Nov 11, 2016 By Rachel Basinger for The 3 min read

MOUNT PLEASANT — Mayor Gerald Lucia was reappointed as chairman of the board of directors of the Mount Pleasant EMS, Medic 10, after resigning from the post earlier this year.

Several months ago, Lucia resigned after becoming frustrated because he said the board of directors had meetings without inviting him.

“They wanted to look at going a different direction by taking the services outside the borough (by being a transport company for hospitals in the Pittsburgh area), and I wanted it to remain as a local ambulance service,” Lucia said.

At a council meeting earlier this year, the director of operations for Medic 10, Robin Govern, said one of the driving forces for making the ambulance service a transport service as well was a lack of revenue.

Local ambulance services have seen a decrease in revenue over the last several years because payment from insurance companies for transporting patients from a medical emergency situation to the hospital has decreased.

“They asked the borough to sign over the ambulances, buildings, property and all of the other assets over to Medic 10, and I was against that,” Lucia added.

After a few months, the plans to outsource the ambulance service fizzled out.

“Now it’s business as usual,” Lucia said. “Nothing has changed financially, as far as revenues that are coming in, but I think if they manage the overtime they’ve been paying, they should be just fine.”

He said that one of the issues was that some medics were not coming in on their regularly scheduled shift, which would necessitate calling in another medic who had already worked their regularly allotted hours for the week.

“If they continue to make sure those scheduled to work come in for their shift, and if they look at hiring some casual (part-time) workers that could come in on those times that someone does call off, I think they will be just fine,” Lucia said.

“I think it’s going in the right direction again,” Lucia said. “It’s really a top-notch service for the local area, and we will continue to work to make sure Mount Pleasant always has a home-based ambulance service.

In other business, at the recent council meeting, Business District Authority Chairman Ed Christofano reported to council that they are seeing about $25,000 worth of unpaid taxes to the BDA from their local businesses.

“The delinquent tax assessment letters have gone out, and we’re hoping to collect at least half of that number,” he said.

The borough’s Christmas parade, Christmas at the Cabins and other activities in the borough are scheduled for Nov. 30 at 7 p.m.

The authority’s third-annual cookie tour is set for Dec. 3 from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., and the borough’s candlelight procession is scheduled for Dec. 4 at 5:30 p.m. with local television news personality Mike Harvey narrating.