Submitted by Jim Goldstein, Town of Lebanon Supervisor
(Randallsville, NY – Feb. 2015) Lebanon town board members will seek to hear public comment from potential residents of a proposed Hamilton/SOMAC ambulance district when they gather for their monthly town board meeting Feb. 9 in Randallsville at the Smith Valley Community Center at 7:30 p.m. The public is invited and encouraged to attend.
Residents of the current SOMAC ambulance contract service area, which consists of any resident who lives in the Earlville or Hamilton fire protection contract service area, are strongly urged to attend and provide public comment to the Lebanon Town Board as to their feelings about whether or not Lebanon should join or contract with the new ambulance district, or explore other options with other ambulance providers in the area, or explore a combination of both.
Town officials will also be discussing financing options for a new Stadium International highway truck that was acquired to replace the truck totaled in an August truck-van accident on Lebanon Road, finalize health insurance plan options for full time highway employees, finalize Code Enforcement Officer and Dog Control Officer contracts, and consider whether or not to explore adopting a law that would ban the disposal or storage of natural gas drilling waste in the township.
Town officials will discuss a proposed local law change offered by the Slottje law firm at no cost to the town to decide if the Town Board wants to move forward on a proposal to amend the Land Management Local Law to ban the storage, disposal and transport of natural gas as well as natural gas compressor stations within the Town borders. An attachment on a proposed stand-alone amendment is attached which the town board will be discussing and seeking comment on. The compilation of survey results that showed strong support for a ban on disposal and storage of natural gas drilling waste is also attached.
Town board members heard public comments regarding the proposed district at its January 12 organizational meeting. Town Supervisor Eve Ann Shwartz explained the proposal the town was considering due to financial circumstances and the reason for the need to be expedient to have the tax district on the tax rolls for 2016 by approving it by March 1, 2015. She was accompanied by Hamilton Mayor Margaret Miller and SOMAC Board member Merrill Miller, MD. They discussed the history of how SOMAC has evolved from a volunteer to paid service, the rationale behind the proposed district and the potential benefits.
Sally Campbell of Lebanon, a SOMAC board member who lives on the outskirts of Hamilton, voiced her support for the proposal and the service, and expressed concerns about the response time any other service would offer that close to Hamilton.
David Snyder, a former SOMAC chief, criticized the proposal, the cost, the lack of volunteers and the SOMAC board, as well as the number of SOMAC paid personnel and quality of service. Eaton Fire Chief Rick Stoddard voiced concern about the cost and the lack of communication between SOMAC and other departments in the region. Georgetown Rescue Squad representative Matt Van Heusen also raised questions about the number of service calls and response time by SOMAC in Lebanon. Georgetown and Eaton ambulance services are all volunteer departments that serve the town of Lebanon along with SOMAC.
Hamilton residents Bill and Carolyn Todd, and Linda Gorton voiced concern about the size and scope of the SOMAC proposal, the timeline and the impact. Supervisor Shwartz said that the township was going to hold a meeting on the proposal later in January. Hamilton held such a meeting and approved the proposed district. Supervisor Shwartz emphasized that the goal was to preserve the service, make management changes to reduce costs and make local response the priority by reducing transport calls and making sure ambulances are available to respond.
Supervisor Jim Goldstein said Lebanon was going to take a deliberative approach and was not going to vote to join the district, but would consider contracting with the district in the future or possibly changing the service boundaries and exploring the feasibility of contracting with other local ambulance services to cover the contract area which could include expansion of the Georgetown and Eaton coverage areas, and bringing Sherburne’s ambulance service into the mix for the Earlville portion of SOMAC. Goldstein said that the town board wanted to discuss and explore all options in a deliberative manner while taking public comment from the residents who live in the service area who will be impacted. Goldstein said he had only heard from a handful of residents on this issue so far, and three are in favor of the proposal and three are opposed.
The corrected numbers for the cost of the SOMAC ambulance district for Lebanon residents show over $46,000 to cover SOMAC costs out of a total $215,000 budget in 2016, in exchange for the Town of Hamilton creating an ambulance district that will ensure that SOMAC can no longer have response delays by having ambulances out transporting patients between facilities for revenue purposes, but it will require the fully paid service to be subsidized fully by taxpayers minus what billing revenues are garnered, which amounts to over a 1,000 percent tax hike for Lebanon area residents from the current $4,200 contract the town currently has with SOMAC for 2015.
Goldstein said that the town has been told by the state that they may actually have the Certificate of Need for the ambulance service for entire township and may have the authority to establish service contracts and boundaries. “It all hinges on what the state tells us we can do with the CON for ambulance service in that ambulance contract area of the township that encompasses the Hamilton and Earlville fire contract areas. Departments discussed for expansion include Georgetown, Eaton and to add Sherburne to our list which already covers the Chenango side of Earlville.”
Goldstein said the question is whether town residents who live in the SOMAC service area want the town to keep SOMAC, which is a fully paid service art this significantly higher cost with all the historic reported problems with the assumption that this new system will correct all of that, or whether the Town Board should explore other options and quickly as Hamilton is moving forward rapidly with this new ambulance district. The issues for residents in that protection area are whether they are satisfied and want to keep SOMAC service, think even with the higher price it is worth it, or are not happy with the service and want the town to explore other options.
The Lebanon town board encourages residents to attend and offer comment who live in the SOMAC service area which ranges from portions of South Lebanon Road, Vosburgh Road, River Road, Craine Lake Road, Randallsville and Randallsville Road, Armstrong Road and where most of the population of Lebanon resides closer to Hamilton and Earlville.
Town officials are also being asked by Hamilton to join a working group to study the ambulance district formation.