The Minonk Ambulance Squad is bracing for an uncertain future. At a meeting Wednesday night,
city officials met with the fire district trustees to discuss one of the alternative plans
to resolve the funding problems for the Ambulance Squad. City Administrator Trent Smith
told the fire trustees that one option is to have the fire department take over the ambulance
squad. The fire department could either then help run the operations or contract out the
service to the City of El Paso.
Tonya Minz, a member of the Ambulance Squad, voiced her concerns about the city losing its
ambulance service to another community. Minz said the quality of service will be substantially
diminshed if the ambulance service is contracted out to El Paso. She said the response times
will be much greater and could mean the difference between life and death for someone needing
an ambulance or life-saving procedures.
Minz said she has no objections to having the fire department take over the ambulance squad,
especially if it means that more funding would then be available. She said it would cost over
$120,000 to contract out the services to El Paso. She felt the money should be kept locally.
Minz made an appeal to Minonk area residents to appear at Monday night's city council meeting to
show their support for keeping the ambulance squad in Minonk. She said the council is getting
ready to make a decision on the squad and she wants to make sure that the council knows what
the feelings of the people are concerning keeping the ambulance squad in Minonk.
