With a 2-1 vote of the Logan County Board of County Commissioners (BOCC), two members of the Logan County EMS I-1 Board of Trustees were reappointed to five-year terms.
Barry Anderson and Jim Overton received yes votes from District 2 and 3 commissioners Mike Pearson and Monty Piearcy, while District 1 Commissioner Marven Goodman cast the lone no vote.
The Logan County EMS I-1 Board of Trustees is a six member board, appointed by the BOCC, that overlooks ambulance services and 911 emergency response for the Guthrie school district.
At Tuesday’s BOCC meeting, Pearson quickly made the motion to reappoint Anderson and Overton as soon as the agenda item was read out loud. However, Goodman requested discussion before entertaining a motion.
To watch the full discussion of the topic, the conversation begins at the 3:00 mark of the video at the top of this article.
We got several well qualified applicants,” Goodman said of the six applicants who applied for the board seats.
“I’m not going to second that by the way,” Goodman told Pearson.
“We got two board members that reapplied, one of them has been on there for 13 years and one of them has been on there for probably just as many,” Goodman said. “I like to see us get some new blood on that board.”
Piearcy said the current EMS board is performing well.
“I think we got a good functioning board. I think Mr. Anderson and Jim Overton do a good job. I think they operate well.”
Pearson added, “We need to go with the people we know because they are very good at what they are doing. I’m not seeing a conflict on that.”
Goodman later shared his frustration with the City of Guthrie’s handling of the Professional Bull Riders (PBR) event at the Lazy E Arena earlier this year.
“I do have a little bit of an issue with the way ambulance service may or may not be conducted outside the city limits of Guthrie,” Goodman stated. “The city council was directing some actions taken outside of city limits where the ambulance service would function — in particular at the Lazy E Arena.”
Goodman was referencing a scheduled PBR (Professional Bull Riders) event in early April that was eventually postponed due to COVID.
City officials informed the PBR they would not have an ambulance on standby at the event, but would still respond for emergencies as required by law.
“My greatest concern is that we have a few progressives that want to influence a company in the unincorporated areas of Logan County that has over $62 million of economic development to not just our part of Logan County, but to the businesses that come in support things that go on in the Lazy E,” Goodman said.
Piearcy responded to Goodman, “I agree with what you’re saying, but the problem is that the Guthrie EMS board, that we are talking about today, contracted to the City of Guthrie so the board really don’t have any say so if they go or not.”
Goodman replied, “I’m not sure why that was their (City) decision. That should have been a service provided by the ambulance board not by the City.”
In Feb. 2015, it was a 2-1 vote to reappoint the same two members (Anderson and Overton) to the EMS board with Goodman also casting the lone no vote.
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