Central Frontenac Council - Nov 12/13

Jeff Green | Nov 14, 2013

Cost of medical calls sparks discussion at Council

In considering the monthly report by Fire Chief Bill Young and Deputy Chief Art Cowdy, members of Central Frontenac Council noted that the department is called out twice as often for medical calls as it is for fire calls.

“Most of those medicals come from the Arden area,” said Chief Young, “because when the ambulance is not in Parham the estimated ambulance response time is greater than 15 minutes and that’s when dispatch calls us.”

“Our crews answer the calls, and we take on the cost, but there is no financial support from any source for those calls. The County runs the ambulance service. Shouldn’t they pay us for not having the service available, or at least the province should pay something?” asked Councilor Frances Smith.

“I get emails from the paramedic union saying we shouldn’t answer those calls,” said Councilor Jeff Matson, who is also a volunteer firefighter out of the Arden fire hall.

“In some cases we shouldn’t be there,” said Chief Young, "but sometimes we are needed.”

Jeff Matson said there is an added cost to these calls, beyond labour costs. Sometimes when paramedics arrive and fire department equipment, such as stretchers, are already being used, the paramedics keep the patient on the same stretcher in order not to disturb the patient, but the department then has a difficult time getting the stretcher back.

“It’s easier to get them back when it is the L&A ambulance out of Northbrook that answers the call. It’s harder with Frontenac County,” said Matson.

While no decision was made about how to approach the issue, council will consider setting up an ad hoc committee to look further at it.

“The first thing we need to do is look at our bylaws to see what our own rules are about medical calls,” said Bill Young.

Policing cost reform could hurt Central Frontenac

Treasurer Michael McGovern attended a meeting in  eterborough with OPP finance officials to hear the initial proposals for changing the way municipalities are billed for OPP services.

“One thing they are looking at is standardising the way municipalities are billed,” said McGovern. “The cost per resident ranges from $100 to $900, depending on the amount of crime and other factors. They propose to set a standard rate, based on average costs, of $260 per resident, plus extra based on crime rate, etc. That sounds fine, but we are now paying $180 all in for our policing, so we could be looking at an increase of at least $80 per resident.

“This may be a service that will have to be provided provincially,” said Frances Smith. “Say it goes to $300 per resident. We can’t raise taxes like that just to pay for policing.”

Township CAO Larry Donaldson said that in his previous position as CAO of Arnprior he learned “a lot more than I wanted to about how the OPP bills for their services.

“They can be very difficult to deal with over finances,” he said. “It would be nice if they did explain how they billed. I’ve known seasoned financial people who could not figure it out. But they tend to make up their own pricing, which municipalities can’t afford.”

McGovern will be attending further meetings with the OPP as a new pricing regime is developed for 2015.

Traffic concerns in Crow Lake

A delegate to the meeting, Karen Lahey from The Oaks cottages in the hamlet of Crow Lake, listed a number of issues she and eight other residents who attended the meeting said negatively affected road safety in the village of Crow Lake. She cited speeding, inadequate signage, numerous hidden driveways, a narrow road with no existing shoulders, eroded pavement, inadequate brushing and the lack of guard rails as her main concerns. She and other residents had brought these issues up to council at an earlier June meeting but have yet to see any changes made or to hear back from council.

Crow Lake resident Chuck Belcher said, “One day someone is going to get killed and it's going to be sooner rather than later.”

Councilor Tom Dewey, who was chairing the meeting, said that he would instruct staff to look into the issues and have township staff investigate any changes that could be made to improve the issues of safety. He reported that he would have answers for the residents and their concerns in two weeks' time.