Mineral Wells to terminate EMS service outside city limit, per service district notification

Weatherford Democrat
By Glenn Evans gevans@weatherforddemocrat.com
October 6, 2023

MINERAL WELLS — Residents near Mineral Wells but outside the city limits will no longer see a city crew when they call for an ambulance starting next year.

That’s what the city council learned Tuesday. The change is effective at midnight on Dec. 31, 2024.

No action was required on a certified letter from Emergency Services District No. 1 informing the city it was terminating its year-old interlocal agreement by which city crews answered EMS calls beyond Mineral Wells’ borders.

The city crew responded to 717 calls in the county during the past two fiscal years, at a cost of $336,452.

ESD1 Commissioner Carolyn Land said Wednesday the service district’s intent was to relieve the city EMS of the load it was carrying in the county — especially with the city department short-staffed and struggling to keep paramedics.

“The Emergency Services District just felt like if we were placing a burden on the city, we needed to take that burden back,” she said. “It just seems like a responsibility that the Emergency Services District needed to step up and help the city right now.”

County Judge Shane Long said the same, adding that $144,000 the county previously agreed to send Mineral Wells for its EMS is not affected.

The county support, Long said, was to help the Mineral Wells EMS crews keep and retain paramedics — and the Level 1 medical capability paramedics provide city residents.

“The county is committed to supporting the city with these funds,” Long said, adding that county and city attorneys are finalizing the interlocal agreement to transfer the funds. “What their service area is is really not a dealbreaker for us.”

The council spent slightly more than two hours in closed session Tuesday, discussing the services district agreement and other issues before City Manager Dean Sullivan announced the EMS change in open session.

No action was required.

“This will change the city’s service area of responsibility,” Sullivan said, adding the services district will resume coverage in the unincorporated areas beyond the city limits. “And we will be prepared to clean up whatever falls out from that.”

Also Tuesday, Public Works Director Scott McKennon reported the state environmental agency has signed off on the city’s request to change a capacity benchmark at the Hilltop Water Treatment Plant.

The city has been under a Notice of Violation from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality since September 2021. The state agency had given Mineral Wells a Dec. 12 deadline to correct a 13-19 percent deficit between the plant’s capacity and the amount of water it sells to city residents and seven wholesalers.

The deficit was based, though, on an unrealistic state capacity expectation for the plant, the city said through the Parkhill engineering firm. The firm asked the state to lower the plant’s output benchmark from 0.6 gallons per minute per connection to 0.54 gpm, under a protocol called Alternative Capacity Requirement.

The agency’s reply, McKennon told the council, was a new benchmark of 0.55 gpm per meter, which Sullivan later said reduces the deficiency to 3 percent.

That doesn’t completely resolve the violation notice, but Sullivan said other city efforts — an ongoing probe to find leaks in the system and McKennon’s search for old, unused meters that affect the state’s calculation — should help close the new gap.

“The ongoing water loss audit by our engineers and staff’s continued efforts to pull meters identified as ‘inactive’ may yield some additional improvement,” Sullivan said. “Although to what extent I do not know yet.”

McKennon also unveiled a new ordinance governing the city’s Woodland Park Cemetery on the south tip of town. The council dissolved the appointed board overseeing the cemetery last March, since it had gone dormant and no one could clearly recall when it last met.

The ordinance was tabled for the city attorney to make clear that American flags will be allowed at the cemetery. The decision came after several council members recalled a 2012 controversy over whether flags were allowed in the city cemetery.

“That (old ordinance) was not well-received and not intentional,” Mayor Pro Tem Doyle Light said. “But we want to make sure we don’t have that this time.”

Ward 3 Councilwoman Beth Watson added she wants to see similar attention given to allowing military dog tags draped on headstones.

Council members on Tuesday also approved Fire Chief Ryan Dunn’s request to seek a Community Wildfire Defense Grant to buy two riding mowers, at about $25,000.

Noting that Palo Pinto was the 24th Texas county to qualify for the Texas A&M Forest Service Community Wildfire Protection Plan earlier this year, Dunn said the city mows 268 acres multiple times during the growing season.

There is no city match attached to the grant, Dunn said.

Tuesday’s meeting was gaveled in by Council Member for a Day Braelyn Campbell, 6, a Lamar Elementary first grader.

“She is absolutely cheerful,” Mayor Regan Johnson said of the red-headed girl, who revealed a snaggle-tooth smile for her mother, Brandice Campbell. “She’s been a great joy to have up here (on the dais).”