At its May 24 meeting, Olds council approved sending resolutions regarding lift assists and Alberta Transportation's warrant system to the Alberta Urban Municipalities Association (AUMA).
AUMA represents the province's urban municipalities, including cities, towns and villages. The organization advocates on behalf of its members to the provincial and federal governments.
The day's council agenda also included a recommendation that the town support AUMA efforts to monitor the impacts of a carbon levy handed down from the province. But since the government's Bill 20 only came out that day, the town did not yet have a chance to review it and did not pass the recommendation.
Council did approve sending a resolution asking the province to provide a way for municipalities to recover costs from Alberta Health Services for lift assists when ground ambulance personnel are unprepared to move patients on their own.
When EMS does not have the resources to move a patient into an ambulance, the local fire department, which is mostly staffed by volunteers, is called.
Administration told council that this service is optional.
"We can say in our protocols we won't do them. We can immediately eliminate that problem. We choose to do it because it affects citizens in our community," said fire Chief Lorne Thompson.
"The biggest issue we've had with lift assists is that it can happen any time of day or night. But when you do set off a page to have firefighters help out with a stretcher, they have to leave their workplace; it impacts the employer. That was the biggest concern we had, really, was that impact."
"Where the frustration came from was arriving on scene and finding out they didn't need us."
It's not downloading but off-loading, where the municipality steps up to fill the service gap left by the province, said chief administrative officer Norm McInnis.
"We're going to push back a little on this one and say, ‘no, this is a health service and it should be funded by Alberta Health Services.' We'll see the final form of the resolution," he said.
The town also wants AUMA to urge Alberta Transportation to take a second look at how it makes investments into the provincial highway network.
Capital improvements, such as advance-green signal lights at Highway 27 and 57 Avenue, are approved, based on the ministry's warrant system.
If the project does not meet the ministry's warrant, it doesn't get funded by the province.
"We would like municipalities to have some input into that review and we would like an educational piece once the warrant system has been reviewed to explain how it works, so we're all on the same issue," McInnis said.
"We've had a number of situations: Highway 27 and 57 Avenue, where the left turning lanes we've been advocating for don't meet the warrant. We've had situations by the high school at Highway 2A, here. We think there should be some improvements to pedestrian crossing there and we've had some issues at the corner of Highway 2A and Highway 27 with signalization."
