The Negotiator

The scanner chirps to life shortly after 4 a.m. on a Sunday morning. The tones are followed by a gruff voice, which seems none too pleased to be barking out orders at the crack of dawn.

“Tone is for SEMS. One-car motor vehicle accident with entrapment on Henning Road by Union Avenue,” the voice orders. “Delta response. Med Flight is on-standby.”

Seconds later, you’re off. The pall of darkness over the city limits is torn open by the ambulance’s flickering red lights. Adrenaline fills your veins as the rig speeds closer to the scene. Flares illuminate the street just enough for you to see the crumpled wreckage wrapped around a tree. Police are on scene investigating, riffling through a pile of wreckage that seems to contain a number of beer cans and a now-empty bottle of Palace Vodka. You realize quickly this is a case of drunken driving.

Firefighters are already having at the vehicle with a variety of hydraulic saws and pliers. They’ve almost gotten the badly injured man from his mangled car when he summons you over. The man, who is remarkably conscious and still clutching a can beer, talks in a voice and tenor that astounds you for the condition of his twisted body.

“Look,” he says pausing for effect. “Before we get started, I want to negotiate some details.”

You blink. Negotiate? You’re partially embedded in a tree, you think. What’s there to negotiate? But astoundingly the man continues, occasionally taking sips from his beer.

“First of all, I hope you realize that without fellows like me, there would be no job for you,” he says pointing the can in your direction. “So I’d like a bit of respect.”

“Now I understand you don’t pay rent,” the man continues. “And with the city’s finances these days, that’s simply unacceptable, so we’re going to have to change that before we get started here.”

You blink a few more times just so the fellow knows you haven’t drifted into a coma.

“Next, I think you should pay me for this ambulance ride you’re about to provide, seeing as though my insurance reimbursements are bound to make you money,” he says in a tone that seems far too nonchalant for a guy facing felony DWI charges. “After all, big cities make money off their ambulances, so why can’t we?”

He pauses. You stammer.

“So why can’t we?” he asks again, only louder. “Look, you freeloaders need to start ponying up some cash, or else I fear we’re at an impasse. I’m going to need…let’s say a twenty-spot…before you get started with the work at hand. And some licorice whips too…you know…my blood sugar is starting to drop…”

Characterizing Public Safety Commissioner Ron Kim’s negotiations with the Saratoga Emergency Medical Services as a crippled drunk driver dickering with a paramedic is way too easy. In fact, nailing the comparison is sort of like shooting a five-foot long carp in a bucket with a twelve-gauge shotgun: With every pump, you’re going to hit something on the mark.

Kim started this dreadful process with SEMS when he insisted the city’s ambulance service should be a profit-driven model that earns money for his department’s enormous budget. He caught the attention of several like-minded city officials, who figured putting the ambulance contract “out to bid” couldn’t hurt anything by the egos over at SEMS.

Well the bids came back and two of them offered the Spa City exactly what Kim proffered. But suddenly, the prevailing thought among the commissioners swung away from disbanding the service that has faithfully carted injured Saratogians to the hospital for decades; suddenly, it didn’t seem like such a good idea to callously shear off a cost-free operation that both employs local people, puts volunteers to work and saves lives at the same time.

That’s when Kim arbitrarily decided to continue negotiations with SEMS, even after the city council accepted the “request for proposal” the company submitted months ago. So imagine the company’s confusion when they showed up to sign the contract they submitted and it miraculously turned into something wholly different. The proposal that involved paying a small fee per ambulance trip and a token $1 per month in rent for the city-owned ambulance station somehow ended up becoming a $50,000 annual payment to the city, plus another $50,000 worth of “service fees” for “certain calls.”

Even disregarding the fact that Kim flagrantly flouted the process of seeking and accepting requests for proposals, his mind-numbingly stupid logic makes no sense. Anyone who can balance a checkbook would realize a non-profit ambulance company isn't designed to make money. That's the whole purpose of being a non-profit agency. But under Kim’s misguided accounting, SEMS should assuredly be able to handle a measly $100,000 payment without facing financial peril simply because they have a $1 million budget. Failure to do so means the company simply isn’t being “accountable” to the people, he told the Saratogian this week.

“I’m aghast at their continuing desire to not be accountable,” he said.

Under this logic, being “accountable” means a non-profit agency should have no problem billing residents more or going into insolvent levels debt to kowtow to the demands of a public safety commissioner, who has already proven his inability to balance a budget. Being accountable means gutting a system that has worked without failure in the city during a time when community-based ambulance companies are failing at almost unprecedented rates due to the inhospitable environment presented by the healthcare system.

Well, the voters of Saratoga Springs should show Kim the true definition of accountability. An official who is accountable to the electorate is rewarded with another term in office. Conversely, those who create problems and put the community in a situation where it could feasibly lose a life-preserving service should be shown the door; or better yet, keelhauled on the Minne-Ha-Ha.