Earlier this year, the city council formed an advisory committee to look at the issue. Fire fighters and their union, Local 42, have wanted to manage the ambulance function for a long time. MAST officials wish to remain a city-funded private enterprise.
Louie Wright, the boss of Local 42, has a reputation for being a bully. But the portion of the proceedings I attended were pretty civil. Before the meeting began, a guy wearing a shirt identifying him as MAST paramedic offered his seat to woman wearing a KCFD hoodie; she politely declined the offer. "No, sit down, Carl," she said.
During the public comment section, a MAST paramedic named Joe Robinette spoke against the merger. Robinette said MAST performed well, and he expressed concern that a commingling of MAST and KCFD might diminish patient care. "They do a good job at what they do," he said. "We do a good job at what we do."
Norine Accurso, the mayor pro tem of the Silver Haired City Council, and Landon Rowland, the silver-haired co-chair of the Kansas City Health Commission, also expressed trepidation about the merger. "If it does not need fixing, please don't break it," Accurso said. Rowland said the potential savings of a merger were not evident enough to justify a change. A few MAST workers, who are represented by Local 42, spoke in favor of the merger. Stazie Archibald, a MAST EMT, said the same people would be doing the same job under a different name. The chair of the committee did not seem poised to recommend the abolition of MAST. The chair, Troy Schulte, the city's chief budget officer, said eliminating redundant, back-office functions might save $1 million. But fully integrating the two agencies would take three to five years. Schulte said that making change simply to save a few bucks represented a "flawed argument." The committe is supposed to report to the council on March 12, though Schulte suggested the deadline might need to pushed back.
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