Ambulance listening session becomes contentious

CLINTONVILLE – A listening session July 9 that was scheduled by the city of Clintonville to obtain input from Clintonville Area Ambulance Service (CAAS) member municipalities and the public regarding the CAAS agreement became contentious as those in attendance disagreed about services being provided, the transparency of the CAAS, and why Clintonville gave notice of the intent to withdraw from the CAAS.
After Diane Rowe, interim city administrator for the city of Clintonville, explained the Innovation Planning Grant the city had received, the study that was generated by that grant, and reasons the city of Clintonville decided to submit a notice of withdrawal from the CAAS agreement, those in attendance were allowed to provide comments.
Comments
Chris Goke, mayor of the city of Marion, told those in attendance that Marion decided to submit an Intent to Withdraw from CAAS because it had many of the same concerns that Rowe outlined.
“We made a decision that was best for the community of Marion to withdraw from the Clintonville Ambulance Service based highly on the lack of service we were getting for what we were paying for,” Goke said. “If it was called out in the contract we didn’t feel like, and the council members didn’t feel like we were getting the services or the coverage we were supposed to be getting, and we’ve got an ambulance housed in our community.”

He added that Marion is still considering its options for future ambulance service coverage.
Goke said the last agreement that Marion signed with CAAS was in 2016.
“I think we’ve done a poor job as community members providing oversight to the ambulance service because I don’t know how we got into this situation,” Goke said. “We’ve invested all this money in equipment that they have and everything else, but it seems, I’ll just say it, the business is being run poorly. They have assets. They have cash on hand, I believe, but as a member I can’t prove that because I don’t have that information in front of me and I don’t know how I get that information provided to me. So, there needs to be a lot more transparency.”
Rowe said if Clintonville decided to run its own ambulance service in-house, those employees would be eligible for the same benefits and retirement as city employees. Rowe was asked how much it would cost the city of Clintonville to run its own ambulance service in-house.
“We purposely have not explored that because we wanted to have this discussion and then start looking at it,” Rowe said.
She added that it would be feasible for the city to have an in-house ambulance service.
Steven Schinke, Navarino Town Board supervisor, pointed out that it is not a contract that CAAS has with municipalities, it is an intergovernmental agreement.
“That’s why things are different in there than you would look at in a contract,” Schinke said.
He added, “I know it says in there it’s supposed to be reviewed and signed. COVID messed up everything. It’s an oversight.”
April Krueger, clerk for the town of Dupont, asked how the smaller municipalities would be impacted if Clintonville and Marion were to withdraw from the CAAS agreement.
Rowe said she did not know how it would affect those municipalities, adding that CAAS is not disbanding. It was also reiterated that nothing in the current agreement changes until Jan. 1, 2027.
The representative from the village of Embarrass asked what exactly Clintonville was looking for.
Clintonville Common Council President Greg Rose said Clintonville “is looking here for options we can stay together in a non-competitive way.”
He added, “If Clintonville and Marion are pulling out and going with other options, you’re taking out two of the largest funding sources and the current agreement with our ambulance service I don’t think would be financially sustainable for the remaining entities to try to do that and go it alone. And I think it would be ridiculous if we had two different ambulances running around the streets of Clintonville, some servicing us and some not.”
Rose said he would like to have the current agreement reworked to make it better and have Clintonville remain in CAAS.
After a couple CAAS employees spoke about the benefits of CAAS, Brad Rokus, alderman for the city of Clintonville, said no one was “trying to disparage what you do or how you do it.”
“Personally, I have more questions on the transparency of the governance of the Clintonville Area Ambulance Service than I do about those that are working for the Clintonville Area Ambulance Service,” Rokus said.
He added that Clintonville has been having a difficult time receiving information from CAAS.
“This seemed to be an opportunity, after the initial grant, as a catalyst to be able to have these conversations and to be able to promote having these conversations open and honestly and being able to discuss some of these hard issues and hard topics as it relates to the ambulance,” Rokus said.
Doug Behnke, representing Bear Creek, who said he has been on the CAAS board for nearly 20 years, said he was disappointed because no municipality had requested in the last 10 years to renegotiate the agreement. He also claimed he had not heard any complaints about the agreement prior to now.
Rowe said when Clintonville received the completed study from the grant, it brought up questions that concerned the city.
Addressing the transparency of CAAS, Schinke said the CAAS financial reports are available every month.
Goke reiterated that Marion intending to withdraw from CAAS had nothing to do with the employees of CAAS.
“No disrespect to anybody sitting up there at that (CAAS municipal representatives) table, but we’re not doing something right, we’re not getting the representation that we’re supposed to get,” Goke said.
Goke acknowledged that many of the CAAS municipal representatives have been on the commission for a number of years.
“It’s not what it used to be,” Goke said. “…It ain’t all about money. Something’s broken in the system.”
Goke also addressed the comment about the commission not hearing any complaints in the past 10 years.
“Meetings are posted. The ambulance service discussion was on more than one meeting in the city of Marion. If those people don’t come to the meetings, that’s on them,” Goke said.
With one of the options being the city of Clintonville having an in-house ambulance service with the Clintonville Fire Department, Clintonville Fire Chief Shane Krueger said the Clintonville Fire Department “is not looking to run an ambulance service.”
“The Clintonville Fire Department is here to be a fire department and to support EMS through the actions of our EMR program, which involves the townships that we also serve as a fire department,” Krueger said.
He urged all the municipalities to work with the city of Clintonville to seek the available grant funds if it would help CAAS personnel receive better benefits so employees could be hired and retained.
“Work together, restructure, work on the contract, do what you have to do so we have the employees that can stick around and not just live somewhere 40 miles away,” Krueger said.
Rose told those in attendance that a “collective decision” would need to be agreed upon.
“Do you want to work together or do you want to butt heads?” Rose asked. “Because some of you guys in the back want to butt heads and that’s not going to help the collective. We need the economy of scale. We need the municipalities on board. We need to have our representatives that work there and our constituents that pay for them to all be on the same page, and I don’t think everybody in the room is willing to be on the same page. And that disappoints me.”
Lynn Jepson, representing the town of Larrabee, asked how the CAAS is supposed to assemble a 2027 budget when it doesn’t know if Clintonville will be part of CAAS.
“You haven’t brought real answers to us as to why you’re unhappy and want to leave,” Jepson said.
The Innovation Grant questioned a lot of things about the current agreement, Rose responded. He said his main concern was the amount of representation that Clintonville has on the CAAS commission.
Rowe reiterated that another issue with the agreement is the fact it does not specify what happens if a municipality withdraws from the agreement.
Rokus added that it’s not a matter of Clintonville wanting to withdraw from the contract.
“We just want to improve the service and now there’s a major factor (Marion withdrawing) that is changing the dynamics of the service,” Rokus said. “We need to all work together to try to figure out how we’re going to move forward with that change.”