BUFFALO, N.Y. (WKBW) — Erie County Executive, Mark Poloncarz shared the plans for the upcoming year Thursday including a plan for a county ambulance service.
Erie County's population is increasing for the first time in generations, according to Poloncarz.
One thing that is top of mind is the need for more ambulances for the growing county.
Poloncarz said, "I just got a story from Legislature Green about how one of the kids on his son's hockey team suffered a serious injury and it took an hour to get there. This was at Holiday Twin Rinks in Cheektowaga. We've heard of these stories across the board in the City, in the suburbs as well as the rural area, so we'll be building this ambulance service to help address the need in our community."
"That county system is really just going to be a pressure relief valve for everybody," Lakeview Fire Commissioner, Dan McCarthy said.
If this comes to fruition, fire districts like Lakeview in the Town of Hamburg, will have better response times because the new county system would give them some backup.
"When our agency goes live, we can now rely on the county system to provide that backup for us, where we plan on staffing maybe four ambulances during the day and two at night, if we get a fifth or sixth call we have to reach out to another agency, we're at the whim of volunteers who do a great when they can but can be unreliable," McCarthy explained.
McCarthy anticipates this becoming fully operational by September.
"It's going to take a little while to get to because of availabilities. We're going to get individuals, paramedics to staff those vehicles. On the backside, we're going to try expand the training that we do. Right now we do EMT and advanced EMT training. We'd like to extend that to paramedic training to increase the pool of the people out there working of people working out there in ambulances," EMS Deputy Commissioner Gregory Gill said.
Another thing the county executive is looking to spend on is modernizing the county jail.
During his State of the County Address this afternoon, Poloncarz said he is directing the Division of Budget Management and Department of Public Works to put $2.5 dollars towards looking into a site for a new holding center.
Poloncarz says he also hopes to put $20 million toward affordable housing construction, and another $5 million into upgrading the county's snow fighting equipment.
He said the current facility is nearly a century old and is expensive and dangerous to maintain.
