By Ken Smith
Turnagain Times
Whittier is need of medical emergency services that much is clear to city officials. Now with the influx of much needed funds from the cruise ship head tax—which is currently at $2 million—the question is how to allocate that money and what plan to adopt.
Over the years, the Girdwood Volunteer Fire Department has been providing much of the medical services to Whittier for free, but now that Whittier has some money to spend on those services, Girdwood Fire Chief Bill Chadwick felt it was time to ask Whittier to start paying. He calculated the cost of EMS calls to Whittier to be $24,200 last year, paid out of the Girdwood Volunteer Fire Department’s budget of $160,000.
Chadwick along with Whittier City Manager Mark Earnest and Anchorage Deputy Fire Chief Michelle Weston met late last month to discuss a mutual aid agreement. At the time of this writing, Chief Chadwick was on vacation and unavailable for comment.
Weston said the meeting was very positive and productive. Earnest concurred, saying it was a good discussion addressing concerns on both sides, and the first step towards building a framework.
“This is an important step that we need to make,” Earnest said. However, he added, the issue of payment of services is not a simple one. “This is not just an out of pocket expense. There’s billing involved and other accounting issues.”
It’s also not a certainty whether Whittier will continue to rely on Girdwood for emergency services.
With the additional funds from the cruise tax, the city is also considering other options such as paying a contractor, like the Eastern Aleutian Tribes, an Alaska native corporation that runs the medical clinic in Whittier, or hiring a contractor from Anchorage to run the city’s emergency services.
With three fire trucks, two ambulances, an emergency response vehicle, and three police vehicles, Whittier has the equipment to provide it’s own local emergency services.
However, the challenge thus far has been retaining trained personnel. But with its new cash flow from the cruise tax, it may be possible for the city to retain a full-time staff with the assistance of a contractor.
Earnest said that every summer the city has had a paramedic, and that they have routinely been responsible for calls to Portage. But with 12,000 cruise ship passengers coming into port each week during the peak summer months, he admits that more medical service is needed locally.
“It’s kind of overwhelming,” he said. “We don’t have the resources of a large community. There are a lot of things involved for EMS and EMT. It’s a big priority, and we’re out to do the best that we can with our counterparts on the other side of the tunnel.”
Weston, who worked for the Girdwood Fire Department for eight years from 1996 to 2004, said Whittier should consider maintaining a relationship with Girdwood and begin paying for those services.
“Girdwood has been routinely responding to Whittier with EMS service paid by the municipal-area-wide tax payers,” she said. “But Whittier has not been paying.”
Weston said the decision of what plan to adopt will be Whittier’s.
“It all depends on how Whittier wants to do it,” Weston said, “but I think it would be prudent, given the condition of their fire dept., that they should have an agreement in place before the cruise ships season starts.”
Both Earnest and Weston stressed that they don’t want this to be a contentious issue and that all efforts are being made to make the right decision, so that the public is served well in times of emergency. And both sides said the meeting was amicable.
“I don’t think this should be Girdwood verses Whittier,” Weston said. “They (Whittier) have a legitimate problem, and we need to work things out.”
Because Girdwood is a municipal-area-wide emergency responder contracted with the municipality, the city is providing assistance in the drafting of a mutual aid agreement.
Earnest said he feels there will always be a need to have a mutual agreement with the municipality, especially during any major incidents that will require mass emergency response, like the earthquake of 1964.
“Everybody recognizes how important this is,” Earnest said. “It’s just a matter of sitting down and identifying all the issues of concern.