Youngstown council approves new ambulance service for city with 5-1 vote

The City of Youngstown voted nearly unanimously on Friday to approve a new ambulance service for the city.

The ordinance passed with five out of six council members voting in favor of the new service, with Councilman Jimmy Hughes being the only one to vote against it. At this point, it is unclear why Hughes voted against the service.

The city agreed on a 3-year, $4 million contract with Emergency Medical Transport.

With this new service from the Canton-based company, Emergency Medical Transport will exclusively respond to emergency 911 calls while AMR will still transport patients for medical transport. 

Youngstown will now have four new ambulances from the company.

Fire Chief Barry Finley said Emergency Medical Transport reached out and said they could help the city.

"He called me and said we can handle the City of Youngstown and that he'd have numbers to me by Monday, and he did," Finley said.

The city says this will improve emergency ambulance response times for the city, something echoed by Emergency Medical Transport's owner.

"I wouldn't be looking for additional business. I would be concentrating on making sure that I never have to come down here and apologize to you," Emergency Medical Transport owner Kevin Joseph said.

Council members and officials say having a better service at half the cost at AMR will allow them to plan long-term.

A study will be done next year to evaluate the city's feasibility of permanently starting its own ambulance service.

Aside from getting away from AMR, city officials were impressed that the owner of EMT showed up to answer questions and, more importantly, is local.