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On June 10, inside the Clark County Courthouse, the Joint EMS Committee met for a discussion about several topics. 

Among them was an addendum, Addendum “A”, to an interlocal agreement for countywide emergency medical services. 

“If…we want to be open minded and effective about an agreement, that’s probably something the two chiefs should prepare to get [together],” said Assistant Fire Chief Doug French. “If you want to be honest about it and be fair about it, there needs to be an agreement that both of us can agree on.” 

The Committee – featuring Winchester Mayor JoEllen Reed, Clark County Judge-Executive Les Yates, City Commissioners Kitty Strode and Hannah Toole, and Magistrates Chris Davis and Ernest Pasley – featured several members speaking with various points of view. 

Winchester Mayor JoEllen Reed offered her view.

“There would be no duplication of services. If we merged our services, there would be no duplication,” she said. “I’m saying merge services that would be beneficial to us [as a] city [and] county.” 

Magistrate Davis explained his discerning point of view. 

“We have two similar…but somewhat different missions,” he said. “We still have a lot of people who live in…rural portions of this county…I think it’s the interest of the people in the county, particularly in rural areas, that we have a fire department that’s focused on the county runs [located] outside of the city limits.” 

Both Winchester Fire Department Chief Chris Whiteley and CCFD Assistant Chief French were present. 

“Objectively speaking, now that we have the equipment and we have the personnel that we can augment each other better, there’s no reason not to,” he said. 

“We don’t have a problem working with anybody…[but] some of this is a major duplication of services,” he said. “I would be interested in sitting down [to] see if something works better.” 

One particular topic brought up was how any changes would impact the budget. 

Mayor Reed sought to clarify. 

“I’ll tell you one thing, I’m not going to ask any of the city commissioners…to have to raise taxes because the county can’t pay their bills,” she said. “That’s not going to happen.” 

Members agreed that the conversation was meaningful. 

“I think it’s been a really healthy conversation,” Mayor Reed said.