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West Frankfort ambulance service controversy

By Arnold Wyrick - bio | email

WEST FRANKFORT, ILL (KFVS) - Things are heating up in West Frankfort over who should handle the town's emergency calls.

For the past 40 years the West Frankfort Fire Department has been the first to respond to all ambulance calls. But, now the mayor wants to privatize the ambulance service and hand everything over to Cardinal Ambulance Service out of Benton, Illinois.

West Frankfort's Police and Fire Commissioner Leon Sailliez isn't sure where that leaves the fire department's service.

"I don't know if the mayor wants to shut it down completely or not," said Commissioner Sailliez. "He hasn't said that to me. He just seems to think the Cardinal's doing a pretty good job. And he wants to leave it with them for now."

Sailliez says the city did enter into a verbal agreement with the company back in June, with the agreement that Cardinal would be the first to respond, and the fire department would back them up.

Now some folks in West Frankfort are planning to petition the city council to move all calls back to the fire department.

"I think we need our own ambulance service," said Andrea Murphy of West Frankfort. "Because the guys are from West Frankfort, they know the town and they know most of the families. We need to keep those jobs with the guys here in town."

The city has invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in its ambulances and crews, but Sailliez says the service is also making the city money.

"I'd say around $15,000 a month on average."

The city council is scheduled to meet on Tuesday for their regular meeting. But, the ambulance service issue is not on the agenda.

Calls made to Mayor Marion Presley's office were not returned on Monday.

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