Minn. city council fights to keep EMS station open

The mayor wants to move the existing EMS team to the other side of town; council members said it will leave parts of the town “unacceptably underserved”

February 25, 2016 09:38 AM

The Pioneer Press

ST. PAUL, Minn. — Members of the St. Paul City Council are pressuring the mayor’s office to find new funding to keep a paramedic team on the city’s East Side.

The St. Paul City Council will vote on a resolution Wednesday that asks St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman’s administration to maintain an existing “super medic” team within a St. Paul fire station on Maryland Avenue. The team is moving to the Summit-University area.

The resolution is sponsored by five of the seven council members — Dan Bostrom, Amy Brendmoen, Jane Prince, Rebecca Noecker and Dai Thao — and is expected to pass.

St. Paul staffs fire stations with four-person paramedic and fire-suppression units.

Three stations also staff an additional two-person paramedic unit: Station 8 at 1924 West Como Ave.; Station 8 at 65 E. 10th St. downtown; and Station 9 at 1624 E. Maryland Ave., south of the Prosperity Heights neighborhood.

Because service calls have increased, the fire department plans to discontinue the super medic service at Station 9 and establish one at Station 5, at 860 Ashland Ave. off Victoria Street, north of Summit Avenue. The fire department is reacting to anticipated development near the Green Line light rail and in the southwestern part of the city, from the old Ford plant site in Highland Park to the Snelling-Midway development around the future Major League Soccer stadium.

The city council resolution notes that “service needs in the vicinity of Station 9 have not decreased so moving the super medic unit … leaves that area unacceptably underserved.”

The resolution asks the mayor’s office to amend the 2016 budget and find funding for both super medic teams by March 2, or have the city’s finance director appear before the council on that date “to report on his efforts to identify revenues for this purpose and to offer alternative options.”

The resolution does not note the estimated cost of maintaining two super medic teams.

“We are discussing with council members their concerns,” said mayoral spokeswoman Tonya Tennessen. “As council passed a budget with a levy limit in December, we want to better understand their intentions so we can prepare for the mayor’s 2017 budget proposal.”