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| Council wants 2 ambulances Wednesday, February 03, 2010 Carolea Hassard
Springtown’s city staff will write a letter to the Parker County Hospital District asking it to install a second ambulance here if the district deems it necessary.
Last month, councilmember Tom Clayton placed the question on the agenda, asking that council submit a letter to the district and pass a resolution seeking official action on the matter.
At present, Springtown’s one ambulance is used not only for local emergencies but also responds to emergencies elsewhere in the county if needed. It also transfers patients to various hospitals and so is not necessarily immediately on hand here. “That one ambulance could be anywhere in Parker County,” Clayton said. At some point in the past, “they had to take somebody to Fort Worth and were gone two to three hours.”
When Clayton suffered a heart attack a couple of years ago, he told council, he was afraid of having to wait too long for the ambulance to respond. He drove himself to the hospital instead. After speaking recently with area residents and Melvin Woody, the hospital district’s local board member, Clayton decided to ask the city to request a second ambulance. “Melvin Woody said y’all need to pass a resolution and send it to the district. It would go a long way,” Clayton told council. In an interview following the meeting, Woody said the issue hadn’t crossed his mind until Clayton brought it up. “Until Tom Clayton called me I hadn’t even thought about setting up a second ambulance,” he said. City councilmembers opted not to limit the number of items they may place on agendas during the year. They did, however, agree to submit items at least two weeks in advance before a meeting. Council talked about the matter after mayor Doug Hughes asked for a discussion at last week’s regular meeting. Lately, councilmember Tom Clayton has placed several items on the agenda each month, including three for December. There were four items of new business that month, including reimbursing councilmembers for Verizon DSL service in lieu of issuing air cards for their city-owned laptops (council voted to allow for reimbursement for either one if a councilmember wishes it). The three items Clayton put on the agenda were applying for a TxDOT loan to move utility lines if FM 51 was widened through town; using court security building funds to install video cameras in the municipal courtroom/council chambers; and asking the Parker County Hospital District to put a second ambulance on duty at the Springtown LifeCare ambulance house. Council discussed all three items, but on the ambulance question, the mayor said he wished councilmembers would give city administrator Mark Krey time to research such issues before they met. The hospital district might ask the city to pay for a second ambulance, he said. Councilmember Robert Wilson raised several questions that couldn’t immediately be answered, such as how often has Lifecare needed two ambulances in Springtown and how quickly does the ambulance respond in emergencies. “I think we need it for the structure,” Hughes said when he introduced the agenda-item question last week, “to make sure politics doesn’t play on this.” He added that a councilmember could approach him or the city administrator with his or her agenda item, and while a councilmember may have to wait a month, “I think it would help meetings go smoother,” Hughes said. Even if the number of items wasn’t limited, he added, he wanted to institute a two-week-notice period “to let staff do their homework,” he said. “The agenda belongs to the mayor,” said councilmember Tony Smith. “I’ve put one item on the agenda in eight years. “If you’ve got something that needs council’s attention, Doug’s all ears, Mark’s all ears. I don’t know if it needs to change. As long as we’re working with the mayor, he can put it on there,” Smith said. Wilson said he has served many years on council both as councilmember and as mayor, and noted that he was thwarted by a past city administrator “who didn’t put (an item of mine) on the agenda because he didn’t see fit. “I need to be able to represent those folks in the community,” Wilson said, adding that if the mayor refuses to include a particular item, he can. Wilson said he didn’t think any councilmember would include an agenda item that he or she didn’t believe was necessary. “You’re inconvenienced ... but we need that opportunity,” he said. Councilmember Denise Taylor said that allowing only one item per year “is too stringent a limit if somebody comes (to me with a problem) and I just put one on. What then? I have to wait a year? Who knows what could happen?” She and Wilson both agreed, however, to the two-week rule. The mayor prompted councilmembers Annette Burk and Clayton for comment. Burk simply agreed to the two-week rule, adding that putting items on the agenda is a privilege. “Each councilmember has to have the ability to do what he thinks is right,” Clayton said, adding that he agreed to the two-week rule. Clayton said he didn’t think the city needed to create another ordinance for the issue and asked if the rule also limited the mayor. The other councilmembers replied that the agenda belongs to the mayor. Hughes directed city attorney George Staples to draft an ordinance with the two-week rule. |
