Board Tables Tri-Town Ambulance Proposal
by Alex Brooks
The Petersburgh Town Board took up the question of signing on to the Tri-Town Ambulance Service as proposed by the Grafton Rescue Squad, but did not take a vote on it because they did not have the votes to approve it. They hoped to negotiate an agreement that they could all support at some time in the near future.
The discussion began with a 45 minute monologue by Councilman Heinz Noeding. He went over some figures for call volumes of the Petersburgh Volunteer Ambulance, and noted that he didn’t have such figures for Berlin or Grafton, which would be useful in assessing what the workload of the new ambulance service would be in each of the three towns. He said in 2019 the Petersburgh ambulance received 161 calls, and it responded to two thirds of them, and could not confirm a crew for about a third of them. He said during the weekday daytime hours when the paid service will be operating, there were 58 calls, of which the Ambulance answered 28, and for 30 of which no crew could be confirmed.
He also noted that Grafton Rescue Squad has not provided any of its financial information to the Town of Petersburgh.
He noted the proposed agreement is a fee for service agreement between the Grafton Rescue Squad and each of the three towns, and not really a partnership between the towns or between the two remaining Rescue Squads.
He said the proposal is that Grafton and Berlin each pay $58,000 annually and Petersburgh pay $40,000 annually. The total of these numbers is based on a projection of the Grafton Rescue Squad’s annual costs after it adds the paid weekday daytime service, but the allocation of how much each town will pay is a trickier calculation.
One principle involved is that towns with larger population and higher call volumes should pay proportionately more. The other factor, somewhat trickier, is that each town has a different situation with regard to its volunteer ambulance service. The figures provided by Grafton Rescue, according to Noeding, include both the paid service and their volunteer operations on nights and weekends, so the Town of Grafton would no longer need to pay the $14,500 that it has been paying annually to subsidize the Rescue Squad. Petersburgh, on the other hand, would need to pay the $40,000 annually to Grafton Rescue and also pay the usual $16,500 annually to support the Petersburgh Ambulance. The net result, he said, is that Grafton and Petersburgh would be paying about the same for ambulance services, even though Grafton is nearly twice the size of Petersburgh. He said he didn’t think the current proposal is a fair distribution of the costs, but he added that he does think “we should seek a paid service.”
Councilman Tom Berry said “I believe strongly we should have a paid service, but I agree with Heinz that the numbers are not fair and equitable.” Jack Barnhill expressed a similar opinion.
Alan Webster, on the other hand, expressed unqualified support for the Tri-Town Ambulance proposal. “I think it is critical that we work with Grafton and Berlin to provide ambulance service,” he said.
Supervisor Dennis Smith said, “It’s clear we are not prepared to vote on this.” He said he would like to get to a consensus of the Board, and not just push it through with a 3-2 vote. But he asked those who had reservations if it was just about the money, and whether they would be prepared to support it if a fair and equitable allocation of the costs could be worked out. The answer to that appeared to be yes. Jack Barnhill said, “We definitely need to move forward on this.”
Smith said he would try to set up a meeting with two representatives from each town to try to reach agreement on allocation of costs. It appears that the two representatives from Petersburgh will be Dennis Smith and Heinz Noeding.
Planning Board
The Board re-appointed Brandon deWaal to the Planning Board, but he will be the only member of the former Planning Board to be appointed to the new one, as Susan Dawes also declined to be reappointed, along with the five former members mentioned in last week’s Eastwick Press story. However. Two new people have volunteered to serve on the Planning Board – Mark Murray and Nicole Zlotnick – and they were also appointed to the newly reconstituted Planning Board. Martin Conboy said he is considering volunteering for the Planning Board, and will let the Board know next week if he is willing to join the Board. If he agrees to serve on the Planning Board, it would give them a quorum, making it possible for them to begin functioning again.
Landfill Update
Work on the landfill to divert stormwater is expected to commence shortly. It will be done by Jim Winn under the supervision of Sterling Environmental Engineers. It is expected to cost $20,000 to $30,000 and take three weeks or so. Once the stormwater runoff has been diverted away from the landfill to the greatest extent possible, there will be a lengthy period of measuring the amount of leachate coming out of the landfill so that the engineers can design a system adequate to handle that quantity of leachate.
Leak Update
Heinz Noeding said the Petersburgh Water District’s distribution system has been checked by three different entities using sophisticated equipment and no major leaks have been found, so they believe the problem is somewhere around the wells, the tank, or the pump house. Gould Wells is coming out this week to take a look at the wells. Well #6 in particular seems to have some kind of a problem, but so far it has not determined exactly what that problem is. In the meantime, Water district patrons are asked to conserve water. The level of water in the tank is fluctuating at around the 10’ level, but it has been as low as 2’.
FEMA Award
Councilman Heinz Noeding said the Petersburgh Fire Department (PFD) has received a FEMA grant for $85,544 to buy 12 SCBA packs (self contained breathing apparatus) and 17 face masks. The PFD’s SCBA packs are very old and many are not functional. Noeding said 10 of the existing units are functional, so with the new ones it will have 22. Noeding noted that 20,000 applications for this funding were received by FEMA, and it funded only about 2,500 of them. This grant is one of the largest in proportion to population served by the recipient Fire Department. Fireman Ben Krahforst said the PFD has usually received its SCBA packs from other Fire Departments as hand-me-downs when those other departments bought new ones. This is the first time in a long while that PFD will be getting new ones.
Summer Picnic And Barbecue
The Town’s Summer Picnic And Barbecue will be held in the Town Park on Saturday, August 22 from 2 to 6 pm. All are invited, and all food and drink will be provided by the Parks And Recreation Committee. There will be some picnic tables and chairs provided, but people can also bring their own lawn chairs.
Library Generator
The emergency generator at the library tried to turn itself on during a recent power outage, and according to Library Trustee Bill Alston, it tried to run but then it died. The generator is six years old, and it had a warranty for five years. A repairman came out and worked on it for five hours, and the result was that it would cost nearly the same to repair it or to buy a new one. The danger, said Alston, is that a sump pump in the basement needs electricity to operate, and if the power goes out during a heavy rainstorm, the basement might flood and cause a lot of damage.
The board said if they are going to buy a new generator, it might make sense to get one that could provide backup electricity for two buildings, or even for all four municipal buildings. That might escalate the cost or delay replacement of the broken generator. They floated the idea of buying or renting a smaller portable generator so that the library would be immediately protected, but no decision was made yet on how to proceed.
Hazard Mitigation
A motion to approve the County Hazard Mitigation Plan was tabled because no one had read it. It was said to be a 600 page document and the Board did not want to approve it until members had looked it over.
Parks & Rec Committee Appointment
The Board appointed Sharon Springer to the Town’s Parks And Recreation Committee.
Record Retention Policy
The Board approved a records retention policy supplied by Town Clerk Deidra Michaels.
Workshop Meeting
The Board scheduled a workshop meeting for Monday August 24 at 7 pm to review revised laws for mobile homes, recreational vehicles, and micro-homes, as well as any other business that may come before it.