MAPLEWOOD, NJ — At its Aug. 2 meeting, the Maplewood Township Committee voted to contract for emergency medical services with the South Orange Rescue Squad and to pursue leasing out the Maplewood First Aid Squad Headquarters, as the MFAS is now defunct.
The Township Committee voted 4-0 — Committeeman Greg Lembrich was absent — to approve Resolution No. 158-16 to make the SORS the first emergency-service backup for the township. This means that when the Maplewood Fire Department cannot provide ambulance service, the SORS will be called. However, when the SORS has two ambulance crews on duty, it will provide primary ambulance service to the township.
While the agreement is not final, the SORS will continue to provide service to the township and will work with township officials to iron out the details.
SORS Capt. Dan Cohen said the organization is “still kicking around the final agreement,” and that the SORS will be expanding, despite having covered Maplewood for some years now.
“When the First Aid Squad dwindled away a bit, we filled in the gaps,” Cohen said in an Aug. 15 phone conversation. “But we never had an official agreement.”
While SORS has been responding to emergencies in Maplewood for years, this change was made official in light of the MFAS disbanding. Though it had been in operation since 1973, the MFAS has seen a precipitous drop in its ability to respond to emergencies in recent years.
“We received an email from the (MFAS) captain saying that, despite their best efforts, they are no longer able to continue,” Mayor Vic DeLuca said at the Aug. 2 meeting, adding this was “sufficient notice” to terminate the first aid squad’s building lease.
According to the Memorandum of Agreement between the township and the SORS — which will be in effect through Dec. 31, 2017 — since September 2014, the MFAS has been “unable to provide consistent ambulance and emergency services.”
Between September 2014 and April 2016 — a span of 20 months — MFAS responded to only nine calls; SORS, on the other hand, responded to 752 township calls between January 2013 and June 2016, a span of 42 months.
“Since its inception in 1973, the Maplewood First Aid Squad has honorably and selflessly served the Maplewood community,” the memorandum read. “The township is deeply appreciative of the many volunteer hours provided in critical service to all who lived, worked or passed through Maplewood.”
Passing Resolution No. 159-16 with a 4-0 vote, the committee terminated the township’s contract with the Maplewood First Aid Squad.
Maplewoodians looking to volunteer in emergency medical services can still do so, as the SORS takes volunteers from outside South Orange. In fact, in the memorandum, the township agrees to help the SORS find township volunteers, which will help when it provides ambulance and crew service for large-scale township events, such as the Fourth of July celebration and Maplewoodstock.
With this switch, the SORS will be required to create a Maplewood division. Should the SORS choose to use the MFAS building at 129 Boyden Ave. — the ownership of which has reverted back to the township — the SORS and township would place new signage on the building, designating it as the “Maplewood Division” of the SORS.
The SORS’ utilization of the MFAS building will be determined by the SORS’ needs as well as the building’s availability, as determined by the township.
But the SORS will likely not get the entire building. At the Aug. 2 meeting, DeLuca said the township is looking into alternatives.
“We’re not prepared to fix (the building) up at the moment because we have no funds — we weren’t expecting this,” DeLuca said, explaining that Avalon Bay, which is redeveloping the apartments in that area of town, has approached the township about the possibility of leasing 129 Boyden Ave. “We’re talking about working out a plan with them so that they would perform repairs and upgrades for that building as a condition of utilization of the building.”
DeLuca added that, in this instance, the township would likely ask that one ambulance bay be reserved for the SORS to use.
Though the committee passed a motion 4-0 authorizing the township to begin negotiating with Avalon Bay, Roger Desiderio, the township attorney, said that before anything official is done, agreement parameters must be set.
DeLuca told the News-Record via email earlier this week that the township is still working to set the parameters and has nothing to report at this time.
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