By Dan Goldberg/For The Star-Ledger March 17, 2010, 8:19PM
MOUNT OLIVE---The township council has decided that there will be no special election regarding the municipality’s volunteer rescue squads.
The council passed a resolution stating that it will disregard a petition that could have forced the township to fund its two squads through 2014, and the question will not be forwarded to the Morris County Clerk.
The council, on Tuesday night, also voted to approve a “request for proposal” (RFP) that outlines the township’s specifications for a full-time paid ambulance service.
Both votes were 6-1. Colleen Labow was the only dissenter.
The township currently contracts with Atlantic Health, a private company, Monday through Friday between 5 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Mayor David Scapicchio has called to extend that service on a full-time basis, though he is in favor of letting the squads in Flanders and Budd Lake maintain two ambulances each and serve as backups to a paid provider.
In an effort to circumvent the mayor’s plan, petitioners garnered more than 2,000 signatures, but township attorney John Dorsey advised council that the petition was an inappropriate request because it dealt with administrative issues.
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There are certain issues that cannot be legislated through referendum,” Dorsey said. “A question dealing with budget is not proper to put before voters.”
The council could have gone ahead with a non-binding referendum, which would have cost approximately $40,000.
Larry Kron, an attorney advising the volunteers said he understood but disagreed with Dorsey’s logic.
“There is no statute or case that indicates this cannot be the subject of a referendum,” Kron said. “The courts generally favor people exercising their right to referendum.”
Kron said he and the petitioners are discussing the possibility of challenging the council’s decision in court.
The decision to void the petition means there will be no meeting this Tuesday, which was originally scheduled to debate the petitioners’ request.
That left many in the overwhelmingly supportive audience surprised and disappointed.
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The council’s decision to move forward with the RFP was equally dispiriting to the standing-room only crowd.
Supporters of the volunteers repeated their concern that the switch to a full time ambulance service would not leave enough work for volunteers, who would eventually lose interest and disappear.
“If this goes through the way it has been proposed, we are going to lose our volunteers,” said Fred Detoro Sr., a Flanders resident.
Volunteers are funded with taxes and do not charge individual patients for transport. A paid service would ease the tax burden but bill patients - or their insurance - for transport to the hospital.
Labow, who has been the council’s most vocal proponent of the squads, argued that volunteers provide quality service at a reasonable cost. She also expressed concerns that contracting with a private ambulance company would shift too large a cost burden onto residents who need transport to a hospital.
Rob Greenbaum, council vice president, argued that while it might be preferable to retain volunteers, the state and economy are forcing municipalities to consider user fees for services.
“We are going to a user-based system because people are sick of being taxed,” Greenbaum said. “We have to look at what the state is forcing us to do”.
