Mayor Stifles Discussion, Refuses To Hear Citizens’ Concerns
More than 30 people packed the Cordell Community Center for Monday evening’s meeting of the city council, ostensibly to speak in support of the Cordell ambulance service.
Most of the attendees, however, were not given the opportunity to share their thoughts on the issue, as Cordell Mayor Jerry Beech took it upon himself to declare a two-person limit to the discussion, and then limited those speakers’ times to two minutes each.
The council first heard from Edward Fowler, the state operations director of Pafford EMS, who presented a formal proposal to dissolve Cordell’s ambulance service and replace it with Pafford.
The Pafford proposal included providing fully staffed and stocked ambulance services to the city, including all maintenance and affiliated costs of running the service. Pafford would provide one full-time Advanced Life Support (ALS) crew and ambulance, available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for coverage in the city. They also promised to have a back-up ambulance available when needed.
The cost to the city, according to Fowler’s proposal, would be $240,000 per year.
Following the presentation, city officials were given the opportunity to question Fowler. City administrator J.C. Moser asked if Pafford crews would attend Cordell High School football games, as Cordell EMS currently does at no cost to either the school or the city. Fowler indicated that Pafford would continue to provide that coverage at no cost.
Moser also asked what Pafford services would cost the residents who use the service. Fowler told the council that all Cordell residents would become members of Pafford EMS, which means the company would write off what ever portion of the bill is not covered by insurance. For uninsured patients, the company will write off half of the total bill, but would not speculate as to what those bills might total.
At one point during the council’s questions a member of the audience asked how Pafford would handle coverage for areas outside the city, such as Rocky and Cloud Chief, which are currently covered by Cordell EMS. After the mayor shut him down, council member Vona Hicks asked Fowler the same question. Fowler said Pafford would assume responsibility for all of the coverage currently provided by Cordell EMS, but would make every effort to secure funding from those other areas.
Kristen Dowell, Washita County Clerk, was the first to provide public comments. Dowell implored the council members to remember that more than 75 percent of Washita County voters cast ballots in favor of a sales tax to support county ambulance services in Burns Flat and Cordell. The sales tax collected for those two ambulance services from October 2019 through May 2020 totaled nearly $750,000. Should Cordell dissolve its ambulance service, as Sentinel did in 2017, those funds would be given exclusively to the only municipal ambulance service in the county, Burns Flat. Additionally, as also happened with Sentinel, everything purchased with county funds would be reallocated to the Burns Flat ambulance service.
“I would like for them to remember all the voters of Washita County and Cordell that voted for the sales tax to support this service, a hometown service with people you know and trust to take care of you,” Dowell told The Beacon after the meeting.
Cordell EMS Director Devin Humphrey was next to address the council. He provided financial reports from the ambulance service, demonstrating that the department is running well within its established budget, a budget much lower than the $240,000 the city would need to spend annually to replace it with Pafford.
Humphrey questioned the mayor as to the motivation behind making the change. Beech retorted that there had been several complaints about the service and that the city was exploring its options. Beech wouldn’t say what any of those complaints were, but told Humphrey, “we’re not going to argue.”
Council member Buddy Holman responded to Beech’s remark, saying Humphrey wasn’t arguing, he was looking for answers.
Humphrey then reminded Beech of a conversation between the two of them back in February, in which Beech reportedly told Humphrey that the city wasn’t considering outsourcing the ambulance service and that everything was “fine.” In the meeting, however, Beech said the idea of outsourcing the service has been on the table since he first assumed office last April, a comment to which the audience reacted with cries of “lie.”
Despite his previous declaration of allowing only two speakers, Beech then allowed Tom Boecker to comment. Boecker pressed both the mayor and the representative of Pafford for an estimate of what a transport run would cost an uninsured citizen. When no answer was provided, Boecker contended that not enough information was being provided for the council to make a reasonable decision, despite the mayor’s insistence on pushing forward.
“The citizens, I feel, have lost faith in this council and this administration,” he said.
Cordell resident Alisa Boecker described the meeting as a “debacle.”
“I think it’s asinine that at a public meeting with 30-plus people the mayor only wanted to allow two people to speak,” she said. “I’m disappointed that the citizens’ interest in what’s happening in our city is not being taken seriously.”