Highland Supervisor and EMS Volunteers Meet

The Highland County Board of Supervisors held it s monthly meeting on July 6.      During public comment, Highland County Volunteer Rescue Squad President Paul Trible thanked Supervisor David Blanchard for meeting with the volunteers.  There’s been disagreement between the county and the Volunteer Rescue Squad over a proposed Emergency Medical Services ordinance, which places the county in charge of EMS.

“I wanted to thank David for meeting with us last night,” says Trible.  “I am more hopeful than I have been in eighteen months and I hope that we’ll be able to get things sorted out.  It seems to me, it feels to me, anyway, that everyone has been beaten down enough that we are finally gonna find us some kind of a solution.  I think everyone is weary.   I know David’s indicated he was weary.  So maybe that was a good thing, maybe we just needed to get tired of the process to get the process ended.  And I think there’s a good chance we will.  So, we’ll have something for you probably later this week.”

Trible went on to say that the rescue squad needs volunteers.   He said if they could get just five to ten percent of all the people that recently attended meetings on this issue to help in some way, it would be simpler for everyone.  He said in the end, several years down the road, they may end up with an all paid squad, but at least they would have tried to maintain a volunteer presence.   Trible said the ultimate goal is to have one team, one unit, a group with set apparatus, set facilities, set rules and procedures that works together.

Supervisor David Blanchard:

“I met with, I guess, pretty much the Board of the Volunteer Rescue Squad, Highland Volunteer,” said Blanchard.  “And we just sort of, you know, just had a discussion of coming off of a hot meeting.  All nerves being still pretty raw, but putting some things on the table of how we feel.  And how we decide, has been coming at this and just sort of might be flying by one another, and we’re just gonna see where we can get, versus sort of talking at one another.  Hoping that we can put pen to paper and actually give a response.  If they’re going to show me something, I’d like to see it and then give a response back, written.  Like this, don’t like that.  Let’s see, with this, are we still understanding one another correctly.”

Supervisor Blanchard went on to say the work is on revising a document that has serious tweaks that need to be made and which may come out as a brand new document.

To hear more from the July meeting of the Highland County Board of Supervisors, stay tuned to Allegheny Mountain Radio.