Minutes - 20080909 - Work Session

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He asked the County Commissioners to review the documents that he submitted. He made reference to the comment that Colonel Montes de Oca could not get in touch with him and said that during that time he was on military activation. As soon as he came back he started working on getting the documentation. Chair Jacobs thanked everyone involved for acting in a professional and civil manner. He knows that there are some strong feelings, but everyone has been respectful. Commissioner Gordon noted that there are two active volunteer rescue squads, and the names sound similar. She wants to be clear that the name for the squad we are discussing is Orange County Rescue Squad and NOT Orange EMS and Rescue Squad, which is based in the southern part of the county. Chief Matthews verified this. Commissioner Gordon wants to be clear that there are two separate organizations. Commissioner Nelson made reference to Chapter 14 and asked for an opinion from the Attorney if the County Commissioners would be the ones to terminate or suspend the franchise. Geof Gledhill said that he has not looked at this yet. He said that he does not think what has happened is an action on the franchise. Commissioner Nelson said that there was a meeting with the Orange County Rescue Squad in June. Chief Matthews said that his documents show that the last meeting held was May 201h. There was one set up for earlier in June, but it was cancelled because of scheduling conflicts. Commissioner Nelson asked if, at that meeting, it was made clear to the rescue squad that the relationship was in danger of being terminated if certain actions were not taken. Colonel Montes de Oca said that he made it very clear that the rescue squad was in violation of the agreements of the relationship. He also made it very clear that the conditions for the employees at Station 1 were horrible and unacceptable. He also made it very clear that he would look into the operations of it to make sure that the rescue squad was being compliant. He thinks that it was very clear that the squad was to come under compliance. Commissioner Nelson asked if written direction was given as to the problems and the expectations. Colonel Montes de Oca said that he could not say this for a fact because Jeannette Jones was the Acting Deputy Director of EMS at the time, and she was the point person for this interaction. Commissioner Nelson said that his main concern is that he cannot assess the 46 instances that were in the report. However, he can assess the process leading up to it. He has some concerns about diving into a suspension of a franchise without giving people express or written warning, laying out the problems, making the repercussions clear, and giving a road map for fixing it. He said that the people in the rescue squad really care about people and when he came on the Board, they called him over to visit the squad. He is concerned that the squad did not get due process in terms of being given a chance to correct the problems. Commissioner Nelson said that, of the 46 problems in the report, 16 were self- dispatches and 19 were non-medical professional issues (i.e., too much noise in the station, dirty clothes lying around the station, doors not properly secured, children running about). He said that these 35 instances were non-emergency related. Of the 46, 11 were incidences on a site. There is no documentation about any follow-up on any of those. He asked what follow-up took place after the 16 self-dispatches, if that is the wrong thing to do. Colonel Montes de Oca said that he could not speak to most of the incidences because he was not present for them. He said that Orange County owns the license for the radio frequency, and if it is used improperly, the people that do that can be sanctioned by fines, loss of license, or imprisonment. He sent a supervisor today when this happened to notify the squad to use 9-1-1. This is how he would have handled the other self-dispatches had he been present. He said that he trusts his staff, who indicated that these were infractions of safety operations.