Council member offers amendments to ambulance ordinance to move policy into code and narrow reporting

At the Mobile City Council pre-meeting, a council member offered amendments to an ambulance ordinance that the clerk said was being held over for further consideration. The amendments, presented by Mr. Reynolds, would incorporate policy elements from administrative policy 3080 into the ordinance itself so those policy items could not be changed administratively without returning to the council.

"The goal, as we wrapped up last week, was to try to take some of the policy items from administrative policy 3080 and put them in the ordinance themselves so they're ... viewable by everybody," Reynolds said, offering the changes as formal amendments.

Reynolds also described revisions to reporting requirements intended to limit the disclosure of private-business patient details. "If you're doing your private business, then all you're doing is reporting the number of those transports that you're doing versus destination, patient information, so on and so forth," he said, adding, "so they don't give up their customers essentially as a matter of public record." He framed the change as protecting established private business relationships while preserving public reporting of service counts.

Another council member noted that the ordinance language added accountability and a method for calculating a 90% performance metric in section 6.12, and thanked staff for adding those requirements to identify calls that were not addressed. The pre-meeting discussion closed with Reynolds offering his amendments formally; the council did not adopt final language or vote during the pre-meeting.

Next steps will be consideration of the amendments at subsequent council meetings where the council can vote on the ordinance text as amended.