of that And I think it's you're looking at a level of four new people plus some percentage of the remaining 14 percent And I rely on commander herman butler and chief listuski to provide that percentage to me But if we do go ahead with this tonight, I would just ask That we set up this cost center Very effectively so that we can truly monitor and give ourselves an honest answer at the end of the year. Thank you Thank you Vice president borne Thank you, renner This has been a tough one for me too, but It's it's come down to What alderman wangeman said when I ran for Alderman in the fourth district last year I heard loud and clear that the citizens of the fourth district were not being represented represented by the incumbent And I and I made a vow when I ran for office that I was going to represent the people in the fourth district And they've said loud and clear that they don't want this. I have the utmost respect for chief listuski I think he's doing an outstanding job I've known deputy chief sharp for 24 years used to be my neighbor When he retires from the fire department, he's going to be a tremendous loss of the department I've supported the fire department Earlier or late last year with saving two positions on the fire department where there was potential layoffs through creative financing On the part of the chief and the finance department finance committee. We were able to keep those positions I'm sorry. I can't support you on this one But going forward as long as I'm alderman. I will take it out on an issue by issue basis and I will support you whenever possible. Thank you Thank you. Oh, mr. President boran. Alderman ryan Thank you. Once again, mr. Mayor I do agree With alder person client. This is this is a health care issue. It is not just a numbers game Something happened to me last week that that You know, I have taken that into my my into account I was in news burn at the gas station I have down there and The there were two two ladies on duty one of them being elderly elder not shouldn't say elderly in her late sixties and I came in and I said good morning in my own cheery way the way I always do and I didn't get any response from either of them So I'm thinking well what happened here obviously, you know, they're mad at me about something again I didn't think I had done anything wrong Well, it turned out one of them wasn't feeling well as she was sitting out in the chair and and as I talked to her I said what's going on and and After a couple minutes. She was just not responding her eyes were open Her tongue was sticking out and we called I told the the other lady on duty I said dial 911 right now and she did and usburg ambulance showed up and they showed up in about It it should seem like a lifetime. I bet you it was two minutes and they were there And by that time I had laid her down on the floor and she did come back too. Luckily because I thought she was dead And I wasn't very good with that But It is a health care issue and and the the professionalism of of this company Which is a volunteer ambulance service. I believe it won't be affected by our decision here no matter what Um, they came in they knew her She was comfortable everybody was comfortable. So people aren't comfortable with change is what I'm saying She went to the hospital spent a couple days there. Luckily she was okay and she's back home now People are not comfortable with change and is it health care issue Uh, the question is can our fire department provide that level of service that usburg ambulance did in that case Um, I believe they can are people going to be comfortable with that change Especially those people that have used the orange cross That I'm sure are as comfortable with orange cross as this Person was with usburg ambulance. Of course not. They're not going to want that change They don't want it because It's change. It's something they're comfortable with if they've used that service And and that is a big big factor of why there is opposition out there to the subject also Thank you. Thank you all and ryan to more allman bulk Thank you your honor just to be clear I just want to In deference to the all the person from district five the first words out of my mouth tonight were Without equivalent patient care We have no reason to be here chatting and then I asked the doctor From orange cross and then also the fire chief to establish You know that there would be a same standard of care improved standard of care And they both acknowledged that so I just want to be clear that it's about standard of care for me too Orange cross Cared for my father in the last couple of weeks of his life and I would trust that same mission To the shabuigan fire department Thank you all about uh Allman kettleston Thank you your honor I guess listening to everybody speak I I just have to say that um I feel if our firefighters didn't feel 100 percent sure that they could provide the citizens of our city With this ambulance service they wouldn't be pursuing it And I also feel that if our firefighters didn't feel they could do it in a cost-effective manner They wouldn't be pursuing it As our former fire chief mark xire said to us a few weeks ago There's really nothing More in it for them than a lot of hard work And I feel that if they didn't feel that they were going to be successful at it They wouldn't want to be taking this on and so Standing on the words of the resolution That the shabuigan fire department shall place in service paramedic ambulances Which shall be dedicated to the city of the shabuigan residents in order to provide the same or better level of services previously provided And that the shabuigan fire department as a guarantee To the common council and the taxpayer Agree that any losses incurred in any given budget year shall be deducted from their general operating budget In the following budget year without disagreement or recourse to the mayor or the common council I feel with such a guarantee in place. The only way is to move forward with this proposal. Thank you Thank you old McKinnellson There are no more lights I will ask one more time. Is there anyone else that would like to speak? Please call the roll And this will be on the resolution as amended Resolution as amended for the fire department to start providing the services to the city of shabuigan I Supports the proposition by the fire department. No does not Heidemann Kittleson Clayunas Manny Meyer Montemay or Rindflash Ryan Vanderwheel For hassled Wongamon Boran Bauch Sirda Gisha Hannah 11 eyes five no's motion carries item four one oh four an rc but RC number 360708 By the committee of the whole to whom was referred resolution number 14 0708 by old person hannah Authorizing a transfer of appropriations in 07 budget president hannah. Thank you, mr. Mayor I would move the report of committee Be accepted and adopted and that is rc 360708 Motion to accept and adopt and put the resolution upon his passage Put the resolution on his passage Second under discussion. We have vice president borne Thank you your honor Just for clarification. Are we voting on the $500,000 plus the 200,000 and the 100,000 is that what we're voting on? That's what's been referred to this. Yes, okay At the committee of the whole meeting I believe was decided or was given strong consideration that Rather than buying ambulances the ambulances was going to be leased and I believe it was 78 was it 78 thousand dollars a year for the lease And that would not be payable until 2008 And that would be able to come out of revenue out of the revenue stream of the new ambulance business So I see no reason to proceed With allocating the 500 thousand dollar for ambulances If indeed it's going to be able to be paid for out of the revenue stream of the new ambulance service Uh Somebody would like to comment on that We were we were talking at the committee the whole meeting. We were talking about amending this so I wanted to find out if we can still amend this Well, you can and the motion would be to amend the The resolution to reflect only $300,000 and to strike the $500,000 from the motor vehicle Did you make that motion though? So moved motion and second under discussion on the amendment only I'm going to turn everybody off. Hold on Please please bear with me turn everybody off Who wants to speak on the amendment? Alderman month of my own Thank you, your honor If we go ahead with the amendment That would mean that we've already made the decision to lease and not purchase correct pretty much Thank you, which again could be revisited by finance at some point Alderman Ryan Thank you, your honor. It was my understanding that finance was going to look at leasing these vehicles. I think at this point It's a lot more palatable to the taxpayer to not appropriate $500,000 upfront when we don't need to So I would like somebody from finance to speak on this if we looked into the feasibility of the lease And can it be paid at the end of that fiscal year? That that's why the the motion is to strike the $500,000 if at some point it needs to be revisited finance committee can do that The motion is to strike to strike the $500,000 Under discussion on the amendment on a geisha I just wanted to comment on the lease option. You're absolutely correct. We tried to amend that earlier in a in an attempt the The question about the 500 is accurate the the proposal for the fire department has the lease amount in it The only question finance will have to deal with is whether that payment is in advance or in arrears It can be set up in many different ways And So by striking it it doesn't stop us But do we need authorization to enter into A lease at this time strike the 500. Can we do that at a later date later? Thank you Thank you Okay, only amendment only strike 500,000 leave 300,000 dollars Please call the roll Kittleson Clowness Manny I Meyer Montemay or I Rindflash I Ryan I Vanderwheel I Verhaselt I Wongamon No Boran No Bauch I Serta I Geisha I Hannah I And Heidemann I Thirteen eyes three nose Motion carries no I need a motion to put the resolution upon his passage as amended Mr. Mayor Hannah I would put the motion upon his passage as amended Motion second under discussion as amended There being none, please call the roll Hold on, excuse me, all in my volume Sorry your honor, I just wanted uh after these are startup costs these 300,000 dollars as I understand were startup costs so we can begin Getting into this will that 300,000 dollars be returned to the general coffers once the business is up and running? That was the understanding, yes Okay, thank you Thank you everyone about anybody else There is none, please call the roll Clowness No Manny I Mayor I Montemayor I Rindflash I Ryan Vanderwheel I Verhaselt I Wongamon Boran No Bauch I Serta I Geisha I Hannah I Heidemann I And Kittleson I I Thirteen eyes three nose Motion carries Motion to adjourn Second Second All in favor say aye Aye Any opposed? Aye Applauding