TOLEDO, Ohio — Lucas County commissioners voted Tuesday to amend an agreement first passed in March, effectively removing Maumee as a participant.
The agreement shifts ownership and operational control of life squads to each municipality from the county. It would outfit all ambulances to be able to respond to any type of medical call.
"The new system is one life squad will do everything. Before, you might get one life squad that didn't have a paramedic on it," Lucas County Commissioner Pete Gerken said. "Now whenever that truck shows up, it's going to have the EMT, it's going to have the paramedic, it's going to have everything."
Gerken said the new agreement will better serve the public.
"It allows for those people in the system to automatically aid each other," Gerken said. "If I'm in Monclova and I don't have an immediate response, I have Springfield, Sylvania Township right by me."
The original agreement stated Toledo, Oregon, Whitehouse, Sylvania Township, Springfield Township and Maumee would take part. However, the city of Maumee said it wouldn't be participating. Leaders said it wouldn't serve residents and taxpayers in a way that affords the best in terms of safety and economic outcomes.
"So we have to go back, have the other jurisdictions re-pass the authority to join this amended thing," Gerken said, "And we have to then re-proportion the $405,000 that they would have received and give it to the jurisdictions that are going to be serving that area a little more intensely and that looks to be Springfield Township."
Commissioners also voted to push the deadline for the new agreement to begin from June 1 to Aug. 5. Although Gerken said the transition may happen sooner rather than later for some communities.
"It is new and it is different, and it is a huge accomplishment to get that many entities to cooperate and work together," Lucas County commissioner Anita Lopez said.
The city of Maumee announced it would opt out of the agreement back in March.
Maumee city leaders said in a written statement:
"Despite ongoing discussions over the past year between the County and its partnering jurisdictions to reach an agreement, we believe that the proposal contains too many unanswered questions and a myriad of ambiguous language. Further, we believe that moving forward with the agreement could put the safety of our citizens at risk while creating a negative impact on the financial health of our city."
Maumee said in the statement the annual cost to operate the Lucas County Life Squad housed within its municipality is approximately $1.7 million. The funding Maumee said it would receive under the proposed agreement was $402,000, down from the $804,000 it receives currently.
The city also said 77% of the calls for service for its current life squad are outside the city of Maumee, writing in the statement, "The proposed agreement in its current form, however, may not fairly serve our citizens. Therefore, it is our sincere belief that the proposed Lucas County agreement is not in the best interest of the taxpayers of Maumee, and we cannot in good conscience support it."