When it comes to fire protection and ambulance coverage, the towns of Lakeville and La Paz are parting ways after a 50-year relationship, citing what seem to be irreconcilable differences.
So far the separation has been ugly.
Since the 1970s North and Union townships, the home of La Paz and Lakeville, respectively, contracted with the nonprofit Union North Ambulance Service. The service has two ambulances, each half-owned by each township. Each township kept an ambulance at its station.
For the past two years North Township and La Paz, facing the same growing financial constraints as other small volunteer fire departments, had been discussing forming a new fire territory, without bringing Union Township, or Lakeville, along.
Tensions had mounted by last fall when the ambulance service and Union Township couldn’t reach agreement on a new contract for ambulance service.
Then things got real. In late February Union barred North firefighters from their station, and Union Trustee Kelly Carrico began blocking the fire station door with her car so North couldn’t take its ambulance. North won an injunction from Marshall Circuit Judge Curtis Palmer to give them access to the ambulance.
Carrico says North has since stripped the ambulance of its valuable gear. Union has asked Palmer to order North to replace the gear and medical supplies so that it can put the ambulance back into use, but Palmer ignored the request in his order, according to court records.
Carrico said she planned to meet with North Township Trustee Emily Haskins Monday to divide ownership of the ambulances, a 2015 and a 2019 model. Lakeville will get the older ambulance but says North and the ambulance service have rendered it useless for now.
"Now we are fighting over equipment," Carrico said. "They are removing all of these life-saving medical off of this ambulance. So basically they're stripping our ambulance and claiming that it's theirs, they bought it. But what they fail to understand is it's the taxpayers that purchased all of this equipment."
Union North Ambulance Service officials did not return our interview request.
