What an odd process to watch from afar. The effort to establish a permanent home for the regional ambulance service in southern Franklin County has dragged on for months, even though from early on, the plan was to lease space in what is now the Whately town office building. In fact, when Whately taxpayers bought the former regional library building, they expected to lease much of the space to the ambulance service to help cover the purchase.
The South County EMS is a three-town partnership formed by Deerfield, Whately and Sunderland about three years ago to save money and improve service.
Since then, that plan has been delayed, if not derailed, by neighboring Deerfield, where some residents would prefer to have the ambulance based in their town. At present, the service has ambulances in each town with the first responder in South Deerfield. But the plan was to consolidate all the vehicles in one location — Whately.
The primary response area spans 70 square miles and 10,305 residents, and mutual aid agreements with other communities add an additional 91 square miles and 28,000 additional residents. The average response time has been 7 minutes, 9 seconds. The South Deerfield, Sunderland and Whately locations respond to an average of 600, 250 and 150 calls every year, respectively.
Since an influential segment of Deerfield voters belatedly challenged the plan to base in Whately, the process has bogged down. The regional entity’s seven-member Board of Oversight, with three members from Deerfield, responded earlier this year to the Deerfield concerns and solicited new proposals for a new home. The only suitable response came from the town of Whately.
Apparently still not satisfied, the Deerfield Selectboard has begun researching the cost of building a facility, in Deerfield, for the ambulances. This comes at the same time as Whately is firming up what it would cost to lease its space to the EMS.
Meanwhile, to ensure the Deerfield town officials have maximum leverage on the EMS Oversight Board, the three Deerfield selectmen recently named themselves to the board, ousting two long-standing and well-respected representatives in the process.
To be fair, the coup didn’t seem to upset ousted Matt Russo and longtime resident Mark Gilmore, another ousted board member who was an EMT for about 30 years.
“If I happen to be a roadblock, I’m happy to get out of the way,” Russo said. “I just want the service to succeed.”
Chairwoman Carolyn Shores Ness stressed the appointment of herself and Selectboard members Henry “Kip” Komosa and Trevor D. McDaniel to the EMS board is expected to be short-term. She said they’ll step down after a suitable building is found.
We guess that ultimately this will come down to what the seven Oversight Board members feel is “suitable.” There is some concern that Deerfield, which serves as the regional service’s fiscal agent, might pull rank on its neighbors.
We can’t fault Deerfield leaders for sticking up for their town’s best interests, working to ensure the best location at the best cost. But it probably would have been better and more neighborly had Deerfield expressed this reservation about the original plan before Whately decided to buy its new town offices predicated on having a long-term tenant.
And while it might legally be able to pull rank and enforce its will on Whately and Sunderland, we sure hope they don’t for the obvious damage that might cause to the SCEMS and to their relations with their smaller neighbors.
Meanwhile, Union 38 school officials have expressed interest in leasing other space in the Whately building, too. So, if Deerfield ultimately manages to keep the ambulances in South Deerfield, then Whately might have some sort of financial fallback. That would be a consolation prize — but not much consolation for Deerfield’s unneighborly maneuvers.