The city of Streator made some more purchases for their ambulance service. The council approved buying a third ambulance that the city of Ottawa sold to them for $50,000. They also purchased two stretchers and stair chairs which are required.
City Manager David Plyman says he is also working on a contract with American Medical Response, but there are some issues. He says it involves language dealing with arbitration and insurance.
He also says the city might not get two ambulances used for emergency calls until mid-September. He says the ambulances the city wanted were sold before the council approved the purchase last month. It cost the city less than $400,000 for the ambulances.
The city has been working for months to run the ambulance service themselves. The private company AMT, which runs the service currently, told the council months before that it was costing too much to continue to run it. They wanted up to $700,000 a year from the city to continue. It would have started at $400,000 and go up by $100,000 over the four year term.