You can read the entire article here:
The best part of this is the Mayor's response: Portland's acting Mayor Lance Prator said. “It came out of the blue.”
"Out of the blue" really? I guess everyone forgot about the article several years ago about Portland EMS and how they said how dire their financial situation was back then ever since Knowlton got their own Rescue squad. If Mayor Prator (and many other's) had any clue to what was going on with their Emergency Services, they would have known this.
I came to a realization that I was unfairly putting the blame on this EMS on the squads, when I really should be putting it on the municipalities. Lets compare the squads to an undisciplined 5 year old. Is it his fault that he wrecks havoc and is disruptive? No, its the parents fault for not keeping him in check. Same goes for the squads. Most towns for the most part (some exceptions: Rocky Hill, Lebanon Twp.) have had a total hands off approach. Unless the squad comes to the town looking for money, or something negative shows up in the paper, the towns don't get involved. They have no idea how long you wait for an ambulance, or the crap that goes on in the meetings, or the by law changes that only benefit 8 squad members out of 40. It's actually quite the opposite, what you see is a member of the squad goes to the town meetings, says everything is great, and no one checks up on it. Ask any town council member what the run stats are on their squad and guarantee they will be hard pressed to come up with an answer that even makes sense.
So the real losers here are the members who worked hard all these years, and the residents of NJ who relied on Portland to back up Knowlton (I am sure Medic 9 won't be crossing the state line). Everyone give the town council's a big round of applause for another job well done.
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