Med-Star Ambulance to Launch Petition Drive for City-Wide Vote on Ambulance Service

Riding the wave of the recent unanimous approval of Med-Star Ambulance being chosen for Ambulance service in Minnehaha County, Jay Masur of Med-Star is revisiting the issue of non-emergency service for the city of Sioux Falls, and process by which the city has chosen their providers.

Masur believes those living within the city should have a choice in non-emergency transfer services, rather than a mandate of Paramedics plus.

The concerns of what some call a monopoly with ambulance service in the city is shared by Robert Kolbe, who addressed city council on Tuesday May 5, 2015 calling the current situation a monopoly.

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Masur is working with a legal team to draft a petition which will be available within the next two weeks where citizens can decide if they’d like to vote on the issue:

We’re just going to put it to the people and ask the people if they want to choose their provider and choose what they feel they should pay because right now they’re told what they should pay and they’re told who they have to use.  We’re just going to try to make a free enterprise system out of that again in Sioux Falls like it should be; all to do with non-emergency service and nothing to do with the  911 services in Sioux Falls.

The petition will need to have 5800 approved signatures in order to bring it to a vote.