Melvin Turns Down a Deal to Pay for Brady Ambulance Service. Brady Must Decide What Comes Next
Melvin declined an EMS agreement with Brady, leaving the Brady council to decide Tuesday whether to keep answering calls unpaid. RV rules and sirens are also up.
The town of Melvin has turned down a deal to pay Brady for ambulance service. That leaves the Brady City Council with a hard choice when it meets at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 3: keep answering emergency calls in Melvin without being paid, or formally stop.
The item is one of several on the council's agenda, according to the city's meeting packet, posted with its agenda archive. Council members will also take a final vote on new rules for RV parks and talk over a county plan to replace the area's flood and weather sirens.
Melvin says no
A staff summary in the packet says the City of Melvin "formally declined" an interlocal agreement for Brady to provide EMS to people who live in Melvin. That, the summary says, puts Brady back in the position to "either formally decline providing emergency services or provide emergency medical services that will not be reimbursed." Staff did not make a recommendation. They asked the council to give direction.
The packet includes an Oct. 27 email from Melvin City Manager Marlinda Davis to Brady City Manager James Stewart. She wrote that the Melvin council reviewed the terms and, after weighing "our current municipal priorities and operational capacity," declined to adopt the agreement. She thanked Brady and said Melvin remains open to "alternative ways" the two cities can help each other. The packet does not say what Brady asked Melvin to pay.
The Heart of Texas Healthcare System hospital in Brady, photographed in 2014. Photo: Texas.pics / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0.
RVs and longer stays
The council will also take up the second and final reading of Ordinance 1423, which would let RV spaces be added in areas zoned for manufactured homes through a special use permit, case by case. Staff wrote that a local business owner asked for the change. Draft minutes from Oct. 20 show the council passed the first reading 5-0.
The ordinance sets rules for new parks: no more than 15 RV spaces per acre, at least 1,500 square feet per space, 10 feet between rigs, and RVs must stay movable on their wheels. Existing lawful parks may continue. Violations could bring a fine of up to $2,000, with each day counted as a separate offense.
One detail is worth watching. The draft minutes say the city attorney told the council the ordinance "removes the 180-day limit." But the ordinance text in the packet says temporary RV stays "may extend for up to 180 consecutive days." Council members may want to settle that before they vote.
Sirens and the rest
A staff memo says Brady owns six weather sirens in town and around Brady Lake, installed in 2013 with a grant. McCulloch County is looking at a state-funded project that would replace them and add four more in flood-prone parts of the county. The county's summary puts the plan at $1,961,188, with $70,006 a year in upkeep that it says the state program does not cover. Who would own and maintain the sirens is still to be worked out.
The council will also hear an update on animal control after a resident filed a written complaint about aggressive dogs. The packet includes the city's month-by-month animal control report for the fiscal year that ended in September.
For more on hard calls facing Texas city councils, read our recent coverage of Killeen and Breckenridge.
Our view
When someone in Melvin calls for an ambulance, they are a neighbor in need, and the Good Samaritan did not check for a contract first. But Brady taxpayers cannot carry another town's costs forever. Melvin says it wants to keep talking. It should come back with something real, and Brady should keep the door open while it does.
