MULLICA TOWNSHIP - The township will sell off the ambulances its defunct Emergency Medical Services squad used, potentially thwarting the squad's recent attempts to reunite.
The Township Committee agreed in January to let the members of the squad make a public pitch for their volunteer services to be retained again. The squad disbanded in December after it could not convince the township to provide it with a new building.
The township has a contract for service with the Hammonton Rescue Squad that runs through the end of the year. But Mullica's squad wants to resume serving the township on a part-time basis, providing it gets the building it wants.
But the committee still decided to sell the squad's two ambulances.
"There is no ambulance squad at this point. And we have two ambulances that we don't need, that eventually would have to be replaced even if there was an ambulance squad," Committeeman Bill Kennedy said.
Committeeman Michael St. Amour encouraged the squad to still make its pitch but said the age of the ambulances -they are 1988 and 1995 vehicles - was a big concern.
It would cost between $65,000 and $80,000 just to rehabilitate the 1995 vehicle, St. Amour said.
"Anyone else who makes a proposal to the municipality would be coming with equipment. And these will be sitting for another nine and a half months," he said. "I don't know if they'll even start at this point."
Franklin told The Press of Atlantic City last month that as long as the squad got a new building it would not ask for a new truck.
The 1995 truck is still a very good piece of equipment, he said, but the squad would eventually ask for the township to purchase a used truck.
Township Clerk Kimberly Johnson said the vehicles will likely be auctioned on www.govdeals.com within a month.
E-mail Robert Spahr:
RSpahr@pressofac.com
21 comments:
This is old news.
THE SQUAD DIDN'T WANT TO DO IT ANYMORE SO I SAY SELL IT ALL AND GOOD LUCK!!!!!!! Bruce Crowe for MAYOR
Did you notice the sentence "Gary Franklin was still in the process of scouting a property the squad could call home."?
If you watch the meeting you'll see how Franklin started to criticize the committee for not acquiring the Lauer School money pit and how the squad could have converted that building for their use.
Mayor Forman told him that the day before a school board official announced at the meeting that they asked the official "fire entity" if he wanted the building and he refused it.
It was good to see her stop him in his tracks and have him try to explain that one.
At the meeting they just kept insisting "we didn't quit".
I got my letter in the mail and it sure did look to me that they quit and without any notice either.
Now we find out through Kennedy that they had a bathroom and running water,too.
What happened to Franklin's claim that if they got a building, they wouldn't ask for an ambulance? Now, the 95 would be refurbished at about $80,000 and next year a request would be made for a second used ambulance at that price or probably more.
I think they should make the decision just to get a good,well equipped service from out of town and just be done with all this nonsense and bickering.
It's better just to pay outright to somebody else than to have the town threatened with a walkout everytime the squad wanted something.
re 6:20pm
The "entity"? The last time I heard that word was when a horror movie came out about an evil spirit. Do you think that the school board official was making a veiled analogy?
That was a strange selection of words.
Maybe they should take all the money from the sale and put it towards the "jaws of life" and the fire rescue truck. They're both going to need repairs in the future.
I can't believe that I agree with Kennedy! He's right. There is no rescue squad at this point.
His demeaner was completely different without Chasey there to intimidate him.
She took the easy way out of this by not showing up. Now she can play both sides of the issue depending on who she's talking to.
A strategy she has honed to perfection.
I enjoyed Forman nailing Franklin on the Lauer school. I don't know why she doesn't see that if the Squad did come back,they will be requesting better ambulances in the near future. That price should be in their bid. One of their main complaints in the begining was the outdated equipment.
Did I hear right? One of the rescue women was still training people and looking into grants for the now defunct squad?
Why didn't they apply for grants all these years while they were a working squad?
I think they lost all their legal status when they resigned.
Maybe there's a special program for people who are trying to form a new volunteer group. It would be wonderful if they could come up with grant money for new ambulances and a building and present that to the Twp. in their bid.
I wish they would have looked into these things or at least warned the town before they took such rash actions. Maybe something could have been done for them.
Right now there's a 2004 f350 ambulance on Gov. deals starting at $500 and is up to $5,010 with one day to go with 68 bids.
It seems that spending $65,000 to $80,000 to refurbish a 1995 would be a total waste of money.
Don't expect a fortune to be made from selling our two. The backhoe probably brought in more than these two combined will fetch.
I too have to hand it to Kennedy at the last meeting for standing his ground and speaking up. It was very unlike him. He should try being his own man more often.
I think that the squad's problems can be attributed to Gary Franklin. He seems to want to hear himself speak and perhaps he was not the best suited person for the job. His partisan political attitude also clouded his performance, such as his protecting and not criticizing the Republican committee for non-support all those years, which didn't help matters. He should have done more.
The Gov deals site has been having problems. I don't know if we will be able to see the final selling price on that 2004 ambulance but there are others listed we can track when they come back on line.
Yes , make sure you "track" the sale. Happy now ?
3:36 pm, I find it hard to comprehend why someone's curiosity would annoy you.
It IS interesting to see what a 2004 ambulance would sell for considering that fixing our 1995 one would cost such an unbelievable amount of money.
Why don't you get some insecticide suppositories for that bug up your ass.
It is obviously a bit more than "curiosity".
Keep the insectiside.
Re 9:29 pm
So please "all knowing one", do tell us the "other" reason besides curiosity that we have for seeing ambulance prices.
Does it bother you that all this information is now easily accessible? It is very strange that you seem so angry that people can get this knowledge.
Are you one of those anti-political literature,anti-free speech,"keep em in the dark", back room dealing Mullica politicians?
No, just a taxpayer and supporter of the volunteers that finds your joy in the sale disrespectful.
Yeah, how about that meeting where Forman said the town couldn't link up to Mullica News or even put their name on the town's site to announce that the meetings are being shown there. She said that they have advertising and the town's not allowed to do that.
How come Elwood Fire Dept. is linked up to the town site? They have a great web site but it's full of advertising. It looks like that was just an excuse not to publicize the meetings to the town.
A prime example of the hypocrisy,lies and an effort to keep the public in the dark.
Re:12:24pm
I see our ambulances are listed now. It looks like the squad took excellent care of them.
Bids are up to $2000 for each right now.
This is so sad. All of the Squad's problems should have been handled right many,many years ago and this might not have happened.
There is no "joy" from this sale.
Our volunteers where ignored and neglected by the town's Republican committee for the last decade and they got so disgusted that they resigned.
Our whole community is mourning the loss of this service and feel bad for the good volunteers that tried so hard to help us.
12:24 pm I don't know anybody that is happy about the Squad's decision to leave.
Many mistakes were made by the present leadership of the Squad and the past town officials who had a deaf ear to them.
This all goes back many years and our citizens are the losers.
If they would have left the Squad in Elwood,this never would have happened.
RE 12:48pm I checked out the Elwood Fire Dept. web site and it's really good. That first video with the music is fantastic! They did a real good job on all the features and articles. I think it's great that they have advertisers and that excuse given by Forman for not mentioning Mullica news on the Twp.site seems to be bogus.
Mullica News is doing a great,free service for our community and they deserve some recognition.
If not a link, at least some kind of announcement to the public where they can see the meetings.
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