After a year and a half of reports, debates and recrimination, the city has decided to abandon its plans for an ambulance service run by the fire department, according to a report this weekend by NBC29 as well as a story in today’s Daily Progress.
“We never had any real desire to move forward, but we felt there was a need,” Charlottesville Fire Chief Charles Werner told the Progress.
Some city councilors were ambivalent about the idea from the start. But City Councilor and former fire chief Julian Taliaferro helped push the project along. A report on response times was used to show that the volunteer service, Charlottesville-Albemarle Rescue Squad (CARS), had lagging response times of over 10 minutes 16 percent of the time.
“It’s not [CARS’] fault, but the situation is they don’t have sufficient resources to do it anymore,” Taliaferro told C-VILLE. CARS officials disputed the accuracy of the report.
The original proposal involved almost $1 million from the city budget to buy an ambulance and hire six staff members. To help pay the operating costs of the service, the city planned to charge fees for ambulance service.
In justifying the decision to quash city ambulance service, council and staff pointed out that Albemarle County’s Monticello station is now up and running, giving the area another ambulance to take the pressure off CARS.
“CARS has really stepped up and we’re not hearing of issues with response times,” City Mayor Dave Norris told the Progress.
Considering the decline in revenues and the cutbacks made by the Commonwealth, the city ambulance service isn’t likely to be the last planned service excised between now and spring budget season.
