Ordinance reprint
March 14th, 2007 by 
Alica
The City Council is going to publish a corrected version of the proposed city ambulance ordinance. According to city administrator Dennis Olson, the Secretary of State’s office said that is the proper procedure if an ordinance gets printed incorrectly.
The corrected portions are part of a story that can be viewed on this Web site, www.brandoninfo.com.
So tonight at the public forum, which starts at 7 p.m. at Brandon Valley Middle School, let’s avoid rehashing the corrected points, ok? We shouldn’t waste the forum’s time with person after person getting up and saying to the council, “You said such-and-such,” and the council answering, “Yeah, but we fixed that.”
Here are a couple questions I have:
1. If Brandon passes this ordinance, who plans to apply for a license, if any? The two services that keep getting mentioned are Rural Metro and MedStar. Have either of them said for sure if they will or will not apply? Has anyone else?
2. If MedStar comes to my house but I say no thanks, my family will drive me to the hospital, will MedStar still charge me just for showing up?
Here are a couple things I learned after checking the City Council’s minutes, which were published at the time.
When the Council repealed the old city ambulance ordinance on Sept. 20, 2004, councilman Dan Mostek was the only council member to vote against repealing. (He said that at last week’s public forum.) Mostek was also the only person to vote against adopting Ordinance #381, the one we’ll vote on April 10.
On Nov. 1, 2004, Jay Masur of MedStar appeared before the City Council to ask for a license to operate an ambulance for Brandon. Here is an excerpt from the minutes of that meeting:
“Jay Masur appeared before the Council requesting that the Council write a new ambulance licensing ordinance so he can operate within the limits of the City of Brandon. After a lengthy and heated discussion, Alderman Polzin moved Alderman Rubin seconded to direct the City Administrator and City Attorney to work with Jay to draft a new ordinance and present it to the Council by the December 6, 2004 regular meeting. Motion carried.”
Posted in Uncategorized, Ambulance | 
March 14th, 2007 at 9:32 am
And the Council says there is no conflict of interest? Jay Masur wants an ordianance written that he can pass and the council agrees to it???? I seem to remember that Jay tried to apply twice to the orginial ordiance #286 and could not pass the critera…so we wine to the council and we get them to get rid of that ordinance and let him work side by side with our council to write a new one???? FOWL!!!! We are way past the 3 strikes and you are out!!! Lets put #286 back in.
March 14th, 2007 at 10:04 am
What are worried about, the same council who voted to rewrite the ordinance to allow Med-star to qualify will determine the contract terms after the they award the contract based on whatever their criteria is going to be. Remember we have multitudes of ambulance companies just aching to apply. Hey it only took them 2 years to rewrite the ordinance.
March 14th, 2007 at 11:19 am
It’s interesting that one of the council members, Steve Rubin, hires MedStar to be the on-site ambulance service at Husets Speedway. Has Alderman Rubin recused himself from the debate and from the votes?
March 14th, 2007 at 11:24 am
Not to my knowledge.
March 14th, 2007 at 11:27 am
Alica,
Thank you, your entry has convinced me to vote NO. I was undecided.
March 14th, 2007 at 9:57 pm
i attended the forum that was put on by the challenger and chamber tonight. i left feeling angry. first, deana white was a HORRIBLE moderator. she asked questions to the opposing side that they could never answer. council questions, and that put them at a disadvantage! brett karber and his gum chewing was AWFUL! and he never once directly answered any questions! and then he LIES. he mentioned something about “what if there’s a accident on the interstate, they can get there quickly” an ambulance service licensed to us , if i understand it correctly, won’t be able to run on the interstate! only the city of brandon!
one highlight, at least that linda weber finally broke “the code of silence” about this whole masur involvement deal. it’s about time! this was written for him, with the help of a man that has an interest in medstar, financially, and as a council memeber, should RECUSE himself from the vote all together. that’d be steve rubin!
i was against it before, but now i’m adamently against it. and i’ll make sure to tell my friends and family why they should vote this awful piece of ordinance down!
March 14th, 2007 at 10:00 pm
You don’t get a charge if no service is provided. That is pretty standard for most services I asked. You only get a bill if there’s actually something to bill for.
I checked on this.
So if you don’t want or need something, you don’t get charged for anything. It’s like shopping. You can look for free.
March 15th, 2007 at 5:35 am
Paul, That is true in SIOUX FALLS WITH RURAL METRO. That was another issue that got danced around by the council. There is no guarantee what Med Star can charge if they get in.
March 15th, 2007 at 6:57 am
Do people in Brandon realize what our Fire Dept offers? Do you know it is all volunteers? When they arrive on the scene they are able to give aid to the patient. This ranges from scraped knees to heart problems. And ALL at no charge. If the fire dept applies a splint and the patient is driven into the hospital by other means than an ambulance…that patient has no charges. Paul, are you saying that a small company ambulance would be able to offer the same? The numbers they keep throwing out were given on how many medical calls the fire dept responds and how many were actually transported. Those are the numbers that are important!!! Not just how fast a paramedic can get there.
March 15th, 2007 at 7:26 am
In an Oct 2006 article from Aberdeen SD newpaper, Med-star was offering the same thing as here but by Dec 2006 it was rumored that med-star was gone without notice. If you were at the march 7th forum — Jay Masur stated that he has 6 rigs (4 in Brandon and 2 in Huron) What about Aberdeen? Also rumor has that Med-star is now in trouble in Huron as well. Goto the web and look up the articles from the Aberdeen paper — Look for yourself and then look at what Alderman Rubin said last night — No ambulance kicked out of town would be considered, but I guess leaving in the middle of the night is not kicked out!
Is is shame on the Brandon Fire Dept for letting that poor women lay on the cold ice for 45 minutes waiting for the ambulance to come or for Mr Rubin to misled and scare the public by only using part of story?
March 15th, 2007 at 7:46 am
Mr. Mayor,
How long are you going to allow some of your council to continue this behavior? You have Mr. Karber flat out saying they’ve taken nothing out of the ordinance when all it takes is reading ability to see they have. He also has a distinct pattern of NOT answering the questions directed at him. He dances around the question awhile and then diverts it to the “time” issue again. The audience March 14th had enough and finally asked him to answer the question.
You have a second council member who has a conflict of interest and not only is Mr. Rubin not recusing himself, he’s moderating the forums.
Your’s is a tough job….but you are elected to make the tough decisions and it’s time to make one or two. Reel in your council.
March 15th, 2007 at 9:33 am
I found out that REMSA does background checks on all employees employed by the ambulance (county wide)…is that the part scaring our council about being part of REMSA? Are there certain things that an employee would not want uncovered by a background check?
April 10th, 2007 at 5:21 am
Somebody just shoot me! When is Jay Masur going to realize nobody wants a second rate ambulance service serving them. He’s been a burr under the saddle of so many south dakota cities for so long and does nothing but cause trouble. If he’s so good, why doesn’t he go to work for the ems services in the cities he’s trying to ruin instead of going in and trying to compete with legitimate services. GO AWAY JAY!