Jamestown Deputy Fire Chief Matt Coon said fire crews found flames on the front porch, porch roof and into the second floor when they responded to 341 East Fifth Street just after 2:00 a.m. yesterday. It took crews about 30 minutes to knock down the fire.

The two adults and two children who lived in the house escaped without injury, but two cats died in the fire. No firefighters were injured.

Coon said fire officials determined “improperly discarded smoking materials” on the porch were the cause of the fire. While the front of the house was extensively damaged, Coon said it is not a total loss.

Jamestown Fire was assisted by Jamestown Police, the Board of Public Utilities, Alstar EMS, and Chautauqua County EMS.

(left to right): (seated) Mayor Eddie Sundquist, Deputy Fire Chief Matt Coon, WCA Services Systems Operations Manager Robert Hawkins, UPMC Vice President of Operations Cecil Miller, EMS Resources Manager Ron Hasson, (seated) WCA Executive Director David Thomas. Image provided by City.

JAMESTOWN – The City of Jamestown now has a new agreement in place with ALSTAR EMS to once again provide ambulance services to the community.

Jamestown Mayor Eddie Sundquist joined city deputy fire chief Matt coon and representatives from ALSTAR EMS and UPMC Chautauqua in an official contract signing ceremony this afternoon at city hall.

“We thank those at ALSTAR for their cooperation with the City over this past year as we negotiated with them the contract for this much needed service for the residents of the City of Jamestown. There are several benefits in the new contract, including that it will allow the fire department to bill insurance for calls which should result in a significant increase in monies the city collects,” Sundquist said.

The contract replaces the expired contract between the City and ALSTAR that had been in place for the past 21 years. ALSTAR Executive Director David Thomas said the agency is ecstatic to work out a new deal with the City.

“We are ecstatic to work out a new deal with the City. This deepens a long-term relationship between ALSTAR and the City, and
the benefits to both sides are numerous. I thank the City for its cooperation and openness to signing a new deal,” Thomas said.

The contract also expands services to the City by allowing the Jamestown Fire Department access to ALSTAR’s training center, access to billing services, and annual exercises between the ambulance service and the City.

Sundquist also said that there is also a reimbursement claus in the contract that will allow the city recoup costs whenever members of the fire department have to be sent out on a call.

The signing ceremony comes after the Jamestown City Council approved the contract on Monday during its October voting session.

That matter has been tabled until next month to allow for more input and discussion, especially as it pertains to the proposed 2021 city budget.

• VIEW FULL OCT. 26 AGENDA

But the council will act on several other resolutions, including a new contract with Alstar Ambulance Services to provide services to the community.  The contract will be in effect immediately and cover the next four years.

The council will also act on adopting three new employee policies:

• Minority and Women Owned Business Enterprises policy
• Disadvantaged Business Enterprise policy, and
• Limited English Enterprise and Civil Rights Complaint Procedures policy.

Earlier this month the city announced it has received $302,569 through the federal CARES Act as part of another round of funding for the Community Development Block Grant initiative. That money will be used to help local residents through a Utility Payment Assistance Program $100,000 and a Small Business Recovery Grant $157,184. The remaining portion of the funding will be paid toward the administration of the two programs.

Before the voting session at 7:30 p.m., the council will also hold a budget review session, focusing on spending for next year with the offices for the city Clerk, Treasurer, Assessor, Comptroller, Information Service, and Corporation Counsel. The budget review begins at 6:30 p.m.

Due to COVID-19, the council meeting is closed to the public but will be streamed online at the city website.

The RFP process begins as Jamestown Mayor Eddie Sundquist and his team also look to address a soon-to-be cancelled service agreement with Alstar Ambulance Services, the current EMS provider in the city that is a division of UPMC Chautauqua.

Last month Alstar announced it was cancelling its long-term agreement with the city in April. Since then, Sundquist has met with Alstar and UPMC officials to further discuss the reasons for the cancellation as well as learn more about their involvement with future EMS service in the city. A sticking point with that agreement was the amount of money Alstar would reimburse the city each time the city fire department had to respond to an EMS call, due to Alstar being unavailable or offline. In recent years, the frequency of JFD responses have gone up, meaning the amount of money Alstar has had to pay the city has also increased.

While Alstar plans to cancel its service agreement with Jamestown, it doesn’t plan to pull its operation out of the overall service area and it will continue to serve communities outside of Jamestown.

Because of the upcoming cancellation of the service agreement, Alstar could submit a proposal to the city as part of the EMS Service RFP Process. The deadline is March 11.

• AUDIO ALSO AVAILABLE AT SOUNDCLOUD

Originally airing Thursday Feb. 6, 2020.

WRFA’s Jason Sample talks with Jamestown Mayor Eddie Sundquist about various issues affecting city government, including Ambulance Service, the city’s Smart City Capital Investment Plan and the Central Garage proposal, the 2020 State of the City address, and more.

Eddie Sundquist

Jamestown Mayor Eddie Sundquist during the Jan. 27, 2020 Jamestown City Council meeting.

JAMESTOWN – Mayor Eddie Sundquist says the city is doing what it can to address a pending crisis with ambulance service in the community after Alstar Ambulance Service and UPMC Chautauqua announced last week that it was terminating its mutual aid agreement with the city.

UPMC Chautauqua’s Alstar EMS division is the primary provider of EMS transport in the city. The Jamestown Fire Department isn’t the primary ambulance service provider for the city, but fills in when Alstar is out of service.

In recent years, the fire department has been fielding more and more EMS calls. That means UPMC Chautauqua has to give the city more in reimbursement payments under the mutual aid agreement.  The hospital has said it is now terminating that agreement because it is over 20 years old and UPMC now wants to see new reimbursement rates with the city.

According to Sundquist in his 2020 State of the City report, the city was handling 50 ambulance transports a week and contracted and contracted with Alstar to be the primary ambulance provider for the city to bring that number down. However, last year alone, the city fire department did over 1,000 ambulance transports while Alstar was offline, adding the number doesn’t account for countless calls for service that brought neighboring municipalities in to assist. “This is simply not sustainable for the city,” Sundquist said.

Following Monday Night’s Jamestown City Council meeting, Sundquist gave WRFA and other members of the media update on the ambulance service situation, saying that while the city plans to meet with UPMC officials to discuss an the termination of the agreement and possibly iron out terms for a new agreement, it has also put out a Request for Proposals (RFPs) to see if another privately operated service provider would be willing to come into the community.

“At this point we are going to be working be working with Alstar to see if there is anyway we can move that relationship forward. In the meantime, we are also going to be putting out a Request for Proposal to provide an exclusive ambulance franchise for another private ambulance to come in and service our residents,” Sundquist said.

As for Alstar, Sunduist said the mutual aid agreement with the city will be terminated by mid April unless the two sides can come to agreement on new terms.

“Alstar is not leaving the area. We’ve not been given that indication. They are terminating their agreement with the city in April. They’ve given us a 90-day notice,” Sundquist said.

Late last year former Jamestown Mayor Sam Teresi – along with Deputy Fire Chief Sam Salemme and Public Safety Director Harry Snellings – had put forward various options to consider in order to address the growth of EMS calls being handled by the city as Alstar continues to roll back its service in the community. Among those suggestions was contracting with other private companies, which could have a projected net cost of $450,000 for the city. Another option would be for the city to provide its own in house ambulance service, which could cost as much as $1.5 million for the city – something both Teresi and Sundquist have stated is unlikely to occur.

In the meantime, the city Fire Department will still have to contend with increased EMS calls in the near future. That means it will likely need new ambulances to add to its fleet, something that was included in the $13.6 million 2019 Smart City Capital Investment Plan the city council approved last year and which included borrowing up to $12.6 million to help pay for it.

Under the agreement, Alstar EMS would refund the city a certain dollar amount for each emergency call the Jamestown Fire Department handles. However, according to the paper, Jamestown Mayor Eddie Sundquist is confirming that Alstar has notified the city that it has optioned out of the mutual aid agreement.

UPMC Chautauqua is the primary provider of EMS services in the city and hospital officials reportedly say they feel it is time to renegotiate the agreement, which goes back more than 20 years and which was put in place when it was WCA hospital.

Alstar EMS is the primary provider of EMS transport in the city but the city fire department or other neighboring fire companies are responsible for answering EMS calls when Alstar is unavailable. In recent years that has become more and more frequent and as a result, the hospital has been paying more and more refund money to the city.

Because of the change in the mutual aid agreement between the city and Alstar EMS, Sundquist said the city is now on a tighter timeline to develop a request for proposals to possibly find a new ambulance service provider.
During the Jamestown city council’s work session on Jan. 13, Sundquist said city officials were in the process of drafting a request for proposal notification to be sent to ambulance service providers.

Another option would be to have the city provide ambulance services in-house with the purchase of two new ambulance vehicles, something that was put forward as a possibility by former Mayor Sam Teresi late last year. However, according to the Post-Journal, Sundquist has said that is no longer being considered at this time.

JAMESTOWN – Mayor Sam Teresi Monday night presented members of the Jamestown City Council with new information involving the possibility of the city expanding its public safety services to the community.

Jamestown Mayor Sam Teresi during the city council’s Sept. 23, 2019 work session.

Teresi offered new details on his proposed Smart City Capital Investment Program he first brought forward two weeks ago that involves the city using some of the money from that $12.9 million capital investment proposal for the establishment of a city-operated Emergency Medical Services department.

• READ THE FULL CITY EMS PROPOSED OPTIONS REPORT

The mayor said he is bringing the proposal forward due to the current privately operated ambulance service – Alstar Ambulance Services – ratcheting down its services in the community in during the past several months. Teresi said the primary reason for the reduction in service by Alstar is attributed to an inability by the company to turn a strong profit because many of the calls they respond to are covered by Medicaid and Medicare, which provides a low reimbursement rate, especially in rural communities like Chautauqua County.

Teresi said that when the private sector is unable to meet the public safety needs of the community, it is time for the local government to step forward.

“This is an effort to acknowledge there is a challenge and a problem and to get prepared to deal with it if we ultimately have to. We hope that we don’t, but we can’t bury our heads in the sand and say that there’s not a challenge and an issue out there,” Teresi said. “This is something that is not an alternative for us. There’s no choice here. This is bare essential public safety and if the private sector is not going to respond and provide, the public sector that is charged and tasked with the public safety of the community must respond.”

Left to right: Jamestown Deputy Fire Chief Sam Selemme, Public Safety Director/Police Chief Harry Snellings, and City Comptroller Joe Bellitto.

As part of the presentation, both of Jamestown Public Safety director Harry Snellings and deputy fire chief Sam Salemme went over information regarding why more medical emergency calls are being dealt with currently by the Jamestown Fire Department, with the primary reason being that there’s been an increased trend of Alstar being “out of service” – which means it is unable to respond to emergency calls at any given point during the day. According to their report, the average number of times Alstar has reported being out of service has increased during the past few months and the length of time the out of service designation lasted ranged anywhere from four hours to 17 hours in August alone.

In addition to reviewing the number of increased calls the fire department has had to deal with the past several months, the report also broke down the cost associated with EMS calls.  Using that information, City Comptroller Joe Bellitto went over four options for the city to consider if there came a time that it had to offer a regular and permanent ambulance service to the community. The options ranged from having the city fire department take over services, to establishing a a local development corporation to operate the service.

Bellitto also explained that no matter what plan the city went with, there would likely be an additional net cost to taxpayers – ranging between $400,000 and $1.5 million – with utilizing the city fire department as the most expensive because of the labor contracts that are in place with its members.

Members of the Jamestown City Council during their Sept. 23, 2019 work session.

Following the presentation, city councilman Andy Liuzzo expressed his appreciation for the work that went into the report, but requested the council hold off on making any decisions on how to proceed until after the new year when a new mayor is in place and when there will also likely be new city council members. Liuzzo is one of three candidates running to fill the open seat left by Teresi, who announced in February he would not be seeking reelection.

Ranking councilman and finance committee chairman Tony Dolce also asked if it was possible for the city to first have a conversation with UPMC Chautauqua and Alstar to see if there was any other way to address the problem without rolling out a new EMS program from the city.

It was not determined if or when the council would act on borrowing the money needed to establish the ambulance service. The current council has four voting sessions remaining for this year, including this month’s voting session, scheduled for next Monday, sept. 30.

On Monday morning the union representing 50 firefighters in the city released a statement saying the Jamestown Fire Department is understaffed and unable to properly handle everyday emergencies within the city.

Since 2009, the union says the number of calls in the city have “steadily increased” while the number of firefighters available to respond have been reduced.

“The lack of commitment by Jamestown officials to properly address the minimum NFPA standards as well as failure to address the increase of emergency ambulance requests continues to be a major liability for the city and places our citizens at even more rise,” the union said in a press release.

While the Union spent a great deal of time Monday going on the attack, Jamestown Mayor Sam Teresi explained during Monday Night’s Jamestown City Council work session that he would not be responding to the concerns because the firefighters are still working without a new contract.

“Any questions to me, the administrative staff, or the city council that drags us over the line and bating us into comments about collective bargaining negotiations… we are not going to be taking that bait, because ultimately what it could do is drag the city into the improper labor practice of negotiating contracts out in public,” Teresi said.

The union specifically mentioned staffing of the department’s ambulance and ladder truck, saying there isn’t enough manpower to run both vehicles at once. That’s because an increase in the number of EMS calls in the city has forced the fire department to use its ambulance more frequently.

Teresi did acknowledge that’s been a recent challenge, but not one that is unique to Jamestown.

“The issue at hand is that the private, for-profit ambulance operator – Altar, now operated by the UPMC Chautauqua – has basically been gearing down its level of service for some time, putting more pressure on our backup transport system we have hear operated by the Jamestown Fire Department. We’ve never had a full time fire department ambulance service,” Teresi said.

The mayor said that hopefully a new plan can be rolled out locally or regionally to address the rise in EMS calls. In the meantime, he’s included two new ambulances in his Smart City Capital Investment program in order to make sure other city stations can also respond to calls if needed, rather than have all responses come out of station 1 downtown.

Firefighters handled 4,392 EMS calls last year. Of those responses, 532 patients were transported by the city’s ambulance. Currently the city fire department has 50 firefighters.

The move was an effort to raise awareness about low wages for the employees in the hopes of getting a better deal as negotiations for a new contract, starting Jan. 1, 2020, appear to have stalled.

Alstar employees are members of the SEIU Local 200 United and, according to the Post-Journal, officials said Wednesday’s picket on Foote Avenue was to shed light on the low wages the emergency medical technicians and paramedics are currently making. They say that the wages has lead to fewer employees in the ranks, causing “dangerously low” staffing levels at both ends of the county.

UPMC contracts with Alstar to provide services throughout Southern Chautauqua County.