Council Puts Medical Helicopter in Limbo

Plans to station an air-ambulance helicopter in Oceanside have hit a snag.

The City Council voted 3-2 Wednesday to send the proposed lease of property to REACH Air Medical Services of Santa Rosa back to the city manager for re-negotiation.

Fire Chief Darryl Hebert was a strong proponent of the plan to lease part of the Fire Training Center at 110 Jones Road to REACH for a heliport, saying it could reduce evacuation time for critically ill or injured patients.

One proponent said it would cut the time in half, from 12-14 minutes to six-eight minutes.

Currently, critical patients are flown from McClellan Palomar Airport in Carlsbad by Mercy Air Service of San Diego to the nearest trauma hospital, usually Scripps Memorial in La Jolla.

Tri-City Medical Center in Oceanside is not an authorized trauma reception unit.

Hebert said Palomar Medical Center in Escondido, which is designated to receive trauma patients, is closer but serves such a large area already that Oceanside patients are to be sent to La Jolla.

Non-critical patients—an average of 39 a day, are taken by Fire Department ambulance to Tri-City.

Councilman Jerry Kern, one of the majority voting against the proposal, said the 269 patients flown last year are less than 1.5 percent of the total of nearly 18,000 patients transported by Fire Department paramedics every year.

He asked if there had been complaints about Mercy Air.

There have been a couple that he knows of, Hebert replied, but he did not have exact data about complaints.

Larry Hall, representing Mercy, said it should have been allowed to present a proposal of its own.

Ken Crossman, chairman of the city's Police and Fire Commission, an advisory body, said it had voted unanimously in favor of the REACH plan.

Larry Barry, speaking in opposition to the proposal, said REACH should pay to use the city's nearby airport and operate privately without city firefighters on board, as outlined in the proposal.

“It's not going to cost the city anything,” proponent Joan Brubaker said.

The council majority's main objection was to the proposed use of Fire Department personnel on the air ambulances.  It didn't mind the private-enterprise lease of city property for its own operations.

Councilman Gary Felien said, the city faces huge debt from employee retirement. “There's going to be a pension crisis,” he said.

Hebert insisted on wanting control of the operation by having his own employees on board and said he could do it with current personnel, not increasing retirement costs. “There is no fiscal impact to the City of Oceanside,” Hebert said.

The council majority was just as insistent in its instruction to omit city employees.

Mayor Jim Wood, who, along with Councilwoman Esther Sanchez, supported the plan, said REACH might take its proposal elsewhere and some other community, rather than Oceanside, would have the advantage of helicopter ambulances.

“How can you say 'no'?” to such a plan that costs the city nothing, Sanchez asked.

Hebert said the proposed agreement allowed the helicopters to be used for other than medical needs as well – as in the case of wild fires, lost children or ocean rescues.

After the meeting, Don Wharton, senior manager of business and membership development for REACH, said he's willing to go “back to the drawing boards” and believes the deal can be renegotiated.

He had said earlier that he, too, sits on a City Council (in Brawley) and understands the employee-retirement predicament faced by municipalities.

In other action, the council approved by a 4-1 vote, with Kern opposed, a proposal to direct the city attorney to draft an ordinance prohibiting smoking in outdoor dining establishments.

Kern said he likes going to the Stone Brewery in San Marcos to enjoy a cigar on occasion and would hope there could be a similar arrangement in Oceanside.

Also, Kern said, golfers often like a cigar with a beer after a game.

“The last thing you want to do is have a heavy-handed government” taking away individual freedoms, Kern said.

Former Solana Beach City Councilman Joe Kellejian appeared with a group seeking the smoking ban and noted that a similar prohibition already has been enacted by Carlsbad, Encinitas, Solana Beach, Del Mar, El Cajon, Chula Vista, National City and 111 other cities in California.

From the audience, Chris Nelson said “I smoke but this is something I actually support” because people have no choice but to breathe second-hand smoke if it is in the air.

City Attorney John Mullen said he can have an ordinance ready for vote May 15.

Also, the council majority, with Wood and Sanchez disagreeing, refused a proposed $60,000 loan to the Star Theater to dress up its 57-year-old marquee in time for the city's 125th anniversary this summer.

Bill Ims, president of the theater's board of directors, said he already has collected $47,600 toward the $100,000 cost of the project and will get enough eventually but not in time for the city's birthday celebration. Kern gave him a personal donation of $100.

The council voted unanimously in favor of a proposal by a private company, CHP Clean Energy of Boston, to construct, at no cost to the city, an energy co-generation plant at the La Salina sewage-treatment plant, 1330 S. Tait St. .

Jason Dafforn, water utilities manager, said the energy produced will be used at the plant at a cost of almost half of what San Diego Gas & Electric Co. charges.

He estimated a savings to the city of $625,000 over a 15-year contract period.