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Council of Governments sees path to be part of EMS solution

Could the Warren County Council of Governments be the vehicle for some of the answers to the emergency medical services crisis?

They’re going to at least explore the possibility.

“I think the COG needs a reset,” Alan Kugler, the COG’s consultant explained. “(We’ve) done a lot through the years (but we are) on the cusp of needing to do some important things. I think we should reset in some way.”

That sentiment was driven by a couple of factors – responding to the EMS crisis and a general lack of participation in the COG as currently constructed.

The municipalities represented at Wednesday’s meeting illuminate that problem – Limestone, Pleasant, Cherry Grove, Clarendon, Sugar Grove Borough, Mead and the City of Warren – staff not council members – participated in Wednesday’s meeting. There are 20 additional municipalities in Warren County.

Clarendon Borough Councilman Paul Pascuzzi suggested that some EMS solution could be developed at the COG level, rather than the county level.

But with no formal organization, the COG has some work to do.

They agreed to explore the next steps in creating a more formal entity.

“I don’t have the solution to that at the moment,” Kugler said. “The other thing that jumps out at me, where are our legislators in this stuff? We need the state to step up and have a state-wide solution.”

“I think the community, if given the choice, would strongly support what is an EMS system,” Pascuzzi said.

“We gotta start to focus on this now,” Kugler added.

Pleasant Township Supervisor Arden Knapp said, though, that they were “preaching to the choir now.

“The people who need to be listening to this are the people who are not here.”

“We need more municipalities involved in this than who are sitting here today,” Pascuzzi added. “We need somebody else to help us here.”

“Even at the county association level,” Mead Township Supervisor Al Fox said, “we don’t get the participation we should.”

Fox said he came “kinda loaded for bear” with one municipality “trying to shame the rest of us. (I) found (that) to be rather disturbing. I don’t see that person here.”

Fox was referring to comments made by a Warren City Councilman at a meeting last month

“Unless we start shaming the township supervisors and letting their residents know what deadbeats they are by cutting police and not funding fire, people aren’t going to start showing up to (their) meeting,” Councilman Paul Giannini said. “Until we shame them into doing something, (they) won’t do anything…. We have the same meeting every six months.”

Multiple officials were critical of the fact that no members of city council were present at the meeting.

“(I) think we need some objectives, (a) facilitated, objective-setting process,” Kugler said.

Pascuzzi said action items are also needed as such items were unclear from the EMS Task Force.

The COG agreed to create a subcommittee to develop objectives and tangible tasks by the end of the year.

“This will become a top agenda item for the COG now,” Kugler said, “strategic planning at a functional level.”

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