No recommendation yet for Washington Co. Ambulance Services Director

January 28 was the date when the interviewing committee for the position of Ambulance Services Director was supposed to make a recommendation to the Washington County Board of Supervisors on its top two choices from a field of 17 applicants.

But that didn't happen.

During the supervisors' regular meeting held Tuesday at the Washington County Courthouse, Supervisor Richard Young, who serves on the interviewing committee, told the supervisors that the committee had reached consensus on the top two candidates when it met January 24. He said the committee was ready to advance the names to the supervisors at the Tuesday meeting but Supervisor Abe Miller, also a member of the committee, said he had received a call from a supervisor requesting that finalists be interviewed a second time by a group of supervisors.

The charge of the committee, previously approved by the supervisors, is to advance the names of two finalists to the supervisors. Nevertheless, the committee agreed to the request of the lone supervisor, later identified as Stan Stoops, to have a second round of interviews of the top four candidates and make a hiring decision at the February 4 meeting.

Stoops said he wanted the second interviews because the new ambulance director would be a county employee and he felt the entire board should be the interviewing committee. Board Chair Jack Seward Jr. said he and Stoops would conduct the second interviews and he expressed his frustration with the delay in the process of finding a new director.

He said the board had appointed a committee it trusted to do a job and he expected the committee to advance a name or two to keep the process moving forward.

Seward and Stoops asked Miller and Young for a ranked list of the four candidates they would be interviewing. Miller resisted saying the second interviews should be conducted with no bias.

Seward said the board trusted the committee to make a decision and since no decision was made, he wants to see how the members of the committee ranked the four individuals he and Stoops will be interviewing. Young said the committee was ready to give the supervisors recommendations but everything changed during its meeting on the 24th. 'We've got to get this process going,” he said. Seward asked again for the rankings and said he would ask for them from every member of the committee.

Miller said that one time during the meeting on the 24th, one of the four finalists withdrew his or her name, then put it back into consideration.

The county has applied for a National Provider Identifier (NPI) number for the ambulance service and expects to receive it any day.

Other Business

In other business, the supervisors:

*Approved a project to tile farm ground owned and rented to a tenant by the county at an estimated cost of $8,190;

*Held a public hearing and then acknowledged an animal confinement feeding operation, JDSD Farms LLC, in Riverside Township;

*Acknowledged a quarterly report from the Sheriff's office and

*Acknowledged the hiring of Jackie Brown in the Public Health Department.