At their policy and planning session Tuesday, the Pella City Council discussed a tentative agreement reached with surrounding townships to continue ambulance service outside of the Pella city limits. Councilmember Calvin Bandstra announced a handshake agreement that needs formal approval that would continue EMS support to areas surrounding the community.

“We are happy to report that we did get an agreement hammered out that we will be seeing in two weeks to be getting formal approval,” he said. “The townships did up their proposed contribution, which was a request from the city, and they know they felt some pain to do that but they did agree to do that. The city will be continuing to subsidize the township and ambulance service for the next few years.”

The push now is for an essential services tax for the county to pay for ambulance service — the Marion County Board of Supervisors is considering adding that to the ballot at some point in the near future for voters to consider. Both the Pella City Council and townships have agreed to push to support the measure.

The Pella City Council could consider the agreement as soon as its next meeting on September 5th.