Dear Editor: February 14, 2010

On October 4, 2007 Councilman and active Flanders EMS Volunteer Jim Buell sent an alarming email outlining defects within the MO EMS to former Chief of Police Ed Katona concluding, “The town has no choice but to look at the option of paid EMS.” The impetus for Buell’s letter was to seek advice and eventual support of the Mount Olive Police Department in an attempt to press for paid ambulance service(s).

The detailed information provided by Buell drew immediate attention from my administration and in response, the council formed the Mount Olive Public Safety Committee which consists of one representative from each emergency organization to examine and remedy defects within the current system. In the end, it was agreed that the MO EMS needed help meeting the needs of our community. Mount Olive entered into a contract with Atlantic Healthcare to respond from 5am-5pm on weekdays only.

All appeared to be going well. The volunteers received the much needed relief while the residents received quality emergency medical attention.

However, I was caught totally off guard when I received a $30,000 budget increase request last December from one of our EMS organizations since we not only provided a 70 hour per week reduction for our volunteers, but such an increase in these economic times appeared unreasonable. The request prompted a reexamination of our emergency services and since we had acquired a six month baseline to compare the response time between paid and volunteer services I had requested the Mount Olive Police Department to conduct a comparison study. The overall conclusion supported the paid services responded 100% faster than volunteers services.

January 27, 2010

The Mount Olive EMS Squads have launched a petition from the Committee of Petitioners consisting of Kevin Dolan-Flanders, Barbara Swasey,- Budd Lake, Andrew Forst-Budd Lake, Phylis Gentile-Budd Lake and Kenneth Taylor-Flanders. 

The committee will be asking registered voters in Mount Olive to sign a petition that will to put a referendum to allow the public to vote on the question that would allow the EMS squads to be named as the providers of services

Read the full Petition Here

People circulating the petitions will be around the township at various locations – you may call 973-691-0900 ext 7382 for information of where you can go to sign a petition or details on becoming a petition circulator for those interested.

According to a spokesperson for the EMS’s the article in the Star Ledger released by the township on January 27, claiming that a compromise has been reached - in not true.  The council has ignored the requests by township residents to create a committee to resolve the issues.  For this reason the petition was created that will force the township to place before the public a referendum in an election.

Listen to the full council meeting from January 19th 
(to download -right click on link and select "save link as")