The Lennox City Council met Monday, February 12 in the Lennox Boardroom. Members heard agenda items.
In the first order of business, the City of Lennox has received an application for renewal of a Garbage Hauler License for Roos Sanitation.
“We received a late application for garbage hauling from Roos Sanitation, we received three renewals in December, but nothing from Roos until January 9 and the County license was approve on January 23. The application and supporting materials are complete, however, from a technical perspective, Roos has been collecting and hauling solid waste in violation of Chapter 3.0301 for the month of January without explanation or communication. It does allow the City Council to revoke a license for any violation of laws, regulations, or stipulations concerning such operations. I recommend motion to deny,” said City Administrator, Nate Vander Plaats.
Vander Plaats told the Council they are the newest hauler in town and do have a few customers in the area. The Council agreed it would not be in the best interest of the community to not allow Roos Sanitation to expand in the area, but need to reach out for next year to return their application on time. Motion approved to allow Roos Sanitation’s Garbage Hauler License.
A mutual aid agreement between the cities of Parker and Lennox have been drawn up to provide advance life support in emergency services. Alan Perry, with the Lennox Ambulance, joined the meeting to give council members more information.
“You guys have a mutual aid agreement with Parker, and we have been doing Advance Life Support intercepts with Parker for probably about two and a half years now. They came to us asking for a mutual aid agreement, which is pretty simple and straightforward and help dispatch by calling us instead of calling them,” he said.
The Parker Ambulance will receive a bill for reimbursement from the Lennox Ambulance for $200 as the intercept fee. Motion approved.
Perry also presented to the Council the South Dakota Department of Health EMS Project Overview.
“2023 was actually a banner year for EMS in South Dakota and because of it we’re being watched all across the Nation. The Governor gave us $20 million just to the EMS industry, which is unheard of. Each ambulance service got a new life pack which are $30,000 a piece and we got two of them handed to us and that comes with eight years of service at no cost, so that is huge. We also telehealth in the back of one of our ambulances. We don’t have it in both, we just have it in one for right now, but that allows us to call up and have an ER Physician on the other side of the screen that can see our patient and we can talk to them and bounce ideas off and take care of those patients that are critical,” he said.
The Council asked Perry what South Dakota is doing differently than other states when it comes to EMS.
“It’s the funding from the governor. It’s just unheard of in the EMS industry as governments aren’t just handing out funds and handing out equipment,” he said.
There are two upcoming grant periods coming up for the Lennox Ambulance.
“We have two different projects, one is a regionalized protocol system so everybody that will be on this system is going to have the same set of protocols. It’s great if we ever have mass casualties, we’re all working on the same set of protocols, treating the patients the exact same way. The second one is a regional transport service. We came to you a few months ago and asked if we could do some long range transfers if we had another ambulance available. That’s where we make the money, the money is in your hospital transports because it’s guaranteed funding and this regionalized would be all these ambulance services that come together and have an agreement that if one of us needs to go father who has an extra ambulance they can take the transfer,” he said.
The City of Lennox has two projects requiring the services of an architect in 2024.
“We need to replace the roof at windows at the Museum this year as well as conduct a structural assessment on the bandshell. The bandshell is going to need an architect or a structural engineer for the assessment and the museum project is probably not going to require them in terms of structural use, but in terms of it’s a fairly complicated project, it’s on the National Register of Historic Places so we have to comply with that,” said Vander Plaats.
Vander Plaats is looking to reach out to some experts in the field to address all of these matters and make requests for proposals. Motion approved.