The Village Center Community Development District Board of Supervisors has voted to send a letter to Sumter County endorsing an option to bring ambulance service under the county’s two fire departments.
The VCCDD board voted 4-0 on Wednesday to endorse the ninth option in a list of 10 possibilities for the future of ambulance service outlined earlier this year by Sumter County Administrator Bradley Arnold.
The decision to send a letter indicating its recommendation will be coming from the most powerful government board in The Villages. The board is made up of supervisors who have close ties to the Developer.
The option endorsed by the VCCDD board calls for a fire-based ambulance service to replace the for-profit ambulance service under contract with American Medical Response. AMR has come under fire for slow response times which have left some Villagers waiting for up to an hour or more for ambulance transport. The fire-based transport would be operated by The Villages Public Safety Department and Sumter County Fire & EMS. The Villages Public Safety Department falls under the VCCDD.
The endorsement by the VCCDD board comes a week ahead of a meeting of the Ad Hoc Committee on Fire, EMS and Medical Transport which will be drafting final language of its official endorsement of the county-run option. That committee will meet at 7 p.m. Wednesday at the Wildwood Community Center. That committee met earlier this month and heard from a large, passionate crowd urging the preservation of the two fire departments.
