By Dave Baumeister, County Correspondent
SIOUX FALLS – At its Tuesday, Oct. 8, meeting, the Minnehaha County Commission discussed plans for two other upcoming public meetings.
On Tuesday, Nov. 5, during the regular commission meeting, there will be a public hearing on two proposed changes to the Surface Ambulance Service Agreement.
First, the agreement is making a change as to the number of EMTs needed on an ambulance run.
According to Commissioner Jeff Barth, when the requirement was put in place for two EMTs, that was to keep the county in line with state requirements; however, that state requirement has since been reduced to only one EMT.
Emergency Management Director Jason Gearman said changing the regulation to meet the state criteria will help the smaller community services that are often in need of volunteers.
He also mentioned that most of the time ambulances are called out, sheriff’s deputies are already on site, and most of them are also trained as EMTs.
The second change to the ambulance agreement involves wording that came into question when one service may be hired for a private event in someone else’s area.
This was first brought up last summer when a local volunteer ambulance service was to work at an event in the Brandon MedStar area.
Currently, the ambulance agreement says that permission must be granted in writing when a service does an event in another’s area.
When the matter was previously discussed and reported on, it was believed that it was not the original intention to allow one provider to have “veto power” over who would work an event.
The change proposed for the Nov. 5 vote would alter the requirement for “written consent from the Licensee for the area” to just having the out of area service give a “notice” to the regular ambulance provider for that area, but there is nothing to specify how that notice is given.
The other meeting discussed doesn’t involve the county, but Planning and Zoning Director Scott Anderson told commissioners of a meeting in Hartford to comply with their directions for obtaining joint jurisdiction with Minnehaha County.
On Aug. 27, the commission denied a request by Hartford to adopt the joint jurisdiction agreement for an area around the city.
At that time, many of the commissioners felt Hartford needed to do more to contact and inform the residents and land owners in the proposed zone.
Anderson said that since the denial, the Hartford City Council has been working with the county planning office to contact citizens.
“They have advertised in the local papers, put information on their website and sent letters to all land owners (in the proposed zone),” Anderson said.
Commission Chair Jean Bender emphasized that this would be a very important meeting, and she hopes “a lot of people from the area attend,” due to the impact it might have.
The meeting in Hartford will be held on Tuesday, Oct. 29, at 7 p.m. at the former American Legion building at 120 N. Main Ave.
The Minnehaha County Commission has its regular meetings each Tuesday at 9 a.m. on the second floor of the county administration building at 6th and Minnesota in Sioux Falls.
These meetings are open to all, and public comment is always encouraged.
