The three-town cooperative ambulance service in southern Franklin County depends on a number of factors to be successful.
Cooperation among Deerfield, Sunderland and Whately with a common goal of the greater good — providing the best emergency medical service possible — was first and foremost in everyone’s minds when the service was formed, although cost effectiveness was also a strong consideration. And what could sink it? Protective parochialism — where one partner tries to take the driver’s wheel essentially for its own benefit.
Clearly the regional thinking that created South County Emergency Medical Service (SCEMS) is being severely tested by Deerfield’s belated determination to keep the ambulance housed within its town borders. Last year’s decision by the service’s Oversight Board to consolidate operations at one site in Whately — setting in motion Whately’s steps to buy what was the Western Massachusetts Regional Library System building on Sandy Lane for use as both town offices and the SCEMS home — apparently doesn’t factor into the thinking of those who have decided that Deerfield should be permanent home to the ambulances.
And that includes the Deerfield Selectboard.
“It’s no secret that I’ve been working on an alternative home for our EMS Service to put it on town-owned property adjacent to the fire station,” Henry “Kip” Komosa said during Tuesday’s Selectboard meeting. During the meeting, the three Selectboard members, who earlier this year set themselves up as Deerfield’s representatives to the Oversight Board, unanimously voted to put the idea before their town meeting. That article will ask residents to pay for the project and change the zoning to allow the town to build a 3,600-square-foot, wood-frame building with garage and offices on town-owned land — about 60 feet north of the South Deerfield fire station parking lot.
And while Komosa said, “My gut feeling is that the citizens of Deerfield would be, if necessary, willing to pay to put up a building to keep the service here,” the Selectboard has apparently come up with a scheme that would probably change the mind of any residents who might be hesitant about footing the bill: Get Deerfield Academy to pay.
All of this gives little consideration to how Whately and Sunderland may view this. Deerfield’s insistence on remaining home base for SCEMS essentially ignores what the three communities have built together up to this point, and two votes by the Oversight Board, including one just a couple of months ago, that reaffirmed the decision to negotiate with Whately over use of its property, which was bought by its taxpayers with the understanding they would have the ambulance service as tenants to help pay off their mortgage.
The Deerfield Selectboard members presumably are advancing their own plan because they think it will be best for their taxpayers. And perhaps if Komosa’s plan comes to fruition, it could save all three towns money in the long haul.
But as a good neighbor, a member of a cooperative, we would think the least Deerfield officials could do is foster a full discussion about their ideas and provide a fuller explanation to Sunderland and Whately as to why this would be good for them as well.