Fla. County Shakes Up its Emergency Response Advisory Board
Oct. 06--NAPLES, Fla. -- Lackluster attendance and accusations of political fighting are causing major changes to Collier County's emergency response advisory board.
County commissioners have voted 4-1 to virtually disband the Public Safety Authority, a group of 17 medical, fire and emergency care experts formed two years ago to advise the commission. Commissioners voted late last month to remove all the medical experts from the board -- two emergency room doctors, two hospital chiefs, two paramedics and two emergency medical technicians, as well as a fire chief -- and to replace them with a five-member citizens committee.
Rather than offer commissioners an independent voice, the board was used as a tool to wrestle over political control of the county's ambulance service, Commissioner Fred Coyle said.
"It's a failed organization that got itself involved in political maneuvering from the start," he said. "The best thing to do is get rid of it."
Commissioner Georgia Hiller, who cast the only dissenting vote, argued removing medical experts from the advisory board meant the county is essentially giving up on efforts to create an independent authority on emergency response.
"I don't see how having five citizens on a committee is going to help us decide public safety policy," she said. "The mix of professionals with citizens was what was important."
The safety authority was an attempt to smooth over decades of political infighting among commissioners, county emergency medical services officials and fire chiefs from Collier's five independent fire districts. The fights have centered around on-and-off talks of merging the fire districts, as well as merging the districts with the county-run ambulance system. Fire districts have also pushed to get permission to practice advanced paramedic techniques.
As it's designed, the group is too large, making it hard to consistently get enough attendance to hold a quorum, said Reg Buxton, one of three citizens on the safety authority. The committee, which was supposed to meet every month or as needed, hasn't held a meeting since May.
"It was set up in a way to try to represent everybody," he said. "But it was almost set up for failure."
Low attendance is partially the result of the state's Sunshine Law, Buxton said. Many officials on the board work with each other every day, yet the law doesn't allow them to discuss matters before the board outside of authority meetings.
The lack of attendance also reflects a general feeling, especially among fire district officials, that the authority hasn't been able to accomplish much.
The authority only makes recommendations to the County Commission. Since the authority was created, commissioners have asked it to weigh in on two controversial and long-debated emergency care issues. Both times, commissioners acted against the authority's recommendations.
In 2013, commissioners extended the contract of medical director Robert Tober, who has set the standards for pre-hospital care throughout the county for more than 30 years. The authority recommended the county hire James Augustine, a medical director for the North Naples fire district.
In January, commissioners denied the authority's recommendation to allow Big Corkscrew Island fire paramedics to perform advanced lifesaving treatments while waiting for county ambulance crews to arrive. Commissioners instead added county paramedics to Big Corkscrew fire crews.
When the recommendations are ignored, there is little point to meeting and debating for hours on end, said Eric Watson, a Big Corkscrew Fire captain.
"There are no dummies on the board," he said. "These are physicians and highly educated and qualified people, and when the commission just blatantly disregards them, then of course the day is coming when they'll say, 'Thanks, but no thanks.'"
Copyright 2014 - Naples Daily News, Fla.
