Informational meeting held on potential Vilas County ambulance service

Vilas County board chairman Jerry Burkett made things pretty clear at the start of an hour-long meeting of the county board’s law enforcement and emergency management committee Oct. 18 in Eagle River.

“Marv (Anderson), in his foresightedness, tried this three years ago to see if this is something that would serve,” Burkett said. 

Burkett was referring to Vilas County supervisor Marv Anderson’s effort a few years ago in heading up an ad hoc committee tasked with looking into the possibility of establishing a county-wide ambulance service. 

The idea did not gain traction at the county level but earlier this year Anderson and county supervisor Bob Hanson of Lac du Flambeau brought the idea up again.

That prompted Burkett to organize the Oct. 18 meeting of the committee, a meeting attended by 13 of the current 20 members of the Vilas County board as well as representatives from Vilas County town boards and fire departments. 

Maintaining quality ambulance service has become a critical issue not just in Vilas County but across the state and across the country as there are fewer medical personnel in both a full-time as well as volunteer capacity to adequately provide the service. 

After Wednesday’s meeting, Signe Baake, a member of the Land O’Lakes fire department’s emergency medical service (EMS) as well as an instructor at Nicolet College and critical care paramedic at Aspirus’s Eagle River Hospital, stressed to The Lakeland Times the issue isn’t something just volunteer ambulance services in various towns are facing. The hospital where she works has only eight full-time ambulance personnel, she said.

 Burkett previously suggested the formation of a committee to look into the issue but stressed that nothing would be done without a county-wide referendum. 

He reiterated that during his opening remarks. 

“Let’s take one thing into consideration today,” Burkett said. “There’s zero, zero commitment to doing anything today. This is strictly information.”

He said the reason the meeting was called was because of “the possibility of $300 million”  the state of Wisconsin intends to use “to help counties solidify, create or do whatever they have to do for better ambulance service.”

“There’s also a grant we could apply for that could tell us how best we could make the ambulance service integrate the existing services and this would end up being, in my opinion and it’s only my opinion, a paid fire department,” Burkett said. “I don’t know about any of you but I know my current ambulance costs are going up tremendously every year when I get our bill. I represent the city of Eagle River. We (the city) went from $80,000 to $129,000 in unbudgeted monies this year. We went from $15,000 ten years ago to where we’re at now.”

He urged those who wished to speak to do so but repeated the meeting was “purely informational.”

“I see an opportunity for incorporation and better utilization,” Burkett said. “Some parts of our county don’t have the ability to have an ambulance there in 10 minutes.”

Four Vilas County towns — Manitowish Waters, Presque Isle, Winchester and Boulder Junction — have been exploring the possibility of establishing an EMS district for the past two years.

Burkett, as well as Lincoln town chairman Bill Hasse and Washington town chairman Jim Egan, shared some personal experiences to demonstrate the importance of good ambulance service with response times that are as quick as possible. 

Former St. Germain town supervisor and fire chief Tim Clark, now a member of the Plum Lake ambulance service and chairman of the Vilas County Emergency Services Association, said he attended some of the meetings Anderson held regarding the issue.

“Our association sort of feels we were left out of that and we were more told what was gonna happen,” he said. “We talked about this in our association and we would like to have a representative at committee meetings if there is one. because there’s a lot of different issues as far as EMS in the county. Some need an ambulance completely and some just need intercept services. It’s not going to be an easy decision on how to solve all those problems.”

Burkett assured Clark there would be no meeting “without an invite to every single town, town chairman, townspeople, public.”

“I’m not looking backwards,” he said. “We didn’t have the opportunity for a grant or monies back then and I certainly don’t wanna look backwards. Marv did the best he could with a touchy subject but I’m looking forward now.”

Vilas County supervisor Pat Weber, who was Eagle River’s fire chief for 45 years, touched on Clark’s point about the level of need, telling the committee he wondered if there might be a way to establish a service to help people who have fallen and need assistance getting back into a chair, for instance, instead of calling out an ambulance crew to do that. 

Egan brought up the fact Vilas County has one of the fastest aging populations in the state and that emergency medical technicians (EMTs) don’t have the ability to administer certain medications “like a paramedic can.”

Hanson and Mike Van Meter, chief of Arbor Vitae Fire and Rescue, brought up the contracts the two towns have with Oneida County, contracts that have increased drastically in the past year and will again in 2024. 

Referring to state statistics regarding income, Hanson said there’s “no town poorer than Lac du Flambeau.”

“We are also the only town with its own ambulance required to pay Oneida County’s blackmail fee (for 2024) of $291,000 that originally came in at $385,000,” he said. “They’re looking for a third of our annual town budget now.”

Regarding the time it takes for volunteer ambulance personnel to be trained and certified, it was mentioned that Rhinelander-based Nicolet College might be able to provide locations in Vilas County that would make it easier for trainees to attend. 

Phelps town supervisor Jeremy Ryan told Burkett and the rest of the committee and county board members “this is a monumental problem we’re trying to solve and it’s not gonna get solved today, tomorrow or probably not even a year or two from now.”

“In the meantime, the calls are still coming in,” he said. “I think there is a number of smaller steps that maybe, whether it’s (by) a committee or not, need to be taken,” he said. “In a month and a half, when we get our tax bill, we stare at it and see all the money that goes to the technical college (Nicolet) and schools.”

Ryan noted that the class is held at night and lasts for three hours. Phelps residents also have to drive an hour each way to get to Rhinelander, he added.

“I wanted to ask the question when I came in here ‘How many people are under 50?’ but I didn’t want to offend anybody,” he said. “I think that’s one of the biggest problems the departments have is getting younger people involved.”

Ryan said he understands Nicolet College is in Oneida County but “a lot of our money in Vilas County goes to Nicolet Technical College.”

“I think pressure by our board can be put on them to make a bigger effort to offer classes locally,” he said.

By the end of the meeting, Burkett set Dec. 6 at 12 p.m. as the next meeting of stakeholders in a possible county-wide ambulance service for Vilas County. 

“I want to know where to go with this,” he said. “I want to know if we should move forward.”

Brian Jopek may be reached via email at [email protected].