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The Commission held its quarterly meeting in Bessemer this week and among the items approved on the agenda was additional ARPA funding for ambulances. To date we have purchased 18 ambulances for 16 rescue departments located in all areas of the county. Each of these ambulances are setup with equipment to provide advanced life support care to get patients to the hospital in a timely manner.
Some of the key locations where these have been sent include Bagley Fire, Birmingport, McCalla, McAdory, and Concord. Bagley still uses private transport when available, but this has given the area the ability to transport dozens of critical patients since the unit was received.
Birmingport out on the western side of the county has not only eliminated its wait time for all critical patients, but they have also assisted neighboring departments with transports. And Concord, which is the neighboring department to Birmingport, and the primary transport agency for 7 departments on the west side of the County, they had 2 units that were failing and causing them to be out of service a large amount of the time, now those units have been replaced and they are again serving the citizens of the County.
Fairfield was another area where multi-hour wait times were common. With this ARPA funding we were able to get them a new unit and now they are often running 2 transport units.
In addition to this, the Commission has provide $203,296 to the Jefferson County EMA for radios for 911; and $2,924,897.38 to JeffCo E-911 for infrastructure upgrades.
In total we are at around $5 million for ambulances and around $8 million for total public safety upgrades, and we are not finished. This does not include AED's provided to the Sheriff's Dept.
Saturday, January 27, at the Birmingham Zoo from 9 a.m. - 11:30 a.m. is the first Electronics Drop-Off Day of 2024. Just put your items in your trunk or bed of your pick-up truck and we will do the rest. See the image for what we will be taking. We will be watching the weather and may have delays if lightening occurs.
If you are looking for a career start we have it with the Water Reclamation Apprenticeship program. Margret Tanner from Environmental Services explains it all in the podcast below and application can be made now at JobsQuest.
In order to help citizens be prepared for the upcoming primary election in March, we've created a page on the front of our website that has everything you need to know. Links to the Secretary of State page where you can update your information, dates to remember, and links to our Board of Registrars page where you can find maps and lists of voting locations. Make sure your information is up to date and you are ready to cast your vote! We've also added a podcast with Chairman of the Board of Registrars Barry Stephenson. He walks through what you need to know in 8 minutes!
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