July 31, 2008 — La Crosse County and Tri-State Ambulance officials are duking it out through the media, and for now at least, I'm happy to oblige them.

When the Tribune broke that the city planned to dip into the ambulance business, Tri-State Director Matt Zavadsky was reluctant to criticize the merits of the proposed operation. He said he wasn't aware the county and city had reached a tentative agreement, let alone what it might entail.

County Board Chair Steve Doyle now is making the rounds with local media countering that point. Doyle said he sent a copy of the proposed ordinance revisions to Jim Klock, president of the Tri-State Board of Directors and member of the company's negotiating team.

Here's an excerpt from that July 3 e-mail from Doyle to Tri-State reps (the attachment was omitted in the version released to the press):

"Attached is the proposed ordinance. (It's the same one I emailed you a couple weeks ago.) This is the one I plan to go with...I'm sorry that we have reached the end of the road. If anything makes you change your mind, let me know."

That correspondence was sent the same day Mayor Mark Johnsrud and Fire Chief Gregg Cleveland updated the city council on the plan in a closed meeting.

In an e-mail to Zavadsky and Klock and copied to the media Thursday, Doyle said "While there is certainly room for disagreement on the merits of the proposal, I would ask that Tri-State not publicly infer that the county is either 'double-dealing' or doing things behind your back. The county has tried to strictly adhere to our policy of providing full information to all sides in this matter....Please respect our role in this process (as mediator) and limit criticism to the details of the proposal and not to the parties involved or their motivations."

A call to Zavadsky regarding Doyle's statement prompted a Tri-State reply, which reaffirms their stance.

"If our communication has implied any impropriety in handling this issue on the county's part, we apologize. That certainly wasn't our intent," Klock said.

He added that while he did receive that July 3 e-mail, there wasn't an understanding that it was final since they've been left out of the more recent talks.

"The media has asked us to comment on the city/county plan but we feel that it's not appropriate for us to respond to a plan you haven't publicly announced, even if it hasn't changed since July 3," Klock wrote. "We've been encouraging public disclosure of the plan, which would give us something to respond to and we've been reinforcing the quality and effectiveness of the current system. We haven't seen, or aren't aware of any proposal that would improve on what we currently have. In fact, we believe if you're proposing what was in the preliminary draft, it would compromise the current delivery system."