Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Former rescue squad finds a new partner

From: Marcel <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 14 Feb 2003 01:02:35 -0500

Former rescue squad finds a new partner

By GISELLE SOTELO
Staff Writer; [email-masked]

BUENA VISTA -- The Collings Lakes Ambulance Squad saga came to a
quick -- albeit temporary -- resolution Monday night.

Scrapping an anticipated venture with the Hammonton Rescue Squad,
Township Committee agreed instead to an interim arrangement that lets
former squad members join the Collings Lakes Fire Department.

About 11 members already had joined the fire company by the time
Township Committee convened Monday night.

"We are very happy," said Mayor Chuck Chiarello. "No service was lost,
there was no interruption, the ambulance is still in the Lakes, and we're
ready to go."

No squad members attended Township Committee's meeting.

The squad's two ambulances and its remaining equipment -- now township
property, thanks to a resolution Township Committee approved Thursday
that terminated the squad's services -- are at the fire house, about three
blocks from the squad building.

The arrangement makes sense logistically because most former squad
members live in Collings Lakes, close to the Fire Department.

That means they will continue to respond quickly to calls, Chiarello said.

Township officials gave the Fire Department the go-ahead to evaluate the
equipment transferred as part of the move.

The township, meanwhile, agreed to assume the squad's financial
obligations, which include $15,700 in unpaid bills -- $4,367 of which is
owed to Nextel for cell-phone use and another $12,000 owed on the
older of its two ambulances.

Former ambulance squad members will join a fire company that already
boasts six active EMTs. Yet Bill Collins, a fire commissioner in District 5,
emphasized the squad members will serve as part of the Fire Department
-- not apart from it.

"(The squad members) are part of the Fire Department," Collins said. "We
just have two ambulances now."

Fire Chief Bill Donnelly will lead all operations, and the five-member
board of commissioners will handle all finances.

Newtonville Fire Company also staked a claim in running the ambulance
squad. But the joint venture with the Collings Lakes Fire Department
"seems to be the direction the squad wants to go," Chiarello said.

http://www.thedailyjournal.com/news/stories/20030211/localnews/957825.html

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