The Silver Lake Fire Department will begin seeking fees for use of its service in case case of crashes, for intentionally set fires and false alarms and for repeat false alarms after the passage of an ordinance recently approved by the Silver Lake Village Board.
The ordinance sets out a schedule of fees for the services. Trustee Sue Gerber was the only vote against passing the ordinance.
The first section of the ordinance relates to fees for emergency response on roads, public waterways and railroads. The owner of each vehicle receiving services from the department will be charged $500 for response of any fire apparatus. Personnel charges will be billed at the actual rates rendered and a 5 percent administration charge added. Firefighters will collect the billing info and the clerk/treasure will administrate the billing and payment.
Fees for emergency service related to intentionally set fires and false alarms are:
- Engine: $400.00 per hour per engine.
- Ambulance: $300.00 per hour per ambulance.
- Ladder Truck: $400.00 per hour per ladder truck.
- Tanker Fire Truck: $300.00 per hour per tanker fire truck.
- Grass Fire Truck: $250.00 per hour per grass fire truck.
- Command Car: $150.00 per hour per command car.
- Equipment Squad: $300.00 per hour per equipment squad.
Regarding repeat false alarms, the ordinance states that after the third false alarm, a letter will be sent to the homeowner notifying them that they will be billed for any subsequent false alarm calls. The billing will be as follows:
- 1. 4th incident will incur a $175.00 fee.
- 2. Each subsequent incident will incur a $500.00 fee.
Trustee Sotiria Wilbur said at the meeting at which the ordinance passed that the village’s law was passed on one in use in Union Grove.
Wow..does Silver Lake even have a ladder truck? So, if someone hits me, or lets say I accidentally hit someone, I will also receive a bill for $500 for an accident that will most likely result in fines anyways?
So basically, if you’re in a car accident and it’s not your fault, you’ll get a bill? Often times, fire trucks show up even if they’re not needed. And what if you refuse treatment from the rescue squad because you’re not injured? Still receive a bill? This idea is flawed.
The ordinance says those receiving service will be billed. If your car leaks all over the street and the FD has to clean it up, it seems clear that you, or more likely your insurance company, will get a bill. Is just responding rendering service? That’s not as clear to me. Probably a good follow-up question for me to pursue. As for rescue, I believe you aren’t billed if you refuse treatment. Bear in mind that SL Rescue is a separate entity from the village.
“Matt” and “Wow” you are correct in your assumptions. You will get a bill anytime that fire engine leaves that station. Even a small fender bender, in which a passerby calls 9-1-1 and they dispatch fire, you can be certain that an extra bill is on the way. They need to generate new revenue because they are planning on expanding the fire station to add living quarters and hiring full time firefighters. So the budget that is currently at $57,000 will be shooting past $300,000 for 2 or 3 true fire calls a year and a handful of low speed car accidents. I guess they needed that $27,000 a year they used to pay Silver Lake Rescue to help offset that budget increase at the cost of lowering the standard of care for the people of Silver Lake. What good is “a free” paramedic rig from Salem when it takes them 12 to 15 minutes to get to you in good weather, and 25-30 minutes in bad weather when you’re having a heart attack or bleeding out from your high speed car crash that you’re now going to have to pay an extra $500 dollars for. Hopefully you have a zero deductible on your insurance plan.
So during this fall burning season if I walk inside my house to say use the bathroom and someone drives by and sees smoke from my burning leaves and calls 911, the fire department will show up and I will be billed? That’s great. Aren’t our taxes high enough in Silver Lake?
“Taxes to Skyrocket”, thanks for the additional info. I’m glad I don’t live in Silver Lake. In fact, I will be sure to purposely avoid the area from now on, including their local businesses (sorry, DQ) for fear of getting in a fender bender and having a bill arrive.
Also, I was in a car “accident” in Twin Lakes a while back while stopped at a stop sign. Someone hit me, TL rescue showed up, I refused treatment and I still received a $200 bill. After a few phone calls and sending them a nasty letter, they wrote off the bill and I did not have to pay it. Still a hassle nonetheless.
@Burning Season: I’m not a spokesman for the village or department, but I don’t see references in the ordinance to a fee for putting out fires — only crashes and repeat and intentional false alarms.
I’m concern that I will be billed for a fire response I didn’t need and called in by someone else.
It sure appears as the Village Board of Silver Lake is going to eliminate the Resque Squad.The Salem Fire and Resque will be smiling all the way to the bank as you will be paying them for transport and the Silver Lake Fire Dept for Fire trucks and first responders. It is nothing but a joke in Salem as in regargs to a call at the High School they have had (9) NINE vihicles respond to a call of a personn having trouble breathing!!!! The village President and his Adhock commitee have this all figured out, what do you expect when 2 firefighters from the city of Kenosha , one who doese’nt live in the village and other representitives of the fgire dept are on the commitee.
These fees don’t make any sense… Isn’t the cost of the firetruck already figured in the town budget? Isn’t the cost of the personnel already determined? The truck cost the same sitting at the station or on the street, except for fuel and maintenance. The paramedics hour rate is the same either sitting at the station or responding to a call.
What one doesn’t want ems support, why should one be obligated to pay for it?
So you are saying that you are willing to have to few people show up for a Rescue call that are at a level below what will be offered??? In reference to the outrage at 9 vehicles that show up, I can assure you that one is a Paramedic vehicle designed to get care quickly to a patient prior to the ambulance arriving. This vehicle is equipped with all the drug and equipment to start life saving care. We are very thankful for the service we are provided by our Fire Department. I think neighboring villages jealousy is getting out of hand.
@Salem Resident, I don’t know where you get your information from, but as far as rescue service goes in the village of Silver Lake there is no shortage of services, or lesser care provided. Trust me we have nothing to be jealous of in Silver Lake. We currently have a 5 minute response time and for those instances where a Silver Lake resident needs paramedic interventions (less than 2% of calls) Silver Lake Rescue has contracts with most of the surrounding paramedic squads. Silver Lake will pick up an intercept on the way to the hospital, which does not delay transport, and in fact this has the added benefit of not taking a Salem paramedic squad out of service because one paramedic jumps onboard the Silver Lake ambulance with a medication bag. Also Salem doesn’t carry a lot of the pain medication that other paramedic squads carry. Medix , Spring Grove and For Lake carry fentanyl for pain management. I’m allergic to Morphine, so when I crushed my foot when the trailer hitch slid off my truck, Silver Lake Rescue, instead of calling Salem Rescue, which only carries morphine, had a Medix unit intercept us at Breezy Hill because I couldn’t have morphine and Medix was able to provide me the fentanyl I needed for pain. And if you think that Salem Rescue is coming in here for free, you are sadly mistaken. Paddock Lake would go nuts knowing they have to pay $190,000 plus for paramedic services while the village of Silver Lake would get it for free. What about the tax payers of Salem, why should they have to pay for paramedic rescue services while the people of Silver Lake don’t. It’s going to cost the tax payers of Salem MORE to cover Silver Lake and their service will suffer. What happens when multiple Salem units respond to a car crash in Silver Lake and you have an accident on Hwy C? Tell me how the people of Salem are going to benefit? Now they will have to call in other ambulances from Bristol or Pleasant Prairie, which will delay transport. For all it’s worth, it will be the people of Silver Lake that have the final say. They need to start attending the village board meetings and in the end elections are in April. They voted before to remove the last village board, they can do so again….
@Just another tax: The problem is that the fire department has not saved up one cent towards the purchase of a new fire engine. When the fire station burned down 13 years ago, all the equipment was purchased new. Now it’s getting old and some of it needs to be replaced. But instead of looking at a decent used fire engine, they want to buy a new shiny one for $600,000 to $700,000. But worse yet, they never planned for the future. Other surrounding fire departments plan ahead for new purchases. For example, the Town of Wheatland has a budget of around $107,000. Every year they put $50,000 away in a special truck fund. In 2008 they took delivery on a new Ladder Truck and were able to completely pay it off without raising taxes one dime. You figure that means they operate on the same $57,000 budget as Silver Lake Fire, but they cover 25 square miles, have a huge section of Hwy 50 they cover with multiple accidents, have multiple structure fires, multiple grass fire, but are still able to stay within their budget. Trust me; you will see all sorts of fee’s being implemented in the future. When you propose a $250,000 increase in the SLFD budget, that money has got to come from somewhere. That tiny bit they get from Silver Lake Rescue’s budget wouldn’t even pay for new tires on all their trucks.
1st I would like to know where someone comes up with a $300,000 budget for the FD. Where did they get their info and their FACTS??? I don’t see anywhere that this is the case at all. As a matter of fact, I haven’t heard that the budget talks for next year have even started yet. 2nd, Union Grove bills for this exact thing and as a matter of fact, this is the exact ordinance they use, with some very small differences (false alarm fees and adding vehicles to the listing). 3rd, the Village Board has been playing cleanup for the last 2 years due to the past boards decisions. If anyone was at the budget meeting 2 years ago, the room was full and several citizens had ideas of how to cut the budget, and after two hours, President Johnson said that the budget is what it is, and there was nothing that he was going to do about it since it was due in the morning. Lastly, the board did put away some (not much) money last year toward replacement vehicles and have asked the FD to look into used vehicles.
@Get your facts Straight – For a board member not to know what it is going to cost to pay at LEAST 3 full time firefighters, is par for the coarse I guess for a village trustee.
Let’s see, Greg Galich in a village meeting clearly stated they (SLFD) wanted to have 3 to 4 full time firefighters on during the day. Let’s sit down and due some quick math, not including taxes and workman’s comp fees. 3 firefighters @ $11 bucks an hour (same as what rescue members are paid) x 12 hour shift (nights are Paid per Call) for 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year would cost $144,540 dollars, you add that forth person onto that budget and you get $192,720 dollars, not including any other expenses such as Social Security and Workman’s Comp cost. Now you throw in the proposed living quarters they want to build and you are looking at another $40,000 to $50,000 thousand dollars. It’s going to cost at least 10 thousand to paint and re-letter those used ambulances and then you add on top of that your $57,000 dollar a year budget for gas, heating, and maintenance for all those fire apparatuses. That gives you a rough total of $309,720 dollars, again not including payroll tax and workman’s comp which is very expensive for firefighters. That doesn’t include the cost of someone doing the billing, and keeping the books either.
This entire mess started, remember, because it was brought up that the fire department couldn’t make day time calls, and the solution was to PAY them, so now you see where the numbers come from? Oh ya, that’s right, you were “going to work out those details later.” Yep, those taxes are going to skyrocket!!
We got all these options from the adhoc committee, but what about the missing option of getting rid of the fire department? Under state statues, a village under the population of 6,000 is not required to have a fire department. In 2011 the fire department responded to only 25 to 30 fire calls, such as CO alarms, burn violations and 2 or 3 low speed car crashes. For $57,000 a year I bet Salem would be more than happy to send a fire truck to Silver Lake. That’s almost $2,000 a call for them.
Then the village could sell most of that un-used equipment, pay off those loans for paving the roads and the treatment plant and not have to worry about the FD being an endless money pit.
Silver Lake already has automatic response area’s (ARA’s) setup with Salem, Wheatland and Randall for structure fires, so if a building does catch fire, you have plenty of help and coverage on the way. Paddock Lake has Salem Fire cover their area, and Silver Lake is just as close to the Trevor and Wilmot fire stations.
They say they don’t have the members to cover the daytime shifts anyway, so instead of the village budget growing by leaps and bounds (right now the FD budget for Somers is over 64% of the village’s total budget) that saved money could be used to maybe, pay a good attorney to start annexing areas of Salem towards Hwy 50 and around the lake. Also they wouldn’t be kicking out Silver Lake Rescue, which is doing a great job, employs several people that live in the village, and who’s employees’ spend lots of money at all the local businesses. Unless the village decides to start growing, the businesses in town will continue to suffer and the village will continue to slowly die…
so, when the fire dept burns down again, who gets billed?
I understand the equipment is 13 years old, but with proper maintenance, those things should last a very long time. Especially with as little use as they get, compared to a real city.
Its hard to not be a proud Silver Lake resident, I mean, how many other villages in the area have a police to resident ratio like we do. A crappy downtown area, a beach infested with weeds, and tanks across from a park that are leaking. Dont forget, because no long term residents from the area have, we are probably one of the only towns in the country who have had their fire dept burn to the ground. BUT, we have some very expensive, shiny new pavement at the village hall, with straight parking lines. Because that’s important.
Just let Randall annex Silver Lake…
Keep the Rescue Squad as is, let Randall Fire cover the rest…
@Tedd – We need intelligent people like you to attend our village board meeting. I’m serious, way to think outside the box!! Our village has done nothing but push private businesses out of the village.
I’ll give you a perfect example of how smart they board is. Last year they went out and spent over a $1000 dollars for a time clock. They had it for only a few months and POW, an electrical surge burns up the clock. They decided against purchasing the extended warranty when they initially bought the clock. So after several months without a time clock, they finally purchased another clock for over a $1,000 dollars and again they didn’t buy the warranty, but instead they plugged it into a cheesy five dollar “surge protected” power strip. Not like they need to have one, but Soti hate’s the police and wanted to make sure they didn’t “cheat” the public.
I guess she didn’t realize that the police call into county dispatch when they begin and end their shifts. The village at any time can easily request these records from the county.
So instead of “saving” the tax payers any money, this time clock is costing them a boat load of extra money in overtime and extra pay for the officers. See instead of the officer being logged off when they call into county, which they did religiously so they wouldn’t be dispatched to another call once they were done with their shift, even though they would stay after usually a half hour to sometimes several hours because of paperwork and follow up work, now they punch out when they are done with all that writing and the village has now ended up paying for all that extra time they never had to do before.
They could of saved all that wasted money on the time clock’s and extra pay for the officers and gave it to the fire department, but then again, the police actually do work in the village. Tedd, stop at the fire department sometime, the trucks are so dirty, that if you are a firefighter you would be embarrassed to show the public these trucks. There is so much sand and dirt in the back of their equipment van that it’s an insult to the village tax payers how the equipment is taken care of. Throwing more money at the fire department isn’t going to fix it either….
I don’t have an issue with the fire Dept… It’s a job that requires a great deal of time and dedication from the members. I’m sure all the SLFD members have full time jobs and being a firefighter just takes time away from family and the other import things in life. Dont be quick to throw the FD members under the bus. I doubt they have much actual say in the matter.
However, I think the “consolidation experts” from KFD and Randall fire are a joke.
Do a little digging to see what I mean…it’s not that hard.
I also think it’s a huge waste of taxpayers money to have 5/6 units respond for
every incident in Salem. A senior citizen who takes a fall and just needs a bit of help getting up does not need 5/6 vehicles to respond. I think if the Salem residents knew how their tax money is being wasted they would be enraged. Cost of fuel, unnecessary wear on vehicles that cost well north of $400,000 and the chance of the equipment really being needed someplace else equates to time lost traveling to a real incident where seconds really do matter. JMHO
@Tedd – No disrespect towards anyone on the Fire Department that volunteers their time. These people do not get paid (at the moment), and if they do, it’s not very much. However, with that being said, the village president feels the need to make this a full time fire department and the board members are the ones that are throwing Silver Lake Rescue under the bus.
How many people know in Silver Lake that Twin Lakes Rescue is also a private non-profit organization, just like Silver Lake Rescue, and that Twin Lakes Fire is owned by the village? The exact same setup, but they seem to have their act together. You don’t hear Twin Lakes fire being dispatched to any of the rescue calls, UNLESS rescue asks for additional help, which is how it should be! This keeps the costs down as well as having additional people ready to respond if another call comes in. In fact, Silver Lake Rescue at one time would tone off the fire department if no additional help was needed; however, they received a letter from Cyndy Schwebke stating that they are NOT to tone off fire under any circumstances. It seems she was upset that after 3 tone outs to the DQ in town for a fire, and no response from Silver Lake Fire, rescue told fire to stand down because the freezer that was smoking was already unplugged and was being moved outside by the owner.
I live near the Oakwood Shores area, and they had a call last week with fire. Rescue was there in minutes, had the patient loaded and was driving away when the fire truck showed up. What a waste of tax payer money and resources!! It shows you how vindictive this new board has become. They are not in touch with the people of the village.
Maybe the village board of Silver Lake should talk to the village board of Twin Lakes and find out how they make their Emergency Services work. That’s right, it’s much easier listening to a bunch of retired, or soon to be retired, KFD firemen hoping to get that part-time chiefs job.
How come these KFD members were never around Silver Lake to volunteer when they were making big bucks in for city of Kenosha? Now they show up, and are trying to destroy a perfectly smooth running organization for their personal gain.
If all they want is a white helmet, I’m sure we can but the firefighters boot out at the next fund raiser and buy them each a white helmet, it would save the tax payers a boat load of money… Heck, let’s make them Chiefs of the Silver Lake Treatment plant!
Silver Lake Rescue, why don’t you put a bid in to do rescue services in Paddock Lake? Its crazy the amount of emergency vehicles that come screaming through town all the time! We made the mistake of getting rid of all our services long ago, and now they keep jacking up the price for EVERYTHING!! We are at the mercy of the Sherriff’s department, and when something happens in Western Kenosha County, “our” dedicated police coverage leaves the village! For the past 4 years the costs we pay to Salem for fire and rescue keeps going UP and UP!! And we have to take it because who else is going to do it?
If the Village of Silver Lake is dumb enough to kick you guys out, come and bid out your services to us!!
@The (not so ticking) Time Clock
Instead of putting words in MY mouth I will say that I have never, and will not say anything bad about our Police Dept. I am happy that they are here to protect us and are here if we need them and have never questioned their integrity or that they “cheated”. As for them clocking in with the county. Yes, I am aware that they call into dispatch and by using the timeclock, it doesn’t prevent them from being “off the clock” even though they are punched in. But it is a policy we put into force and if we didn’t have everyone do it, someone would complain that they were required when the PD was not.
Also, the timeclock went dead due to a power surge in the bldg. It was not out for months as stated and did not cost over $1000. We had the clock in place for over a year, before this issue occurred and were never offered a warranty as you state. So you make statements like you are aware of the situation and try to scue the truth, so whoever you are, if you are going to put words into my mouth and make comments in a public forum, please get your information right. As a matter of fact, I put my name to this post, you should have done the same or been man or woman enough to come to me directly with your concerns. Its easy to make comments and accusations without having to be accountable for them. Lets see if you come forward!!!
I live in teh village and know many of the members past and present and I just wanted to say that unless everyone knew the whole story about the merger and the ordinances they shouldn’t post anything on here. From what I was told, and by a reliable source I may add, rescue declined to even discuss a merger with the village. I have had many family members on the fire department and have given many years to the village and the rescue squad was always part of the village until politics got in the way of what was the most important…the patient. EMS belongs in the fire house not as a private corporation and should be at the highest level oof care possible. I believe that Silver Lake Rescue has survived by getting along at their level but is it adequate?? Maybe…maybe not, sure most calls don’t require a paramedic but maybe they should have because maybe they do just enough to get by for the patient when actually they could have benefitted more having the medic there. As for the rescue squad sending out letters to all of the village citizens to whine about getting kicked out, maybe they should have not listened so much to one or two individuals on theire department or shall I say “company” that maybe more information would have been filtered down to the rescue employees instead of being kept in the dark. When is that last time that a president of a corporation could run another corporation that offers similar services. Seems like a hidden agenda to me..
I went to village hall to read the ordinance 499 that seems to be a touchy subject and after reading the proposed it seems that only bills would be going to an insurance company for items that were used and need replacing. EMS bills patient’s insurance for services rendered so why shouldn’t the fire department. If the budget has to replace all the equipment and materials used the village budget would have been alot higher than it is. I had asked the village clerk how this was going oto work and she tried to explain it to me and then forwarded me the fire chief’s phone number and I was more informed and satisfied with my answer that I had received. Maybe more people shoudl do the same instead of bitching on here!!
@Soti – You must think I’m an idiot!! As a business owner in town, I’ve seen how this board has already run out Faber Construction, Schenning Insurance, and now Silver Lake Rescue. You have to be on drugs to think I’m going to put a name on the post.
You talk about coming forward and being open, well the village board held an illegal meeting September 19th, after the regular village board meeting. Sue Gerber and Pat Dunn had already left when you guys closed and locked the doors. Where are the minutes as to what was discussed in this meeting? The rest of the village board was there, including the village attorney. Does Al Bryner have to file a freedom of information act to get the minutes of this meeting?
You talk about coming directly to you if you have concerns, well I have seen how you’ve treated the people at Rescue, they had concerns, and you guys didn’t answer ONE of the 25 or so questions they submitted to you. Instead, you try and hide this from the public, and then start talking to Salem behind Rescue’s back. You cannot deny it, it’s in the minutes of the September 19th village board meeting that discussions had begun with Greg Galich and Kyle Stoxen going over and talking to Salem.
Why don’t you let the people of Silver Lake decide? Man-up and put it to a referendum on April’s ballet? You give me one instance of when government has taken over a business, that it has done any good? Amtrak, nope, that’s a money pit. Greyhound, nope that too is a money pit. GM and Chrysler? – Ya, not so good either.
Instead of wasting tax payer money on expanding the fire department, try something profound for a change and make cuts on a wasteful program, that you clearly state isn’t working. Get rid of one of the engines, the equipment van, 4 wheeler, 2 ambulances and one of the boats. Maybe replace those with a small mini-pumper / crash truck for those burn violations and small fender benders. This would decrease the budget immensely, and still provide the needed coverage without being such a tax burden on the people. If in the future the village DOES begin to grow, then you can look at expanding. But in the meantime, CUT the budget, start putting money in the bank to replace old equipment and use MABAS, which is why it was developed.
Galich and his bunch of merry men in open meetings have stated that business isn’t coming into this village because we don’t have a big enough fire department, that is not the case, in fact, if my business starts on fire, let it burn, my insurance payout will cover way more than what it’s worth. Shoot, all my neighbors say the same thing, since this economy took a dive, most of our homes are underwater.
Don’t destroy a private business that actually provides awesome care and a price that’s unbelievable to the village. Don’t make the same mistake Paddock Lake made farming out all the services to Salem, they now will never be able to go back.
If you truly care about this village, then let the people decide, put it to a vote of the entire community, not just the village board……
@The BS needs to stop – I received the letter from Silver Lake Rescue, and I don’t see a problem with it. The letter stated what the village board was deciding to do and asked the people who, are going to be affected by their decision, to get involved. I suspect that the majority of the village people didn’t even know that they were going to be losing their local rescue coverage.
No one is being denied paramedic service, so that is a dead issue. If it’s needed, you will get it. As far as EMS belonging in the firehouse, that is NOT true. In fact many smaller communities are opting to have private ambulance services come in, and many larger services are also doing it as well. Small local towns such as Dover, Lions, and William Bay all use a private ambulance service to augment their volunteer fire services. The city of Milwaukee uses Curtis, Bell and other private ambulance services to supply the city with EMS coverage.
How is bringing in Salem adding EMS to the fire department. Salem is not part of Silver Lake Fire is it? So your argument doesn’t make any sense. You’re replacing one service for another, that isn’t in the village, doesn’t support the local business, and in fact will impact the lives of several of its employee’s that live in the village.
Also, you cannot bill a patient twice for services. Insurance only pays one bill for EMS transport; they will not accept two bills, one from Salem and one from the village. So you are saying that not only will the people of the village have to pay Salem, they will also be getting a separate bill from the Silver Lake Fire Department. WOW! I will make sure I call a private ambulance service to transport anyone in my family, in fact, I happen to know a great one, and it’s in the village I live in.
Spin in it all you want, you know the adhoc report is a joke. Why doesn’t the village post it on their website for everyone to see? It has 5 options that are just cut and pastes of the first option.
You bring up all this paramedic need, but option ‘A’ was to merge fire and rescue, that wouldn’t of brought up the level of care to paramedic, it would just fix a temporary money problem that the fire department has, and in two years the ‘combined’ fire and rescue department would be broke again, and Salem would be coming in and taking over, charging $200,000 or more a year just like Paddock Lake.
As far as rescue declining to even talk, you can look up the minutes of every village board meeting that Silver Lake Rescue attended, and it was clearly stated by their president that they are willing to talk. The village board even asked them for questions and concerns and they submitted a list of about 25 questions, and not even 1 of them was answered! This village board always had another agenda, and merging with rescue was just a cover. They knew they didn’t have a plan in place on how to merge, and then with none of the questions answered that Silver Lake asked, they gave them an ultimatum, you either merge, or you will be out.
So don’t be upset now that they have asked the people to become involved with the decision. The residences of the village should have been involved a long time ago, and as stated before, this decision should be made by the people of Silver Lake, and not by retired fire fighters from Kenosha looking for a job!
In response to the comment from “The BS needs to Stop”
Lets discuss some items here:
1. You state the rescue (Silver Lake Rescue Squad) declined to even discuss a merger. —- Once the Ad Hoc committee submited its recomendations to the Village Board, it was agreed upon by the Village Board to form a committee consisting of 2 representatives of Silver Lake Fire, 2 representatives of Silver Lake Rescue and the Village of Silver Lake Emergency services committee consisiting of Mike Decker, Pat Dunn and Cyndy Schwebke. The first meeting of this body was on May 23rd, 2012 and discussion lasted 2 hours and 14 minutes, second meeting was held on June 27th, 2012 and lasted 54 minutes for a total of 3 hours and 14 minutes. I recieved on June 29th, 2012 a certified letter from chairperson of the emergency services committee and village trustee Cyndy Schwebke stateing “that the talks have been productive but we will need an answer of yes or no from the Silver Lake Rescue Squad wishes to participate in the merger. This was after 3 hours and 8 minutes of discussion, PLEASE GO ONLINE TO THE VILLAGE OF SILVER LAKE WEBSITE AND LOOK FOR EMERGENCY GOVERNMENT COMMITTEE MEETING for May 23rd and June 27th – you can read the minutes there, after 3 hours and 8 minutes of discussion the Silver Lake Rescue Squad was to make a decision on what to do with the village and plan A. That in my mind is well not enough time to form a good decision and with little information to bring back to the membership of Silver Lake Rescue Squad. I answered the certified letter from the Village with a response that the Board of Directors of Silver Lake Rescue Squad would like to meet with the emergency services committee, that letter was answered with a leter from chairperson Cyndy Schwebke stating that if we had anymore ideas to please write them down and they will get back to us. We were givin 3 hours and 8 minutes to form a decision.
2. You speak of politics getting in the way, let me first off say I was not part of nor involved about why the Rescue Squad spun off from the fire department nor do I care, I am working on what in right now, there is nothing that bringing up the past with help with solving anything in the future.
3 You state that politics got in the way of whats important… the patient, let me tell ya pal I have and will always give 110% to every patient I touch, I will put Silver Lake Rescue Squad Inc. up againts the most seasoned of crews, bring it on. Quite frankly I think patient care has absolutly nothing to do with politics, the outside world or anything else for that matter, when a patient is in our care they are getting 110% or our attension.
3. You state EMS belongs in the Fire House and not as a private corporation, do you understand that 60% of all EMS providers in Wisconsin are stand alone agencies. Does that mean that if the ambulance is in the fire house people get better care, I don’t think where an ambulance is kept makes it a better service.
4. You state that you believe that Silver Lake Rescue does just enough to get by, maybe our service is adequate maybe not, maybe a patient could benifit by having a medic there, maybe this and maybe that, are you saying that Silver Lake Rescue is substandard that we are not advancing fast enough, did you know that of the many levels of service that EMS can provide 291 services are at the EMT Intermeidiate Technician Level and 151 are at the Paramedic or I99 level, that does not include the 341 First responder organizations out there either, so are you stating that 632 ambulance providers are substandard with there maybe-maybe not service. Could we benifit from a medic, could we benifit from a helicopter, could we benifit from a hospital right here in the village, how about a level one trauma center – right here in the Village. I understand what your saying but there are always maybe’s – I think the village residents should decide what they would like as in terms of service. EMS is full of maybe’s.
5. Sending out a letter was discussed by the board of directors of Silver Lake Rescue, I think that the the letter was not in anyway bashing anyone, quite frankly all it repaeted was what the Village Board agreed to do and asked citizens to become involved, I don’t see anywere on that letter that we whined. I would also like to state to ya pal that information was never kept in the dark, along with myself, the Chief and also several members of the membership attend many of the Ad Hoc committee meetings, at every meeting we exchanged the information the village board had sent, correspondence and we shared ideas. Also throughout this entire event the board of directors has been involved and along with that they also assisted with information and communication. I would like to ask you for some proof, persons, names, anyone who would like to state that I or the “one or two individuals” witheld any information – its all right there in the Ad Hoc report and the 2 emergency government committee meetings are all there in black and white.
6. Now this one I am going to be a little candid on as you are or must be talking about me – Dan Gerber, you really must get a tighter grip on your horses. First of yes I am the President of Silver Lake Rescue and yes I work for another corporation, I am the operations manager of a divison of a rather large company, I don’t quite see the comparison there but ok its your story – There is no hidden agenda, look at Koch Brothers they run many many coporations – but if you think something is hidden ok just ask. I will answer to the best of my abilities.
6. Ordinace 499 I have not become familur with – that ordinace was passed by the Village Board and is a current ordinace.
7. I am very happy that you are satisfied with the Chief’s answer about this whole thing, this is exactly why I want again to remind all residents to attend a village board meeting, talk to your trustee’s, talk to your fire chief and rescue chief and its members – become engaged in local government and make your voice heard thats all I want residents to do.
Thank you all for your time,
Daniel W. Gerber
Daniel Gerber
I want to apologize for a typing error, under #4 I stated 29I services are at the EMT-Intermediate level and that is incorrect, 29I services are at the EMT-Itermediate and Basic level. I apologize for my mistake.
Dan Gerber