City doesn't want Midway Ambulances
PART ONE OF A TWO-PART STORY
BY PAM BRANNON Gulf Breeze News news@gulfbreezenews.com

Midway Fire Department.

Gulf Breeze City Manager Buzz Eddy says if Midway Fire Department gets the countywide ambulance contract, Gulf Breeze will search elsewhere for ambulance service.

"If Midway Fire gets ambulances under the county contract, in any way, and there is any chance of them coming into Gulf Breeze City limits, we will look outside the county for our own ambulance service. We will probably go with E s c a m b i a County," Eddy told Gulf Breeze News this week.

The issue of Gulf Breeze City's protests over the possibility of Midway Fire District having ambulances was raised at last week's Midway Fire Commission meeting. Fire Commissioner/Treasurer Clyde Broome read Santa Rosa Press Gazette article quoting Gulf Breeze City Manager Eddy in saying it would not be in the "best interests" of the county for Midway to get ambulances.

"He is saying in this article Gulf Breeze City will not work with us if we get the contract or any part of the contract," Broome said.

Broome asked Fire Chief Stephen Demeter if he had heard any grumblings from Gulf Breeze Fire Department about working with Midway's firefighters. The Chief said he had not.

Broome said, "I would really like to know exactly what the complaints of Gulf Breeze City are. I really would like to invite Mr. Eddy to our meeting and have him stand here and let us know if there are problems and what they are."

"It is a matter of history," Eddy says. "The last couple years our firefighters, who are diligent in what they do but are not paid like Midway's firefighters, feel they are not being treated with respect by Midway's firefighters. Our firefighters are not career firefighters like Midway's." He said Midway firefighters have more certification than most of Gulf Breeze City firefighters and more training in several areas. "We do not have paramedics. We are a Tier 1 first responder, and a few of our firefighters are EMTs. I told Mr. Thackeray it will take time to solve this problem. I will need to hear more than once that our firefighters come back from a fire scene and tell me they have been treated fairly - that things have changed from their views."

Eddy said he has never had direct contact with the firefighters in a working situation. "I just go by what our firefighters come back and tell us. And when they say their certification is questioned when they show up to help with mutual aid on a fire, they feel like they are being looked down on. I have been doing this for 20 years, and have never found any other fire department ever that questions certification of firefighters when they show up to help at a fire. When someone shows up at our fires we say 'Thank God you are here, what can you do to help?' We don't ask questions."

Fire Commission Chairman Buck Thackeray said he had met with City Manager Eddy a couple times in the last few weeks. "I decided to go meet with him because of the letters he had written the county manager Hunter Walker," Thackeray said.

"There is an animosity built up over the past three or four years with the City Council toward Midway Fire, and I am working as hard as I can to change it, but so far with no luck," Thackeray said.

Eddy says they do have some firefighters that are not yet certified to go into fires. "They know they are not certified and they stay with the truck, helping with whatever they can do. They don't need anyone to tell them they are not certified to be there."