Council OKs new EMS contracts: County will pay more for coverage provided by city

Published 3:20 pm Sunday, March 15, 2015

Washington’s City Council, during its meeting last week, approved a new contract to provide EMS coverage to the Old Ford and Clark’s Neck fire districts in Beaufort County.

The existing two-year contract expires June 30. The city provides EMS coverage in the two districts because the county does not provide such coverage. The city has provided that coverage for many years.

“We have renegotiated that contract with the county, and based on our increase to the paramedic level, we have upped that 10 percent. They’ve agreed to that 10 percent increase. All the other remaining pieces of the existing contract remain the same,” City Manager Brian Alligood told the council. “It’s an additional two-year contract. There’s a 2-percent increase. There is a 90-day end-of-term out, otherwise it renews on a one-year basis until you hit that 90 days.”

The county has approved the contract, he said. The 10-percent increase applies to the county’s base payment. The 2-percent increase applies when the contract automatically renews each year.

In other business, the council approved the sale (under the upset-bid process) of a small, triangle-shaped piece of land framed by Hudnell Street, Queen Street and a parcel owned by the Washington Housing Authority to R&G Enterprises, LLC for $2,000. The council also voted to close portions of Queen Street and an alley so plans for the property could proceed.

Robert M. Leggett, spokesman for R&G Enterprises, explained the request to the council. The request is related to the recent rezoning of 2.12 acres on Hudnell Street, where a child-care facility is planned, according to Leggett.

Under the upset-bid process, once a bid from a prospective buyer is accepted and advertised, another prospective buyer has 10 days to offer a higher bid for the property. If a higher bid is not received in that 10-day period, the property will be sold to the entity making the initial bid. If a higher bid is received from another bidder, a new 10-day clock begins. The entity making the highest bid that is not upset within 10 days gets the property.

 

 

 

 

 

 

About Mike Voss

Mike Voss is the contributing editor at the Washington Daily News. He has a daughter and four grandchildren. Except for nearly six years he worked at the Free Lance-Star in Fredericksburg, Va., in the early to mid-1990s, he has been at the Daily News since April 1986.
Journalism awards:
• Pulitzer Prize for Meritorious Public Service, 1990.
• Society of Professional Journalists: Sigma Delta Chi Award, Bronze Medallion.
• Associated Press Managing Editors’ Public Service Award.
• Investigative Reporters & Editors’ Award.
• North Carolina Press Association, First Place, Public Service Award, 1989.
• North Carolina Press Association, Second Place, Investigative Reporting, 1990.
All those were for the articles he and Betty Gray wrote about the city’s contaminated water system in 1989-1990.
• North Carolina Press Association, First Place, Investigative Reporting, 1991.
• North Carolina Press Association, Third Place, General News Reporting, 2005.
• North Carolina Press Association, Second Place, Lighter Columns, 2006.
Recently learned he will receive another award.
• North Carolina Press Association, First Place, Lighter Columns, 2010.
4. Lectured at or served on seminar panels at journalism schools at UNC-Chapel Hill, University of Maryland, Columbia University, Mary Washington University and Francis Marion University.

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