PALM COAST
Observer YOU. YOUR NEIGHBORS. YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD.
VOLUME 6, NO. 41
FREE
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INSTANT CLASSIC
MHS VS. FPC, PAGE 15
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 2015
Oh, the places you’ll go ...
Dr. Jim Guines will be honored for his many contributions to your children and Flagler Schools. PAGE 3
10,000 MEALS, 2 HOURS, 1 GOAL
PALM COAST VS. FLAGLER COUNTY:
Who should be in charge of EMS?
STOP HUNGER NOW PAGE 22
Legislation proposed by Sen. Travis Hutson would give cities greater power to run their own ambulance services. JONATHAN SIMMONS NEWS EDITOR
Lindsay Tietje, Hannah Frassrand and other volunteers gathered at Flagler Beach United Methodist Church to pack meals with Stop Hunger Now.
HEAVY LIFTING
WON’T BACK DOWN
Christ the King School student Silas Schottey helped break ground for the Early Childhood Center on U.S. 1.
YOUR MARKETPLACE 28 Thanksgiving parade Next Thursday, don’t miss the Macy’s Day Parade. You might see an FPC drum major in the band ... PAGE 12
Michael Delgado and Brittney Tellis are among the stars of the Matanzas High School one-act plays. READ MORE ON PAGE 19
It’s a fact long bemoaned by Palm Coast city leaders: The city cannot run its own ambulance service, but finds itself using fire trucks — which are costlier than ambulances to run and maintain — on emergency medical services calls alongside county ambulances, duplicating the county service at cost to city residents. To change that, Palm Coast would need to get a “certificate of public convenience and necessity” from the county to run its own ambulance service, and that’s something Flagler County has been unwilling to grant. Now, state legislation proposed by Sen. Travis Hutson may change the rules, making it harder for counties within the state to deny cities the paperwork that would let cities run their own EMS services. “We are seeing, across the state, a lot of municipalities that want to provide what they think could be better and cheaper services for their constituency, and counties are just flat denying them,” Hutson said at a legislative delegation meeting at the county Government Services Building Nov. 13. “And it’s not this county per se, but it’s across the state. So what this bill would do would require counties to come up with a regulatory standard ... and if a local municipality can do better than that standard by providing cheaper services and better service, and faster service from a health care basis, that they would be able to do so if they SEE COUNTY PAGE 4