Cuba City Area Rescue Squad (CCARS) is a volunteer rescue squad which was formed in the 1970s and currently serves community members of the city of Cuba City, and townships of Benton, Elk Grove, New Diggings, and Smelser. CCARS is currently comprised of 14 incredible individuals who volunteer their time as a Driver, EMT, EMR, A-EMT, Paramedic, or RN. Given the many challenges facing every volunteer organization and especially volunteer EMS across the nation, CCARS, with the support of the service area municipalities, voted to add a full-time paid Service Director/EMS Administrator position. This paid person covers the dayshift Monday-Friday 6a to 6p which includes approximately 40 hours of office time each week, as well. The daytime hours are the busiest hours for CCARS since this is when most people are awake and/or out and about. Additionally, many of the volunteers work out of town and local businesses do not allow their employees to leave work to volunteer in EMS and/ or pay their employee’s hours to volunteer as had been allowed in past years.
It was discovered a little over a year ago that CCARS is not a legal entity on its own and the city’s attorney advised the city to request CCARS to research other ownership options. CCARS needed to decide how they would like to proceed. After careful consideration, CCARS decided to move towards becoming incorporated as a 501c3, but only after receiving a formal commitment from each of the municipalities that they would contract with CCARS. So, last summer leading into fall CCARS worked with a local attorney and a legal contract was drafted and given to each of the municipalities to review and decide if they would commit to moving forward with an agreement with CCARS. The Townships all offered their support and have equally been anxiously awaiting a response from the city of Cuba City, since the majority of the lives CCARS serves are in the city of Cuba City. Without the city of Cuba City’s support CCARS would not be financially sustainable as an EMS given the smaller population served in the remaining townships.
The future of CCARS is currently in the hands of the city of Cuba City to decide if they would like to contract with CCARS or move to a contract with Southwest Health EMS (a fully paid service). Since last fall, there have been several meetings including Special Meetings called by the city and their attorney to discuss the contract and options they have which has led to two final options to either contract with Southwest EMS (a fully paid service) or agreeing to move forward with a drafted contract with CCARS.
Many of these meetings moved into closed session discussions with no action taken following the closed sessions and then additional finance meetings and regular council meetings, and still no action taken. It has been a roller coaster for the CCARS team and an unknown future for CCARS. More recently a new challenge for CCARS presented when the service director resigned from the position, which has left CCARS with very limited staffing to cover the daytime hours. Unfortunately, the service director position cannot be posted for replacement under the city or under CCARS as a 501c3 corporation, until a decision is made by the city.
The most recent special meeting which was originally scheduled for Feb 16 and postponed due to weather to Feb. 27 included a closed session discussion. Following the closed session portion of the meeting, the CCARS President was informed the city’s attorney would be in touch the week of March 6th as his schedule was too full the remainder of that week to discuss details of the drafted contract. This gave CCARS some hope we would have a better idea of the future. Then, the CCARS President was again notified the attorney requested to meet in person and scheduled a meeting for Monday, March 13. On March 10 CCARS President was notified again the meeting needed to be postponed and more information would be forthcoming. On Tuesday, March 14 CCARS President was notified there will be a Special Council Meeting on March 29. Again, the roller coaster continues, and we wait again, all while the CCARS team is doing the very best possible to keep the hours covered 24/7 with the missing daytime paid position. CCARS is very fortunate to have such an incredibly dedicated team of volunteers and local EMS partners to assist with coverage during this unknown period.
When asked why we do what we do, the answer is very simple, we genuinely care and know how critically important it is to be there for you, our friends, families, and neighbors in very difficult times and may even be one of the toughest of times in life. Our reward, our payment, as volunteer EMS, is knowing our time was meaningful as we give careful and compassionate care to every patient and we know we are making a difference in every life we encounter, a difference our patient may not have had otherwise. All of this is why we signed up to volunteer our time to serve our community in this capacity. We have an amazing EMS team, and we know how valuable our time is to our patients. And, while CCARS has a strong collaboration with our Southwest EMS partners/friends and they also have a highly trained and compassionate EMS team, as well; we also know every second counts when delivering on-scene patient care. Unfortunately, it is uncertain CCARS would have enough volunteers to continue to serve in a First Responders only capacity, if the city were to choose to contract with Southwest EMS. Additionally, once we lose our local EMS, it will be very difficult to get this back.
As you are reading this, you may be wondering how you might be able to help. Please consider joining our incredible EMS team of volunteers. Even if you are only able to volunteer for one or two shifts per month, every little bit makes a difference in the lives we serve, our families, friends, and neighbors. In addition, we would sincerely appreciate your assistance by talking to any of the city council members or attend the Special Meeting on Wednesday, March 29 to express your concerns and support for the city to continue with CCARS. We are here for you and your family, and we appreciate your continued support of CCARS.