Council working towards lease

The Whitehall Town Council and Community Beacon of Hope Inc. (CBOH) are working toward having a clarified lease agreement ready for the council meeting in July.

At the special Town Council meeting on Monday night Town Attorney Ed Guza said, “The committee that was formed at the last council meeting had an opportunity to meet today and discuss the issues that are pertaining to a new lease. Most of that has to do with issues of inventory, mileage and those types of things.”

Guza went on to say they would like to get a complete inventory to see exactly what this organization is using; taking steps to create a base that eliminates some of the vague terms that came back on the proposed second lease that was tabled at last week’s meeting.

Guza gave some examples of the vague descriptions; the lease stated the ambulance service would address calls when available. “We would like to have that flushed out in a lease so it is very clear what that means, if not eliminate that terminology in it’s entirety and replace it with language that makes it clear when the ambulance service has to respond”.

“The overall goal always and forever being that the town of Whitehall has an ambulance service available for its residents so when the phone rings there is an ambulance service there. We understand there are competing ambulance services, but we are concerned about the Town of Whitehall and we have equipment, we have a building, we have means to ensure that those concerns are met,” Guza said.

During the public comment period, Guza addressed a question of opening it up for bids.

“The committee did actually talk about that and this something that we want to see where this is going. Frankly we don’t have time right now we have to make sure we have an ambulance service in place, but certainly that’s a consideration because obviously we want to get the best bang for our buck here and that might mean a competing ambulance service may provide that. That’s capitalism right there,” he said. .

Alderman Mac Smith said he received calls voicing concerns and most of it had to do with ensuring that the ambulance responded to calls in the town.

“I understand they have been responding to calls the last few days. If the lease goes forward, which tonight is not a determination to vote on a lease in anyway,” Smith said.

Smith added, certainly some of their concerns we were going to be getting paid for the mileage on the vehicles, the ambulance barn would be retroactive in any lease going forward.

“As you all may know what is in the process is a lease as it was originally, at a later point the new lease will be retroactive to June 1, 2017. There is also an understanding that all bills must be paid all bills to my knowledge have been paid except for one and the only reason it hasn’t been paid is the ambulance service doesn’t have the paperwork. Some people and questioned whether the county was ever going to offer to buy the ambulance barn, that never happened, or anybody else to lease the building. The only discussion of a lease on that building is the present people we are involved with,” Smith said.

Mayor Dale Davis answered another question during the public comment period that was allowed, but not on the agenda. The question was about cost to the town’s taxpayers for the ambulance barn, vehicles and equipment the town owns.

“The building has a mortgage that has to be paid each month and in the current contract with the ambulance service there is a lower rate than the state rate because they do all the maintenance and repairs on the vehicles. It may not stay that rate in the future. The previous ambulance service was an enterprise fund and had to be self-sufficient. It pays for itself. No tax dollars ever went in to that account. Not for 20 years,” he said.

Jaime Rawson of CBOH added they have insurance that will pay for full replacement if something ever happened to one of the vehicles including the equipment.

Mayor Dale Davis said we should have a new contract put together and voted on for the period of time that is in this contract, which will be at the July council meeting.

Smith explained, “Just so everyone understands basically the vote here would be merely that the old lease goes on as it was with the understanding that if a new lease were approved in the future that anything would be retroactive to June 1, 2017”.

Guza concluded with, that gives the town a little more breathing room to deal with some of the issues and create a contract the council can agree to and move forward for at least a short amount of time.

The next town council meeting is slated for July 10, 2017.