Just seems like a big mess to me with no happy ending!

There are plenty of other things to worry about in this world.

Mr Mallow,

I agree with you 100% when you say there are other things to worry about in this world

but the most important thing to worry about is life itself

what are we going to do when we call 911 for an ambulance and we don't get one?

and when we do get one, what kind of service are we going to get?

i by all means am not a politician but after talking to many people about this subject and the potential services it doesn't appear we are going to get anywhere near the service we recieve now

MY OPINION is that when things get tough you don't just turn and run,you find solutions to the problem and make them work

i agree with tom gilliant, we are putting ourselves through a lot more hassle than we need to be put through

as a city resident, does the council have a plan in place, and what is it?

i own a home in the city, and a business owner in the town so i feel along with every one else it's only fair that we be kept in the loop and not left wondering what is going on

i think thats only fair

do you?

thanks for your time

I understand the fear tactics at play here and everyone that reads this should as well.

I am telling you that there is nothing to fear, period.

It seems that Mr. Mallow must have someting in the works to say that there is noting to fear. Being a volunteer fire fighter and rescue squad person tat depends on paramedic service, I for one hope the outcome is a positive one.
If something is being worked on, the EMS community would like to know. Everyone is worried at this time about the life safety in our county.

very well said hal

Mr Mallow are you going to reply to any other question in regards to my post?

i am sure you are a nice guy Mr mallow

although i have been reading the blogs and different concerns that the people of the batavian have been writing

it is my opinion that you constantly evade the questions and concerns that us tax payers often have for you

it is also my opinion that if you are not going to give explanations for your actions that it would be a good idea to step down from your position and let someone who is going to stand behind there decision as well give good reasoning as to why these decisions are made and what is in store for us concerned citizens

i by all means Mr mallow am not trying to be rude

just a concerned citizen

thank you for your time

First: Hal, the EMS Council and others had better get into high gear.

Second: Dan, if the City Council decided that it can not afford to pay for ambulance service for the rest of the County, what is your idea/suggestion to reslove this? How can it be payed for? You have property in the City and Town, so you must have given it some thought, or you would not have gone on this site.

I believe Mr. Mallow stated for the record he would not be commenting on this matter any further following the City Council vote on Monday. Perhaps you missed that post.

It also should be noted that the paid EMS Professionals bear at least some of the responsibility for this. For years they lobbied Albany that they could do a far better job than the volunteers. Training demands became vastly more time consuming each certification cycle and slowly but surely, those who freely gave up countless hours each week to help save lives within their communities were squeezed out. Now, years later, here we are facing the exact problem no one wanted to acknowledge was inevitable years ago.

Dan,
Great blog! Feel the same way!!

Funny I just Googled "what makes a good leader" to see if avoiding tax payers questions was on there and could not find it. Weird.

Has any other public official ever given you answers on a blog before, as I do? I've said all I am going to say and I find it hard to believe it can be said I was not clear as to my position.

All the leaders in this county are going to work on this one in the coming months. There is nothing I or council can say, we are just one local government of many. We will work with our neighbors for the good of the whole county. There is nothing to fear, don't let someone tell you there is.

Charlie Mallow has a point. Except for Jay Grasso, from LeRoy, none of them answer questions here.

You have to ask why Legilators DeJannerio, Upson and Hodgins have not at least let us know they are working on a solution, or even know there is a problem.

Most local electeds will contact you if you reach out to them by phone. Perhaps you see Mallow and Grasso on here because they are younger. I am not sure how old they are. Does anyone know their ages? I am thinking older electeds are not familiar with blogs.

Don’t confuse my refusal to speculate or debate, for not answering a question. You might not like the answers but, that’s what I have to give. I consider answering questions part of my job but, I’m not going to say anything to put our city in a negative situation. I fully understand the under tones in these loaded questions and I’m not going to play the game. My only goal is to give some insight, nothing more.

I’m 40 years old and return phone calls as well as emails. I work a full time job in Webster, raise two boys and give most of my free time to public service. Several nights a week I don’t get home till late, yet I’m still able to answer questions. Age has nothing to do with responsiveness of an elected person; in fact you would expect with the extra fee time retired people would have more time to respond.

The fact is that’s why I ran for office. The lack of responsiveness and openness from the elected people that my neighbors and I needed help from was unbearable. So I don’t buy the age problem. Every public official I know has an email address and computer. Some even get free ones from their municipality. The communications part of being and elected official has changed and those that refuse to meet the demands of the job should move aside.

And whether I disagree with Jay Grasso or not on some issues, he puts in his time doing the job. For that he deserves respect.

To that I say, good for you for not playing the "gotcha" game. It's really easy for people to complain or say how he/she could do a better job when that person has no real stake in any given matter. I run into it fairly often with people trying to tell me how I should run my business, and even sometimes with my own employees. I read once that 75% of people will complain about a perceived problem while never offering any sort of viable alternative if given the chance, 15% might have some ideas but won't say so for fear of what their peers might think, and the remaining 10% are the ones willing to step forward and work towards finding a workable solution.

In this day and age, it would be hard to believe that all 9 County legislators are too old or out of touch to read blogs. In addition, you would hope (I bet Howard does) that they read this site. It has been around now awhile and seems to be popular.

Mr. Erbell, from my experience your figures are just about right. You can talk an issue to death but, without giving a real solution you have achieved nothing.

I have to admit that I do like hearing other people’s ideas and that is one of the reasons I come to this site. Sometimes buried in these blogs is a gem of an idea that can really work. It’s just tough filtering through the negativity at times. There is nothing cut and dry with government. There is always some law or agreement that makes doing what anyone would consider the “easy” way impossible. There is a rule of thumb, if your idea seems too sensible, someone else has already asked the question and it won’t work. Elected people are not stupid no matter how popular that notion is. This stuff is difficult.

Very true!!!

Thumbs up to Charlie Mallow,He does answer questions and gives his opinion on most issues..I do not see any other city council members doing that on here...It took alot for the city to admit how wrong they were about ambulance service..I am sure they have a plan to replace this service.Also weather you agree or disagree with any of these city or county leaders they are giving of their time to make a difference..Remember somebody voted for them ...Besides Charlie and Jay ,Pat Burk whose is the school board President, who give of his time to better education comes on here and answer some of our questions..thanks to all of them...Don't have to agree with them but you should respect them.

This is another form of communication. Text me, call me, e-mail me. It's all the same. Charlie is the same way. Pat Burke as well.
I do not know about them, but I get occasional flack for posting on this site. The perception is that the site is left leaning. My thought is that more left leaning people gravitate to the site. Does not matter to me. Just another form of reaching out to people.
Oh yeah, I will be 38 in a few weeks. Young enough to use new technology, old enough to be slightly intimidated by it!

"The perception is that the site is left leaning." Your perception, Jerry, or you have a survey?

Well, for the sake of balance, I'll post as a right wing, common sense conservative. Hate to see this lean too far to the left......(smile).

I'll not comment on the current ambulance situation. Good people are working on this, and I'll not muddy the waters. Believe me, it is tough to practice constraint here.

I will comment on the post by Mr. Erbell. Here is what he wrote;
"It also should be noted that the paid EMS Professionals bear at least some of the responsibility for this. For years they lobbied Albany that they could do a far better job than the volunteers. Training demands became vastly more time consuming each certification cycle and slowly but surely, those who freely gave up countless hours each week to help save lives within their communities were squeezed out. Now, years later, here we are facing the exact problem no one wanted to acknowledge was inevitable years ago."

Are you kidding?? I take great offense at this. As a Paid Firefighter/EMS professional, I have great respect for the good volunteers in this county. I have family members who have served decades in a volunteer fire dept in this county. I have spent the last 18 years as a NYS EMS Instructor training volunteers in this and surrounding counties to become CFR's, EMT's and beyond.

The sad truth is that volunteerism is struggling. I empathize with this. Every fire/ems publication has articles on this.

Blame the huge increase in EMS calls.
Blame the increased training requirements made by the state.
Blame people calling ambulances for every little thing.
Blame the threat of catching a disease.
Blame the two paycheck households, where Mom isn't home to watch the kids so Dad can volunteer.
Blame organized kids sports that ties up family time.
Blame the fear of getting sued.
Blame the mindset that thinks every call needs a Paramedic.
Blame the computer, the internet, the 200 channels on TV that vie for your time.
Blame the lack of respect the public gives those who serve.

Blame all these things, and more..........but do NOT blame those of us who work side by side with other EMS workers, paid and volunteer, to keep those who are sick or hurt alive.

We who have chosen to make public service a career have not squeezed anyone out. 8,000 calls a year proves we have stretched ourselves daily to service a need that could not logistically be done on solely a volunteer level. We work hard to work well with the volunteers, and most of them recognize this and are grateful.
Shame on you.

Take all the offense you want. That and a dollar will buy you a small coffee at Tim Horton's.

I never said it was THE cause of the problem. I said it contributed to it. As someone who put in almost 30 years of volunteer EMS/FD Service and four years as a paid professional while in college I stand by my statement. I have first-hand knowledge of the meetings that took place. I was there.

I forgot Russ, only you are allowed to have an opinion! LOL! Well why not, how about a survey? Lets ask Howard.

I am curious Mr. Erbell if you will then take your part of the blame. You said that the paid professionals contributed to this problem. In the next sentence you state that at one point you were a "paid professional". Even worse yet, you reveal that you were at the meetings that made it possible for "paid professionals" to push out the volunteers. Did you voice your concern about the possible loss of volunteers?

I am only pointing out through your own words that you should then bear as much fault as anyone of us in the EMS profession. I remember a quote that says, "Those that live in glass houses should not throw stones."

I would like to point out that being "professional" doesn't require that you are paid to provide the service. It is how you carry yourself day in and day out.
I can't help but share with you one person who defined professionalism without receiving a paycheck for her efforts. Her name was Jenny Snow. I respected her opinion and never doubted the assessment or care she gave. At her funeral, person after person echoed the same experiences I had. She truly defined professionalism.

I am certainly willing to accept responsibilities for my actions if they had any impact on volunteers. I apologize if it was a negative impact. I however cannot take responsibility for the actions of people that came before me.

As I have said before in my posts. I respect that everyone has an opinion and that they have the right to speak it. I do caution however that if you decide to be negative that you remember that it can backfire.

I was there in an observational capacity only doing research for a Sociology Term Paper. As I recall, the issue of how this effort would impact the volunteers was raised and the consensus of those present was that in the long term, accredited paid services would provide better patient care.

I'm well aware that professionalism doesn't equate with being paid. Coming from a "volee" family, plus responding to hundreds of fire/ems calls all hours of the day and night and teaching CPR and First Aid Classes for the ARC for 25+ years myself, I sorta knew that from the git go. As to your analogy, for what it's worth, Jenny Howell was a personal friend of mine for many years.

I don't see how my comments reflect; "throwing stones" nor do I understand how you are able to interpret them to imply I was somehow part of the problem, but so be it. Lastly, and this will be my final post on the matter, I have no idea how stating what I witnessed is construed as something negative that will backfire.

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The city ambulance problem kind of ticks me off Batavia complains about losing money this I don't know I really don't know much about politics but even if they are this I don't know I would rather see money go down the drain saving people then to see city officials give them selfs raises and I see tons of other thing This town is losing money on.

Just my opinion and save the crap comments about this post there not needed here it is just an opinion, But I will say few years back in the old Latinas parking lot I had a bad accident on my mountain bike (sticks in my face and staples in my head) and they were there in it seemed like seconds and there cool people.