The College Station city council rejects the Bryan city council’s offer to continue a fire department automatic aid agreement.
Instead, the College Station council decided to make a counteroffer.
The College Station council’s vote followed a two hour presentation and discussion that in large part reviewed the Bryan city council’s action the prior week. That is when Bryan offered College Station a reimbursement rate of $240 dollars for each College Station ambulance trip into Bryan.
The reimbursement rate would also apply to Bryan fire department ambulances going into College Station.
The College Station council decided that reimbursement rate was not high enough. That is in part due to College Station makes four times the number of trips to Bryan compared to Bryan ambulance trips into College Station.
The College Station council’s two hour discussion during their March 9 meeting included a staff presentation that included (1) a historical perspective on College Station fire department station #6 (2) changes that have impacted the automatic aid agreement with Bryan that began in 1997, (3) a timeline of collaborative efforts by both cities to address concerns the number of ambulance calls crossing city limits since 2020, (4) financial impacts of ambulance calls crossing city limits, and (5) options to address ambulance calls crossing city limits.
The College Station city council’s termination letter ending the automatic aid agreement with Bryan technically ended Friday (March 10) at midnight. A few minutes after that, the council voted 6-1 to offer more money. A specific amount was not part of the motion. There was some discussion about a reimbursement rate of $550 dollars per trip, which is the average College Station receives from Brazos County.
While there is technically no fire department automatic aid agreement between the cities, College Station mayor John Nichols and deputy city manager Jeff Capps said the fire departments will continue to operate as if there is an automatic aid agreement.
The College Station council’s lone no vote came from William Wright, who did not want city staff spending any more time negotiating with the city of Bryan.
Click below for comments from John Nichols and Jeff Capps during the March 9, 2023 College Station city council meeting.