A study committee to review ambulance service in Allen County will have six members.
Iola Mayor Bill Shirley told the Register after he met Thursday with Rob Francis, Allen County Commission chairman, the committee’s makeup would not change.
At Tuesday’s county commission meeting, commissioners recommended the number be nine.
Under the terms of the five- year moratorium, committee members may discuss ambulance services between Iola and the county, but not the governing bodies.
This runs through Dec. 31, 2015.
The committee’s charge is to reach conclusions after thorough review of the Allen County and Iola services, including finances, and then, if its members are so led, make recommendations.
County commissioners discussed expanding the size of the committee, to give other towns and unincorporated areas of the county better representation, at their weekly meeting Tuesday. They settled on proposing nine members, with six from outside Iola.
Shirley wasn’t receptive, “provided that didn’t cause a problem and Francis told me it wouldn’t,” he said. “Three from the city and three from the county is what we agreed to, and I thought that’s where we should stay.
“I’m ready to appoint the city’s members,” Shirley added, as early as next week when county commissioners said they would consider the county’s representatives.
Having six county-appointed members on the committee “was a suggestion that was made at our meeting Tuesday,” Francis said, and which was reported Wednesday in the Register. “I presented it to Bill (Shirley) and he turned it down. I’m not disappointed and hope the system will work just as it has with the hospital.”
A committee visited area hospitals and digested reams of information about Allen County Hospital and its management through Hospital Corporation of America before recommending to commissioners that a new hospital should be constructed. Land has been selected on North Kentucky Street for a new hospital. Construction is expected to start later this year.
County Commissioner Gary McIntosh, who has pushed several months for the review committee’s formation, also said he was not troubled by having three county representatives, allowing Thursday afternoon, “That’s what the agreement called for.”
In addition to taking direct discussions about ambulance service between the Iola councilmen and county commissioners off the table, the moratorium perpetuated for the life of the five-year agreement an annual $80,000 subsidy to the city for support of its ambulance service.
THE COUNTY operates ambulances from Moran, Humboldt and Iola to serve all of the county except Iola. Iola has two ambulances stationed at its fire station, a quarter of a mile from where county ambulance are on North State Street.
For more than 30 years before the county-city rift, Allen County provided ambulances and equipment for service to all of the county, managed originally by the Iola fire chief. Firefighters manned ambulances here while volunteers operated those stationed in Moran and Humboldt.
In 2010, after the county opted to take full management and responsibility for ambulance service, the city, after receiving permission from state Emergency Medical Services and a favorable opinion from Attorney General Steve Six, decided to serve Iolans independently.
