NEWS

City grilled over ambulance service

Todd Hill
Reporter

BUCYRUS – Bucyrus service-safety director Jeff Wagner on Thursday briefed members of the City Council’s health and safety committee about where the city stands with its ambulance service after some of the members complained about being left in the dark about recent developments.

Earlier this month Crawford County’s Central Joint Ambulance District found its ambulance provider, Life Support, in breach of contract after it failed to secure a performance bond, and is presently in the process of drawing up new contract language in anticipation of seeking a new provider.

“I had no idea about this until I read it in the newspaper. Shouldn’t we know something?” committee member John Walker asked Wagner, who serves on the CJAD board.

“We didn’t know it would go to that level,” Wagner said of the finding of breach of contract. “We kept talking with them and extending deadlines. We were working on it behind the scenes. You guys can all call me.”

Committee member Steven Pifer asked the service-safety director what a new ambulance service will cost the city if it’s unable to secure a zero subsidy in the new contract, and whether a levy could become necessary if that doesn’t happen, but Wagner could only speculate.

“That hasn’t been on their front burner,” he said of CJAD. But Wagner emphasized that Life Support personnel are still on the job, in Bucyrus and elsewhere in the county.

“They will stay until there’s a new one in place,” he said.

In other committee business, a proposal by the Bucyrus police chief to eliminate annual permit fees for home and business alarm systems in favor of a tiered system of fines for repeat false alarms appeared to stall.

“There are some habitual offenders where this could help,” city law director Rob Ratliff said.

Pifer suggested separate fine structures for business and private residences, since the worst offenders when it comes to false alarms are business or institutions such as Bucyrus City Schools.

“I don’t like discretion in ordinances,” he said. The committee decided to table the matter until it could meet again with the police chief and dispatcher.

The committee did achieve some clarity on the issue of indigent burials, with which it’s been grappling all year, as it determines how best to handle the ashes of unclaimed indigent persons.

“Yes, we can scatter the ashes in a designated area, but the state requires a marker if the cremains are buried,” Ratliff said. “If you scatter the ashes there’s no requirement for a place marker, but that’s a loophole I wouldn’t advise walking through.”

The city is interested in scattering indigent ashes in the county’s potter’s field off Ohio 19 southeast of Bucyrus, and will be meeting with the county commissioners next week on the issue.

Also Thursday, during a meeting of the Council’s public lands and buildings committee, three officials with the Bucyrus Little League and Crawford County Youth Baseball and Softball League briefed members on changes in their youth sports.

Bucyrus Little League president Cory Tyrrell said “the numbers are there,” with 270 kids signed up this year, about 50 more than last year, but he explained that the group has decided to try a one-year separation with the league in favor of falling under the county organization.

Tyrrell said Little League red tape played havoc with a tournament last year that saw the roster of teams cut in half, and emphasized that Bucyrus still remains in Little League, just a junior division.

“This is just an experiment to give kids a chance to play more games,” he said.

thill3@nncogannett.com

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Twitter: @ToddHillMNJ