BRATTLEBORO — The town selectboard voted unanimously Tuesday for a municipal takeover of emergency medical services, ending a contentious year-and-a-half-long public debate over the issue.
The five-member board approved a plan for the fire department to respond to ambulance calls that Rescue Inc., Windham County’s largest and longest-serving EMS provider, covered for nearly six decades before losing its contract last year.
“The best EMS approach for Brattleboro is the municipal model,” an in-house evaluation committee that included the town manager, fire chief and assistant fire chief wrote in a board memo. “This recommendation was by no means a foregone conclusion and is being presented in full acknowledgement that for some in our community, this will be deeply disappointing.”
The decision came at a standing-room-only meeting during which opponents presented a petition signed by more than 400 residents seeking a return to Rescue.
“The question that I pose to the five of you is, ‘Do you have the courage to respect the will of the people?’” local lawyer William Kraham said as he shared the signatures. “Let’s have a referendum. Let’s let the town vote.”
The board instead decided itself, but not before acknowledging a split between local leaders and what member Daniel Quipp called a “vocal majority” of constituents.
“My strong impression, despite my vote tonight, is that people in town really do favor Rescue and that I’m swimming against that current,” board vice chair Franz Reichsman said. “I didn’t sleep much last night, thinking, ‘What if I’m wrong?’”
The question of local ambulance coverage has sparked public debate since April 2022, when the selectboard voted with little notice or public debate for a transition plan to study if the town should pick up EMS coverage.
At the time, then-Town Manager Yoshi Manale claimed the proposal not only would cost less than Rescue’s $285,600 annual fee but also reap “a $500,000 to $700,000 net gain in revenue.”
Neither of Manale’s assertions proved true, and he abruptly resigned eight weeks later. Local leaders, however, didn’t give up on the plan. They commissioned an independent feasibility study that found a takeover would increase costs but also bolster the town’s understaffed system of crisis response.
“It is hard not to notice the sense of anger and frustration over the events of last April,” the in-house evaluation committee wrote in its memo. “The abrupt course correction and the lack of notice that such a change was even being contemplated damaged town credibility with the public.”
Residents continued to voice their discontent Tuesday, arguing that, of the 90 local people who have written on the town’s public feedback page to opine on the issue, 87 sought the return of the previous ambulance provider, and three voiced support for the municipal takeover.
“As a resident, I do not feel represented by this board,” Carolyn Conrad, a local mediator, said at the meeting.
Town administrators said the municipal takeover would give local government better control over all emergency services.
“The town really needs a universal, integrated, all-hazards emergency response system in Brattleboro to help withstand the challenges in the years ahead,” the in-house evaluation committee wrote. “This investment in town resilience is the difficult but responsible decision.”
With the vote, town government has nine months before a July 1, 2024, scheduled startup to secure three ambulances (refurbished, leaders said, as new ones take longer to receive), an EMS supervisor and six new firefighters. The last need may pose the greatest challenge, given the fire department’s current annual turnover rate of 66%.
The selectboard, which also must set price rates and operating policies, plans to tap federal American Rescue Plan Act funds to pay for an estimated $1.37 million in first-year costs.
Several residents asked board members to add quality control to their list, describing what they said were problems with the current transition plan in which the fire department is covering calls with help from Golden Cross Ambulance of Claremont, New Hampshire.
“They mean well, they are learning a lot, but they are green, green, green,” said Heidi Fischer, an emergency department nurse at Brattleboro Memorial Hospital. “Some of the mistakes I have seen them make bringing patients into the ER are — frightening is not even the word. I won’t go into details, but I have multiple examples of things that should never have happened.”
Local leaders, prohibited from addressing specific cases due to patient confidentiality, offered a general response.
“There’s a process in place to make sure that each and every complaint received is taken seriously,” Assistant Fire Chief Charles Keir III said.