By Michael Ryan
ASHLAND - If this was Gotham City, the Bat-Phone might be ringing in the Batcave as Commissioner Gordon calls the Caped Crusader for aid.
But it is just little old Greene County where word of the tumult involving the towns of Ashland and Prattsville has reached the ears of county officials.
In the long and short run there really isn’t much of anything the county can do about the standoff between the two neighboring towns surrounding a contract for ambulance service.
That issue is spelled out in a companion “Hearsay” column, this week, seeming on the surface like a simple squabble over money.
Prattsville’s refusal to sign a contract renewal for 2025, however, threatens to disrupt an already fragile emergency medical services system on the mountaintop and well beyond these high hills.
Discussions have been intensifying over the past three months about forming a countywide ambulance system.
The conversation was prompted by a group of mountaintop government leaders going to the legislature, over a year ago, delivering an urgent message that something had to change with EMS, or else.
Their message was this…a shift toward fulltime, paid workers with much better salaries and benefits was in the wind and that the system had to either glide with the prevailing breezes or get swept up by them.
An outside consultant was hired to compile data and offer suggestions on a possible new direction. For all intents and purposes, the move away from individual municipal units is going to happen.
County leaders, privately, are ready to do it whether the various towns with their various systems agree to it or not, although the preference is to get everybody on board. That will all take time.
Meanwhile, the contract snag between Ashland and Prattsville contains an element that would likely befuddle even the wickedly wily Riddler.
Prattsville town supervisor Greg Cross says his town board voted unanimously to shuck the contract with Ashland.
A letter from Prattsville’s attorney emphatically states the town, “will be utilizing a different vendor effective immediately.”
That is all well and good with Ashland town supervisor Richie Tompkins, if that is what Prattsville wishes, but there is one teensy-weensy problem.
Tompkins says neither he nor the State Department of Health can guess who it might be. Perhaps the nefarious Puzzler or Catwoman knows!
Nobody I’ve talked to in the local EMS field has any idea who the vendor is, or worse yet, who could arise from the shadows under the circumstances.
“We would have heard about them if there was somebody,” says one EMS veteran who wanted to speak only on background, further offering that Prattsvile is “bluffing” as part of a contract negotiation tactic.
Cross has not identified the vendor while saying he is hopeful that lawyers for the two sides can hammer out a compromise, likely including some significant financial wiggle room from Ashland.
Talks aimed at doing that, last week, were cancelled, disappointing county officials who say they would love to sit the town boards from Ashland and Prattsville in the same room, not letting anybody out until a deal is done.
Cross and Prattsville have seriously upped the ante, calling upon the State Attorney General’s office to peruse Ashland’s bookkeeping.
Tompkins, responding to the move says, “that’s fine with me. We have a private accounting firm checking everything every three months.
“They submit an annual report to the the State. I’ll send [Cross] a copy of one if he wants,” Tompkins says.
Ashland has offered an option for Prattsville to continue receiving service for 90 days while a new vendor is found. Prattsville has said stay away.
Meantime, while the rest of the county waits to see Prattsville’s plan, it is expected Ashland will keep answering the call there, without a contract nickel, not wanting to leave the residents of Prattsville high and dry.
If they stop, the task would then fall upon other units who would likely go “in good conscience,” says another EMS observer who adds, “but that can’t become the habit. We can’t cover their [ahem] forever.”
Cross has hinted at a lengthy contract holdout, saying, “the hard reality is the county is moving toward a county service.
“With that being said, it doesn’t make sense to go out and try to start our own ambulance service,” Cross says.
One county official says a unified system could be in place as soon as next year while conceding, “having a plan is one thing. The transition period will be painful. Union negotiations could be complex,” dragging things out.
A perfect scenario for the villainous Mr. Freeze. Holy mayday Batman!
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