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Date: 6/30/2020
EASTHAMPTON/WESTHAMPTON – The city of Easthampton will provide ambulance service to the town of Westhampton through an agreement that was recently negotiated by the two municipalities.
Easthampton’s City Council granted Mayor Nicole LaChapelle to enter into the agreement at a special meeting on June 24. Westhampton residents approved funding for their part of the arrangement at their Annual Town Meeting on June 26. The agreement went into effect July 1.
Easthampton District 1 City Councilor JP Kwiecinski pointed out during their meeting that Northampton had previously provided Westhampton’s ambulance service and the new agreement shifts that responsibility to Easthampton.
Mayor Nicole LaChapelle said Easthampton would receive a base payment from Westhampton for the service over a three-year period. She added Easthampton would also collect any insurance revenue.
“We have the administrative structure already set up, so it brings in a little more money and also there’s a consistency in service as far as mutual aid agreement here,” LaChapelle said, adding the union is in support of the arrangement.
Council President Peg Conniff noted similar steps had been taken in the past, pointing to a Weights and Measures agreement through which the city of Northampton provides Easthampton personnel and support.
Some councilors had questions related to how the agreement would impact service to the city.
At-Large City Councilor Owen Zaret questioned the mayor on how many ambulance calls Westhampton typically has and how Easthampton ambulance response to its neighbors would impact readiness and availability to the city’s residents. LaChapelle said the agreement with Westhampton would not prohibit any other existing mutual aid agreements, which currently include other communities such as Southampton, Holyoke, Northampton and Hadley. The new agreement would point them in the direction of Westhampton, she explained.
Zaret also asked if personnel changes would be necessary to accommodate the agreement. LaChapelle said it would not, again noting the union was in support of the proposal and Fire Chief David Motter had begun the discussions some time ago.
Current staffing, Kwiecinski added, requires a minimum of seven on a shift for the Easthampton Fire Department and under normal circumstances, an ambulance would be staffed by two when on a call.
In the event of an ambulance call to Westhampton, an automatic callback would go out to firefighters in order to maintain proper staffing. Recalled firefighters are compensated for three hours.
“To put this in context, our ambulance right now under mutual aid agreements can potentially go to over 10 communities much farther than Westhampton,” LaChapelle said. “So while the numbers and the data are asked for, this isn’t a new operation. It is not uncommon for somebody in Easthampton to have a Northampton ambulance or a private company respond because our ambulance is in Holyoke or Northampton or Westhampton or Southampton.”
She added if the department is not able to call back enough firefighters to maintain minimum staffing, that would be a “supervision issue” within the Fire Department. She also noted a recently acquired Staffing for Adequate Fire & Emergency Response (SAFER) Grant makes staffing and coverage issues less likely.