Sheldon, Iowa — More meetings are scheduled over the next couple of weeks to work out the details of what will happen with ambulance calls in the Archer ambulance territory once the struggling ambulance service disbands.
The issue dates back to June of this year, when three members of the Archer Ambulance Team, including the team’s Director, resigned from the ambulance service. At that time, Archer’s calls began being handled by ambulance teams from Sheldon, Sanborn and Primghar, under a Back-Up Subdivision Plan that had been in force since January, 2011.
In early November, the Archer City Council voted to disband the Archer Ambulance Team, and were told by Sheldon’s SCAT Director Kevin Miller, and County EMA Coordinator Jerad Johnson, that the Back-Up Subdivision Plan could be put in place on a permanent basis to cover Archer’s ambulance calls.
When Johnson brought the plan to the Sheldon City Council, they made it known they’d like to have more information about how such an arrangement would effect the Sheldon Community Ambulance Team. As a result of that meeting, a meeting was held between some Sheldon Council members, some Archer Council members, and Johnson to discuss some of the issues involved. At that time it was decided that there would be at least one more meeting to discuss the issue.
Sheldon City Manager Sam Kooiker tells KIWA that one of those meetings will be during the next Sheldon City Council meeting.
The very next evening the Archer City Council will meet, and Kooiker says he has received an invitation to attend that meeting.
He says the topic will be taken up again later next month during a Sheldon City Council workshop session.
The final meeting, according to Kooiker, will be the County Funding Meeting, which will come after the Archer City Council meeting, and before the Sheldon Council’s workshop session.
At the November Archer City Council meeting when the council voted to disband their ambulance service, they had set December 31st as the day the service would officially disband. Following the other city’s stated desire for more information about how ambulance service for Archer would look going forward, the Archer council rescinded the December 31st date, and reset the date the service would officially disband as February 28, 2019.
