Mount Hope Takes 1st Step to Create Local Ambulance District

A digital sign is seen outside the Mount Hope Town Hall in Otisville, N.Y., on Oct. 2, 2022. Cara Ding/The Epoch Times

The Mount Hope town board in New York voted on Sept. 3 to jumpstart the process of creating an ambulance district aimed at cutting medical emergency response times for town residents.

Town Supervisor Paul Rickard told The Epoch Times that he has received an increasing number of calls from residents about long waits for ambulances. Just last month, he said, the county’s 911 center dispatched ambulances from four neighboring municipalities at different times to assist the town.

Many municipalities in the state of New York are facing a similar shortage of ambulance services and are experimenting with new governmental roles to fill the gap, according to a March report by the state Comptroller’s Office.

In Orange County, the city of Middletown signed an expensive contract with ambulance service provider Empress last year, the town of Wawayanda moved to operate its own medical emergency fleet in the summer, and the town of Chester is considering a new tax district to finance the services.

“Our goal is to have a dedicated ambulance in our town,” Rickard said. “We know that Greenville [Volunteer Ambulance] is very interested in expanding into Mount Hope, so we might be able to contract with them, similar to what we do with Otisville Fire Department for our fire protection district.”

Last year, town residents made about 470 medical emergency calls, according to Rickard.

“We are doing this because emergency response time needs to be better,” Otisville Mayor Brian Carey told The Epoch Times. “The key is to get you to the hospital as quickly as possible when needed.”

Following the town board vote, town attorney Scott Bonacic will start the mapping process to establish the legal boundary for the proposed ambulance district.

Each property in town will be assessed, based on its value, an ambulance tax that will appear as a separate line item on the property tax bill, much like a fire tax, according to Bonacic.

“If someone says, ‘It is going to cost you $100 or $50 a year for an ambulance,’ you are like, ‘What do I need that for?'” Rickard said. “But if your child is choking, your spouse is having a heart attack, or some other family member is having that kind of emergency, you will do anything to get an ambulance there quickly, right? You are willing to pay $5,000 for it, right?”

The process of creating the district is likely to take six months and, in addition to town board deliberations, is also subject to a potential citizen petition for a public vote, Bonacic said.

Formerly called a permissive referendum, the process under state law allows citizens, within 30 days of certain town board decisions, to demand that matters be put to a public vote at a later date. In a town with a population of less than 10,000, such as Mount Hope, petitioners must secure signatures from at least 5 percent of voters—and no less than 25 voters in total—in the district based on the last general election.

In the neighboring town of Wallkill, Alexandria Willshire, executive director of Emergency Medical Services, has been in talks with officials about creating a similar ambulance district that would financially support her nonprofit in the long run.

“Medical billing does not reimburse [all costs], which is the hardest part for community-based organizations,” Willshire told The Epoch Times. “We are hopeful that with Wawayanda setting up a tax district recently and Mount Hope and Chester moving in [the same direction], it will create an easier path for us.”

Last year, the nonprofit answered close to 6,000 calls for services—one of the highest volumes among 21 emergency medical services agencies in Orange County. At least 500 calls in 2023 were mutual aid assistance in neighboring towns such as Mount Hope.