Commission Meeting - July 07, 09

The Commissioners held a meeting to discuss the ambulance yesterday, the 7th of July. I'm sorry I didn't notify you that it was scheduled but they held it with only 24hrs notice and I was in Provo when I found out! They asked Jim and I to present our ideas for a list of commitments we would like to accomplish in the next year. We had been working on it but had to scramble to put it together in a form that could be presented in a public meeting. So, sorry if you had wanted to be there but didn't know about it. I don't always find out about these meetings in time to get the word out so if you are interested log into the Emery County website under "Links of Interest" on the sidebar and look up the commissioner's meeting schedule. I have to stress that even though many points were presented, such as a raise for on call pay to $1.00 an hour now and to $2.00 in the near future, the plan has not been approved by the commissioners so it isn't set in cement yet. As always, if you have suggestions I'd like to hear them. This is a living, working, evolving document so there is plenty of room for change and growth. Your input is welcomed! Also, we presented a tentative training/seminar calendar which will be posted soon.

Once again, a clarification. There still seems to be ideas flying that Conferences have been cancelled forever and ever. County reimbursement has been cancelled for THIS YEAR ONLY. It was decided that with so many of our services running with limited crews, it would be impossible to have even half our EMT's go to conference and leave our areas without coverage. That is the main reason it was decided to not send EMT's this year.Budget/Grant cuts were the other concideration. We believe we can bring some seminars to our area, offer high quality programs to our EMT's and still take care of the citizens of Emery County. This will be reevaluated on a regular basis and we may or may not be able to send EMT's to conferences in the future. Let's hope the money flows freely again soon and we can entice tons of new EMT's to join our ranks!

There were also remarks from the floor. Valerie Newland expressed some concerns of the Green River EMT's and held the commissioners "feet to the fire" looking for improvements in our wages. The commissioners agreed to have a response in two or three weeks after they had a chance to discuss the matter.
I understand another public meeting is scheduled for next week but I'm not sure what they are discussing. Please keep going to the county website and attend these meetings if you can.